MasterChef Australia contestants have fully equipped benches stocked with all the appliances and utensils needed to create dishes worthy of the judges’ dreams, but how do they decide who gets which bench?
While some viewers may assume that producers have a hand in who goes where, MasterChef Australia 2026 contestant Hannah Johnson has revealed that it’s completely up to the cooks to select their own benches.
“When they say your time starts now, you run and find your bench, you either run to the pantry or you run to the equipment and it’s sort of like where you land, you land,” she told Chattr.
Hannah revealed that she had a favourite bench, and shared why she preferred to be away from the front of the MasterChef kitchen.
“I’m gonna be honest, I wasn’t a front bencher. I did tend to go in the back three benches, only because I found that I could get my pantry ingredients and only do one, maximum two runs in a cook. But, when it came to pots and pans and all of that, I needed to go back to that section like 20 times a cook, so I ended up heading more towards the back, so that I could have easier access to the back bit.”
Hannah’s favourite thing about cooking in the MasterChef kitchen
Hannah told Chattr that having access to all of the MasterChef appliances and utensils was extremely exciting as a passionate cook, but said her favourite thing was all of the different plating options they were given to serve their dishes up in.
“All the appliances, I love being able to play with all the things. I do tend to have quite a lot of gadgets, and like your ice cream makers, any pressure cookers, and all those sorts of things and the pantry is very well stocked. It’s got all these incredible ingredients, and you’re not on a budget like you would be if you’re shopping for your family, so it’s like, I’m just gonna grab this. I would never have the chance to grab as many expensive ingredients,” she said.
“And then the plate wall — the first time I saw the plate wall, I was like, oh, I’m drooling, to have just all these different plates and jugs, it was really cool. So the options are pretty amazing, where you get to pick from all the different things, and yeah, it’s pretty cool to have nearly anything you could want in a kitchen.”
MasterChef Australia airs Sunday – Wednesday on Channel 10 and 10Play.
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