It’s the final week of MasterChef: The Professionals with Scots Adam Handling and Scott Davies among the four contestants vying for the coveted title.
So how are they finding their taste of success so far?
Adam Handling has a confession to make: “I have champagne tastes and a lemonade budget,” he laughs. “Well, that’s what my mum says anyway.”
And she is partly to blame. The Scots chef was introduced to quality cooking when he was just a nipper.
“My parents were foodies,” he says. “I experienced high-end food and various cuisines at a young age.”
And it set the Dundee-born lad on the path to glittering success. At 21 he became the youngest head chef in the prestigious Fairmont St Andrews Hotel. By 22 he’d cooked for most of the world’s leaders at the G20 Summit in St Andrews in 2009, among them the then UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W. Bush.
Adam, currently head chef at the St Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster is up against Scott Davies, 27 whom he knows from his St Andrews days Steven Edwards, 27, from Horsham, Sussex, and Tom Morrell, 25, from Grimsby, Lincolnshire.
He attended Dundee’s Lawside Academy then became the first apprentice chef at Gleneagles Hotel. He was entered into MasterChef by his girlfriend Victoria, 23.
And his mum and stepdad, Philippa and John Handling, dad and stepmum Peter and Lynn Brown, and his five younger siblings will be rooting for him when the heat is turned up tonight.
“I was so nervous at the start of the contest, but eventually you learn to switch off, forget the cameras and just enjoy it.
“The judges are great. The comments from Michel Roux Jnr and Monica Galetti are so valuable. They give you that kick up the backside to do better. Getting to the final was a fantastic achievement. I’m very competitive .
“The Critics round in the quarter finals was hard. But just the sheer stress of getting to the final week was extremely challenging.”
Adam knows he’s in with a good chance, but a clever chef never keeps all his eggs in one basket.
He reveals: “I make my own targets and I have a life plan. In about five years’ time I’d like to open my own place in London or Edinburgh.”
When Scott Davies announced, aged 15, that he fancied a career as a chef, he was warned against it. Now, as he gears up for the tough TV final, he grins and says: “I think they got that wrong, don’t you?”
The 27-year-old from St Andrews who was a head chef by the age of 25, and by 26 had gained an impressive three AA rosettes is excited to be down to the final four.
“My goal was to get to the semis, which would have been an amazing achievement. The fact that I got to the finals is brilliant.”
Cheering him on will be his Carnoustie-based family, mum Anne, a newly-retired pharmacist who worked for Boots branches in and around Dundee, his dad John, a joiner, brother Stewart, 30, who works in finance, also in Dundee, and girlfriend of six years, Samantha Brown, 27, a dog groomer from St Andrews.
Scott says: “Some people warned me against the industry. They said it was long hours and poor pay, but I wanted to give it a try.
“At 15 I did some work experience and was hooked, so I went to Dundee College to study catering when I was 16. I was lucky I found my path so young. Back then I could never have imagined I’d be on a show like MasterChef.”
Irrespective of the outcome of the contest, Scott who was put forward by his bosses knows it will help to propel him to great culinary success.
And what of the girlfriend who has been at his side throughout?
He admits: “We haven’t had much time together lately between work and the competition, but Samantha is a huge part of my future.”
MasterChef: The Professionals. The final week starts tonight 8.30pm on BBC2.
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