Age: 31

State: NSW

Occupation: Lettering Artist

Growing up in a home influenced by Italian flavours on her Mum’s side and the taste of Vietnam on her Dad’s, meal times in the Dinh household were anything but dull.

As one of four girls, Gillian (Gill) Dinh’s memories of the family dinner table hold much nostalgia and sentiment, as it meant sharing conversations, laughter, and stories over the best meals. Gill recalls often being able to smell what was for dinner from the bus stop, walking home from school.

For Gill, food is love. She has been influenced deeply by both her Mum Doreen and her beloved late Nonna Lina, who gifted her the use of food as a love language; as well as by her late Dad Tommy who taught her intuition in the kitchen, to trust her palette, and to balance flavours and textures when preparing food with care.

Her family and partner Jake are always in her corner, and Gill plans to make them all proud during her time in the MasterChef Australia kitchen.

A Wollongong local, as a talented artist Gill has run her own lettering art business for eight years, creating logos, painting wall murals, and sign writing, and will bring a tonne of creativity to the competition. As a long-time fan, in 2024 she will sit on the sidelines no more, grabbing life by the horns and jumping into the competition headfirst.

Outside of family, Gill is inspired in the kitchen by Luke Nguyen, Josh Niland, Dan Hong, Kylie Kwong, and Marco Pierre White and much prefers savoury over sweet. When Gill’s around, you can bank on big flavours and aesthetically pleasing plates, but she warns that there might also be mess and stress to beat the clock.

Super competitive by nature, Gill plays basketball and indoor soccer socially and will bring her dogged nature to the kitchen, a hustler in the best sense. Positive and fun, Gill will call on a deep inner strength and resilience in the kitchen, quitting is not in her playbook.

With a food dream to intertwine lettering and her love of art and design with food by creating her own cookbook, this talented cook won’t let anyone stand in her way.