It was the indirect influence of my parents that got me into the industry. Hampshire born and bred, I grew up in a small town just outside Winchester. Both my parents worked full time and so didn?t have much time to experiment with food, nor did they have a lot of time to cook. But this is what has encouraged me to explore different types of food and expand the repertoire of foods that I liked and disliked. It was by doing this that I realised my preference was very much simple, classic flavours.

I started my kitchen career in pot-wash; I think that?s where most chefs start. The lively kitchen atmosphere and the passion of the chefs I worked with just rubbed off on me. It definitely gave me the hunger to continue and to progress. I went on to study at Highbury College in Cosham, Porstmouth, where I completed an AVC and a HND in Hospitality Management. Whilst there wasn?t much cooking involved, the management skills I learnt helped to lay the foundation of my career.

Becoming a chef for the first time in 1999, albeit whilst studying at the Marriott Meon Valley Hotel in Southampton, was a huge lifestyle change for me. Up until that point, cooking wasn?t a career, even after my studies I thought about it more as a stop gap before something else. For the next four years, I continued to accompany my studying with practical work placements, working as Chef and Chef de Partie in two further kitchens in the South West.

After the four years, I wanted to try something different and explore the food culture and how a kitchen operates in a different country, so in 2003 I took part in a work placement at the Grand View Lodge at Gull Lake in Minnesota in the USA. Whilst there, I had great fun cooking and had the opportunity to work with some fantastic people. It also opened my eyes to the variety of ingredients, some of which I hadn?t come across before, and how to cook with them in different ways.

It was a great competition process and it pushed me and my development to lengths I had never previously reached. I knew that if I didn?t improve my cooking really, really quickly, I?d be going home. In that month or two months of filming, I improved significantly. What also helped and was a great eye opener, was having the opportunity to stage in a few restaurants with some amazing Michelin Star Chefs as part of the process.

The difference with some cookery programmes and MasterChef is that the other programmes will only pick out the harsh comments for television for pure entertainment purposes, whereas MasterChef includes a lot of the positive points too. It doesn?t stop there; there is a lot of footage that is edited out where the judges provide a lot more constructive feedback. The judges comments you see on TV are streamlined to less than half of the feedback you get on the day, which is fantastic for a chef. Especially as these judges are world renowned. They are not there to destroy people, they are there to encourage, grow and make chefs better. I don?t think there?s any other cooking programme like it. The one comment that I remember vividly was Michel Roux, who said my pork was cooked to perfection, rosé pink, but that it was my sauce that let me down.

So I got to the finals and as I always say, I was beaten by the winner. A couple of years older than me, the winner really deserved it. I was a 21 year old lad and so happy to get to where I did. Would I do it again? Never! The reason being, I got so far last time, if I didn?t do as well this time, I?d be absolutely gutted, especially after eight more years? experience.

A modern approach to classical cooking and simplicity are key for me. I spend an awful long time sourcing great, local produce so I want to showcase that on a plate and not take away from it or overdress it with theatrics. It?s also, all about the harmonising and balancing flavours, keeping it simple but showing that you?ve taken an extra consideration to modernise it. Take tartiflette for example. I?ve taken one of the most classic dishes from France, which is basically a gratin served in a bowl, and used exactly the same ingredients but refined it to more of a pressed terrine. The flavours are the same, the ingredients are the same, but I?ve just approached it a slightly more modern way.

My biggest culinary guilty pleasure? Well, chefs don?t eat very well so that?s easy; sweets – Refresher bars to be precise. When everyone else is eating, chefs are working and when it comes to the time for me to eat, it?s either too late or you lose the desire to want to cook something. But when I do have time off, I always try and cook a home cooked meal. I also love getting my children involved.

Since a very young age, I?ve encouraged all my children, two boys and one step daughter, to cook and think about the food they are eating. At the age of four for example, my step daughter could prepare a lobster. Other things we?ve done include filleting trout and plucking pheasants. It?s really important for me to get them involved. They more than anyone, are more critical and have already developed really good palates. They can quite easily distinguish a well-cooked meal, something which, as mentioned, I was also able to do as a child. But they also know how to use this to their advantage to gain something, as they often butter me up and tell me that I am the best cook in the world.

If I had to give any sort of advice to any budding chef, it would be to not be afraid to start from the bottom, experiment with food including blind tasting to really build up your skills, and, to source ideas and creativity, read plenty of magazines and books and visit new restaurants, I never visit the same restaurant twice! Even if your approach to cooking is quite classical, like mine, you still have to continue to keep innovating to stay in the game and maintain that competitive edge.