Melanie Persson

Melanie Persson was a contestant on MasterChef Australia 2022 and was the first contestant to compete as a gluten-free cook. Diagnosed with coeliac disease 2016, she has been on a mission to create truly delicious gluten-free food without compromising on flavours or textures. She made an impact on the MasterChef judges with her GF choux pastry, dumplings, and pasta. Mel is largely self-taught from cooking shows and social media, and now enjoys sharing her own dishes and recipes that demonstrate that being gluten-free doesn’t have to involve sacrificing the tastiest food. She also has a publishing contract for a gluten-free cookbook to be published in 2023! Based in Perth, Mel continues to explore diversity in cooking while being mainly influenced by her time living in both Japan and Italy. She also loves reading, and is currently a PhD candidate in the field of children’s literature. As a lover of languages, she is conversationally fluent in both Japanese and Italian, and is also learning Spanish in the hope of travelling to South America sometime soon!