Curdled cream might put off a lesser chef but Wembley Stadium junior sous chef Andrew D'Amery has battled through the heats of MasterChef: The Professionals to reach Knockout Week, which airs on December 6.

Making his appearance in Episode 5 of the new series the 24-year-old Arsenal supporter suffered a shocking skills test. Greg Wallace said his banoffee cheesecake tasted like mouthwash and marked him one nil down at half time.

"I knew straight away the mistake I had made when I poured the hot caramel onto the cream," Andrew tells me. "I have made 1,000 cheesecakes in my career; just the pressure in that test makes you do crazy things."

He said on the show food should be about memory but that dessert was best forgotten.

"I do believe that food should be more than just about eating and that guests should remember their meal, but no I won’t be rushing to make a banoffee cheesecake anytime soon."

The north London born chef grew up in Hemel Hempstead and now lives in Stevenage with his girlfriend Lily, whom he met while working at Orsett Hall Hotel in Essex where he previously won Best Fine Dining Restaurant in Essex and Best Overall Restaurant.

Andrew now helps to run the biggest a la carte restaurant in Europe, the Bobby Moore Club. I ask how the MasterChef kitchen measures up to his day job.

"It's a completely different experience to being at work. At Wembley, we are such a large operation that you brain is split between so many different tasks. When you are in that MasterChef kitchen nothing else matters, not the cameras or the crew it is just you and the challenge that you are faced with."

Thankfully Andrew went on to wow the judges with his succulent lamb three ways and made it through to Episode 6, which aired last night where he was equally on form with his dish of haddock and buttered scraps seasoned with salt and vinegar and served with a potato veloute, curry oil, pea and courgette puree and a mussel and tartar sauce.

When facing the critics' table he presented Jay Rayner, William Sitwell and Amol Rajan his pan-fried fillet of cod with pork scratching and paprika crust served with clams, chorizo with samphire and a sweetcorn velouté.

The meal drew unprecedented compliments from Jay Rayer: "The killer thing is this sweetcorn velouté. Rarely I sit here and think I wonder if I can get the recipe for that, I want to know how this is made and then make a bath of it, it's fantastic."

I ask Andrew how he feels to receive such praise from a man who measures his plaudits wisely.

"Jay Rayner is one of the most feared and respected food critics in the country, so to make something that he enjoyed that much is a huge personal honour for me. After the amazing feedback he gave both my dishes in the critics round I would 100 per cent give him the recipe for the sweetcorn velouté."

His dessert of peanut butter panna cotta, chocolate ganache, caramelised banana, peanut crumble and banana milkshake also made the critics smile.

While studying for an NVQ Level 3 in hospitality at North Hertfordshire College in Hitchin, Andrew did work experience at the Auberge du Lac and went on to work in Stevenage Arts and Leisure Centre before a spell at Tewinbury Farm Hotel and Orsett Hall. He joined Delaware North who run Wembley Stadium's restaurant in 2014.

All along he had his sights on the prestigious BBC Two food show.

"It might sound like a cliché but MasterChef: The Professionals is something I’ve wanted to do ever since I became a chef. Even after applying I never thought I really stood a chance of making it onto the show. The skills test is the thing I feared the most about the whole show and when I messed up the cheesecake I thought I was going home. Even when the judges loved my trio of lamb I genuinely didn’t believe I had done enough to save myself. I am still in shock at the feedback I received in the signature, the reinvention and the critics round it is literally the sort of thing chefs dream of. The best feeling however is to be told by family and friends that I’ve made them proud and that I am passionate about what I do, as that’s all I ever really wanted people to see in the first place. MasterChef is an incredible experience and is certainly the best thing I have been involved with."

MasterChef: The Professionals, airs Tuesdays to Thursday, 8pm on BBC Two.