Preston was educated at St Phillips Preparatory School in London and Worth Abbey in Sussex and graduated from the University of Kent with a BA Hons in Politics and Government. He began his career in the sales and marketing departments of British magazines, including City Limits where he wrote the "Backhanders" column for five years. He then spent four years with UK magazines, TVTimes and What’s on TV, becoming head of their promotions and marketing department. In 1993, Preston moved to Australia where he worked as an Australian soap opera correspondent for British magazines What’s On TV, TVTimes and Women’s Own.
Preston is a regular food correspondent on a number of publications, including Epicure, a supplement in The Age, Vogue Entertaining & Travel (Senior Editor), Delicious (Senior Editor), Australian Good Taste as the drink reviewer, The Guardian newspaper (UK) and Time Out (London). Preston has a weekly contributor to Epicure since 2000. In this role, he writes a weekly review of a cafe or restaurant. He also writes a weekly column in The Age's A2.
Preston is a contributor to The Age Good Food Guide and Food and Wine (US). In 2003, 2004 and 2006, Preston won Food Media Club of Australia awards for articles that appeared in the "Epicure" section of The Age, and in 2008 he won the Food Journalist of the Year Award at the Le Cordon Bleu World Food Media Awards, for articles published in delicious and "Epicure". Previous positions include five years as the National Chief Judge for Restaurant and Catering's National Awards for Excellence. Preston was the Creative Director of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival for five years from 2005-2009. Preston has been a guest many times on radio including on Denis Walter's show on 3AW, and on 774 ABC Melbourne. He has also co-hosted a number of times including with Fifi Box on Melbourne's Fox FM and Lindy Burns on ABC774. During the first season of MasterChef Australia he made a number of radio appearances to promote the show including Nova 100, Vega (Sydney) with Tony, Mikey and Bec, Vega (Melbourne) with Dicko, Dave and Chrissy, WSHF with Amanda and Jonesy, Mix (Sydney) with Todd and Sonia, ABC774 with Richard Stubbs, Gold FM with Grubby and Dee and FM breakfast shows in Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth.
Preston has appeared on Network 10's 9am with David and Kim, SBS’s Blue List, Channel 9's Postcards, and Channel 7's Absolutely Melbourne. He was also the "secret reviewer" on series one of Channel 7’s My Restaurant Rules. In 2009 Preston joined Gary Mehigan and George Calombaris on the judging panel of the first season of MasterChef Australia, a reality television competition to find Australia's best amateur chef. He says that his favourite part of being on MasterChef Australia is that "it’s been the joy that comes from the contestants delivering us a delicious dish that’s a pleasure to eat."
The winner of the first season MasterChef Australia, as determined by the three regular judges along with Curtis Stone was Julie Goodwin, with Poh Ling Yeow coming runner up. There is no doubt that Matt is a true celebrity Masterchef.
Preston has appeared as a guest on the Australian talk show Rove, and the game show Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?. He was also a guest panellist on Network Ten's Before the Game and The 7pm Project. Preston has been parodied twice on Chasers War on Everything, and also on Channel Nine's The Footy Show. Preston will also appear on the ABC's First Tuesday Book Club and SBS's historic quiz show AD/BC and will reprise his role as a judge on a Celebrity MasterChef Australia, to be aired in October 2009.
His book Cravat-A-Licious will be released on October 1, 2009. Matt is also releasing a compilation album of music to cook to and eat by, November 2009.
