Age: 42

Victoria

Instagram: @snezanacalic_official 

Previous season & place: Season 16, placed 15th 

Snezana Calic is more than ready for round two in the MasterChef Australia kitchen. Having bowed out last season before reaching her full potential, her goal is simply to cook honest and flavoursome food to wow the judges. She remains inspired to proudly represent her Balkan roots to deliver a true taste of her homeland.

MasterChef Australia changed Snez’s life. Being invigorated by the creativity and passion that only the MasterChef Australia kitchen can inspire was the push she needed, and she is certain that the food industry is where she belongs.

Snez has the right mindset, and brings a sharpened competitive focus back to the game this season, joking that her strategy will be to avoid pressure tests!

Since last season, Snez has worked in a restaurant kitchen to broaden her skills and cooked at pop-up dining events across Melbourne. She has hosted cooking demos and lessons and begun work on a cookbook set to feature Mediterranean and Serbian style recipes. Snez has also kept busy creating mouth-watering, fun online content, full of recipes, tips, hints and hacks for home cooks, coming straight from her gorgeous home kitchen.

Croatian-born Snezana moved to Serbia as a child before arriving in Australia in 2009, meaning a blend of both Mediterranean flavours, and heartier Serbian dishes inform her repertoire. Snezana fondly remembers Sunday lunches growing up where Mum Mira would cook seafood, lamb, or chicken with potatoes in a sač over the fire, with freshly baked bread on the side. It was pure comfort and laid the foundations for a young Snez’s interest in food. By age six, she was prepping lunches for the whole family!

Snez loves that she is now fostering this same love and respect for food with her own children, Lenka, eight, and Lazar, six, who alongside husband Aleks, will cheer her on.

A generous and instinctual cook, Snez knows that her strength of thinking on her feet will be hugely important up against some bona fide legends of the kitchen as she aims to be the last cook standing.

In future, Snez would love to pursue more work in television, combining her love of travel and cooking to share with others.