The night before the last MasterChef: The Professionals finalist Liam Rogers had a dream in which he was defeated for the title by his rival Dan Lee. As if to honor the nightmare, Rogers’ subconscious persuaded him the next day to leave a strip of cling film on Judge Marcus Wareing’s plate. Lee, the personable, unassuming 29-year-old private chef from Birmingham, actually raised the silver-plated MasterChef trophy.
The finale, which was watched by 3.7 million BBC1 viewers last week, was the culmination of 22 episodes of triumph and disaster (the raw chicken that Dan Gregg Wallace presented!), 15-hour days, insomnia and at a kitchen studio in east London that the chefs didn’t have time to look at it
