MasterChef season 5: where are they now? The cast includes a CFO, a Starbucks supervisor and a pro golfer — and the winner left the food world altogether

Season 5 handed out a $250,000 prize, a trophy and a cookbook deal. The woman who took them home eventually went back to what she was doing before the show.

Season 5 aired on Fox from May 26 to September 15, 2014, with Gordon Ramsay, Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich judging 22 home cooks. Courtney Lapresi, a 25-year-old aerial dancer from Philadelphia, beat Brooklyn advertising executive Elizabeth Cauvel in the final. She was the season's most polarizing contestant and one of its most consistent, taking the first apron and winning the first Mystery Box. The updates below come from public profiles and reporting as of 2023, which is the most recent round of coverage the cast got.

The winner

Lapresi published her cookbook, Everyday Fancy: 65 Easy, Elegant Recipes for Meals, Snacks, Sweets, and Drinks, in 2015 with a foreword by Bastianich, and came back as a guest during season 6. After the win she worked in a professional kitchen, where she met her husband. By 2017 she was posting about a sales job at Tesla. The most recent reporting has her teaching ballet and ballet jazz at First Position Dance Arts in Pennsylvania.

The Kitchn put it plainly: "Season 5's winner surprisingly no longer works in the food world." How surprising that is depends on which end of her résumé you start from.

The career changes

A good share of the cast went back to work that has nothing to do with food, and a few built entirely new careers.

• Christine Silverstein — an investment director from Yonkers on the show, eliminated over a plate of chocolate truffles. She went on to serve as chief financial officer at Abeona Therapeutics and later at Excision BioTherapeutics, and sits on the board of Marinus Pharma. She still teaches cooking classes on the side.
• Jordan Kaminski — sent home after a steak frites dish missed the brief. He finished college, worked in catering and became a supervisor at Starbucks.
• Francis Biondi — a server from Orlando during filming, now a professional golfer based in Texas. He founded a coaching business, Beyond Golf Performance, and hosts a golf podcast.
• Dan Wu — opened Atomic Ramen in Lexington, Kentucky, in 2017, was elected to the city council in November 2022 and became Lexington's vice mayor.
• Gordon Houston — escorted off the set mid-season by a sudden illness, he later passed the bar and worked with law firms in California.
• Leslie Gilliams — the third-place finisher moved into television movies, acting in some and executive producing others, including Mistletoe in Montana.

Read more: About $15M a year: Emmys head to Prime Video in six-year global deal

The ones who stayed in food

Plenty of the cast kept cooking for a living. Joshua "Cutter" Brewer, who finished fourth, won a 2022 barbecue world championship at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo for his ribs and opened Ace's Ice & Chop House. Christian Green, fifth, works as a private chef, has cooked for NBA forward Zion Williamson and published his own cookbook. Jaimee Vitolo, sixth, runs Tiny Whisk Bakes. Francis Legge co-owns Short Bread Society and has turned up on Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay, and former bartender Victoria Scroggins built a private chef business whose clients have included Lady Gaga.

Three season 5 cooks came back for MasterChef: Back to Win in 2022: Willie Mike, Christian Green and Jaimee Vitolo. The CFO and the golfer had other commitments.

For the record: of the 22 cooks in that kitchen, the one who now helps run a city got there by way of a ramen shop.

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