MasterChef's Adi reflects on 'bittersweet' moment with Jock Zonfrillo

She may not have won this year’s season of MasterChef, but Adi Nevgi walked away from the competition receiving enormous support from judge Jock Zonfrillo.

Jock, who sadly passed away just over a month after filming wrapped earlier this year, told Adi during Sunday night’s episode to continue to follow her food dreams after the show because he believed she is “going to make it”.

“Adi, you wouldn’t know that you only came into food just a few years ago,” he told her. “You’ve got such a deep understanding of cooking and cuisines and if you take that and run with it, we know that you’re gonna go far.”

Speaking with Yahoo Lifestyle following her elimination, Adi admits it was “bittersweet” hearing Jock’s encouraging comments during the episode.

“It was really beautiful to feel like they saw me and they saw how much this meant to me and how much work I put in to get to this point,” she reflects.

“Sometimes day in and day out in the kitchen you're like, gosh, should I even be here? Do I know this stuff? Is this the right path for me? So to have Jock say such lovely things to me at the end of it all was really heartwarming. Obviously watching it last night was bittersweet, but also really, really beautiful and I'm really glad that I had the opportunity to hear those words.”

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Adi went on to share that she was surprised by how much the three judges, Jock, Melissa Leong and Andy Allen, actually cared about the contestants and their trajectory throughout the competition.

“Before I started on the show this year I was like, do they actually care or are they just there because it’s their job?” she confesses. “But then when you're there they go out of their way to, you know, recommend a cookbook that you might like - like Jock gave me one off the shelf that he thought would be good for me.

“They're giving you advice and you can tell that they can see the sort of cook that you're becoming. It's a really unique experience and a once-in-a-lifetime experience. They definitely do care and it's just so heartwarming to know that they do behind the scenes.”

Adi's career plans after the show

Adi, who worked on the front line of a busy Melbourne hospital during the global pandemic, explains that she only recently developed a passion for cooking after becoming a “devout” fan of MasterChef.

“When I got into food it was with the aim of one day being able to do MasterChef, so kind of my hobby in food and my love of MasterChef have always gone hand in hand,” she shares.

“This was just a good year for me to do it. I felt like I'd gotten to a stage in learning about food where I knew enough to be on the show, it worked well with my career because I had just finished my specialty training, and before I actually started on a full-fledged career I had this time where I could take off and do MasterChef. So the stars just kind of aligned for me and it worked out perfectly.

“I was really gifted this opportunity to step well outside my comfort zone and do something completely different to the job that I usually have, and I think you just have to take these experiences as they come because you only get one life and there's nothing else like it.”

Post-show, Adi hopes to use her newfound platform and culinary skills to teach others how to cook.

“I used to think you're either born with an innate ability to cook or you're not and that's kind of it, but the more I learned about the fundamentals of food, the more I realised anyone can do this once they understand those foundational elements,” she says.

“So I would really love to move into the food education space, whether that means on social media or on TV or by writing a cookbook, that all remains to be seen. I do have a cookbook kind of being written so I hope to one day publish that, and I just really hope to one day empower people to be able to cook really well at home.”

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