LISTEN: Glasgow lecturer wins Masterchef title
45 year old Gary McLean says he is "over the moon" at winning the coveted competition
Glaswegian chef Gary Maclean has been named MasterChef: The Professionals champion.
Maclean, 45, beat 47 other professional chefs over seven weeks of cooking to be named winner by Marcus Wareing, Monica Galetti and Gregg Wallace.
He's talking to our Chief Reporter Linda Sinclair:
Maclean defeated rivals Elly Wentworth, 24, and Matt Healy, 33, in a gruelling final in which he designed and prepared a Michelin-standard dish for 28 Michelin-starred chefs and travelled to Oslo, Norway, to cook at renowned restaurant Maaemo to learn from three Michelin-starred chef Esben Holmboe Bang.
The final task was to create an exceptional three-course meal for judges Wareing, Galetti and Wallace in three hours.
Maclean's winning menu was made up of a razor clams starter, a Highland roe deer main course and a chocolate pistachio ganache pudding.
Two Michelin-starred chef Wareing hailed the starter as "the best razor clam dish I've ever eaten'', adding that it "could come from any three Michelin-starred restaurant in Europe''.
After Maclean was announced as the winner, Wareing said: "Gary has soaked up every little bit of this competition. He's lived the MasterChef dream. He's a major talent, he's grown incredibly well, and he's a gentleman of the kitchen.''
Galetti added: "Gary has been such a pleasure to watch rediscover himself as a chef. He's a chef who always cooks from the heart and you can feel the emotion that goes into his cookery.''
Maclean, who is senior chef lecturer at the City of Glasgow College, said he decided to enter the competition because of his love for the show.