Tom Hamblet shot to fame as the 2023 winner of MasterChef: The Professionals. He talks winning the show, dealing with nerves and his future plans.
Tom Hamblet is still grappling with his newfound fame. Since becoming the 17th person to lift the MasterChef: The Professionals trophy at the end of last year, the 24-year-old has begun turning more heads in public. "It happens quite a lot, actually," he says. "I think because I'm ginger – I'm quite an easy spot in a crowd."
Luckily, all the comments have been positive. "Everyone that comes over is so lovely and I make time for everyone who wants to chat," he says. "If it was the other way round, I'd want them to stop and talk to me."
This new attention is unsurprising given his performance on the show. The sous chef from the Camellia restaurant at Exclusive Collection's South Lodge hotel in Horsham, Sussex, beat 31 other chefs to the MasterChef title after an intense seven-week competition that saw him wow restaurant critics and judges Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Gregg Wallace with his cooking.
Guest judge The Guardian's Grace Dent described his chocolate mousse as the best she'd ever tasted, Wallace said Hamblet had "come of age" in the contest, while Wareing likened his final olive oil sponge dessert to "a great piece of music" that he wanted to play on repeat.
Hamblet admits he was reluctant to apply for the show. He trained at Westminster Kingsway College and was no stranger to competitions, having won the Springboard FutureChef 2015 contest at the age of 15, but was worried about the pressure of appearing on television. It was his girlfriend and dad Lewis, who is executive chef at South Lodge, that talked him into it. "It's high risk, it's your career," he says. "I wouldn't say I was gutted [when I was chosen], but just petrified. I knew there was no going back."
Once filming began, Hamblet began to ease into it. He found being interviewed on camera nerve-racking, but says the actual cooking process was so hectic that it was easy to forget about being filmed. The judges would walk around and taste contestants' dishes while they were being made, but save their comments until the cameras were rolling.
"They'd never say if it was good or not, but you could see it in their face if they liked it," explains Hamblet. "That was quite daunting and never got any easier through the competition."
Hamblet didn't take any of his MasterChef dishes from the Camellia menu and they were all completely original for the show. His finale-winning menu, which included a poached lobster tail, beef fillet on a bed of pan-fried oyster mushrooms and an olive oil sponge topped with lemon curd and crème fraîche, was planned well ahead of time. Hamblet spent weeks testing things out, juggling three days a week of filming with working his normal hours in the restaurant. His involvement with the show had to be kept secret, meaning his colleagues didn't know he was the MasterChef champion until the final aired.
"It was a really weird feeling, especially after I won, because I wanted to tell everyone, but I couldn't. When the programme was broadcast and everyone started saying ‘well done' and ‘congratulations', I almost felt like they shouldn't know because I had kept it to myself for so long."
Hamblet says it was his parents who struggled the most with keeping the secret. His mum Haley also works at South Lodge as a pastry chef and was "so excited" to watch the programme when it aired. The MasterChef: The Professionals trophy now has pride of place in the family home on a table under the television, next to a picture of his grandad.
MasterChef winners at South Lodge
Hamblet is not the first chef from South Lodge to win the television competition. Steven Edwards took the title in 2013 while working as head chef at Camellia and the hotel has hosted residencies from previous winners. "It's cool isn't it?" says Hamblet. "We're the MasterChef capital now we've had two winners come from the hotel. It's definitely put us on the map."
Since winning the show, life for Hamblet has been a bit of a whirlwind. He started a three-month residency at Camellia in January, which will move to sister property Lainston House in April. Camellia is full every night for three months and table reservations have sold out, though ‘Dine and Stay' packages are still available.
The £85, three-course residency menu features dishes inspired by his time on the show, including wood pigeon with crispy onions, celeriac rémoulade, celeriac purée and pigeon with chocolate sauce, and a baked chocolate tart with blood orange and peppercorn pate de fruit, caramelised popcorn, orange gel and tallicherry pepper ice-cream.
Hamblet enjoys meeting guests at the residency and says the response has been "crazy". But the chef is careful not to let the success go to his head. "It's really nice to see that so many people want to come and try my food. It's a really humbling experience and I'm learning a lot at the same time."
He is unsure of his future and is yet to make any solid plans. While he would like to open his own restaurant one day, he is not naïve about its challenges. "It does scare me because I know it's quite hard to keep [a restaurant] going. I know quite a few restaurants that have gone bust and it's a massive shame. It's a tricky time to open one. I'd love to, but I'm realistic about it."
Overall, he describes his MasterChef experience as stressful but worth it. His main advice for other chefs looking to take part is to brush up on pastry skills, but says no one should feel daunted by the show. "If you want to apply and feel like you're ready, just do it."
