A CHEF came out fighting last night after losing out on a place in the semi-final of BBC2’s cooking show Masterchef: The Professionals.

The Ashmolean Dining Room’s head chef Arun Manickam stormed his way through the heats earlier this week and took part in the quarter-final on Wednesday night’s show.

In the hit show, chefs from all over Britain prepare dishes for the notoriously hard-to-please chef Michel Roux junior and greengrocer turned food writer Gregg Wallace.

In Tuesday’s show, Mr Manickam, 33, had to prepare the root vegetable salsify and a Hollandaise sauce, before making Boules de Berlin – posh doughnuts.

But Wednesday’s programme proved to be his swansong.

He said: “Michel Roux was great. He was very helpful and an expert about food.

“Every time, he is there trying to help you and talking to you.”

Mr Manickam also revealed some of the show’s secrets.

He said: “It was intense – not so much the cooking as the waiting around. We had to wait for five or six hours to do a 10-minute shot.”

He added: “After you have cooked, it takes half an hour before they eat it, so it gets cold.

“You complete your food, then you go and sit back and wait.

“I really don’t understand how they can judge food by that.”

Mr Manickam became head chef at the Ashmolean when the rooftop restaurant opened in November last year as part of the museum’s £61m modernisation project.

Dishes on the menu at the Beaumont Street restaurant now include confit duck, braised puy lentils, lemon Swiss chard and Italian fish stew.

Mr Manickam started cooking in his native India 14 years ago, before training in France, then moving to Britain.

After training under top chef Raymond Blanc at Le Manoir aux Quat’ Saisons in Great Milton, near Thame, he worked at restaurants in Cheltenham and Birmingham, specialising in French and European cuisine.

He said: “I can’t cook Indian food. I like to eat it, but I leave the cooking to my wife.

“When I was young I loved my mum’s cooking. I used to help her out chopping up carrots and onions.

“When I finished school, I had to decide whether to become a chef, a fashion designer or chemical engineer.”

He added: “I applied for the show last November and they called me for an interview at the beginning of the year.

“I love to cook, and I wanted to prove something to myself and for the restaurant.

“I am aiming for the Ashmolean to be one of the best restaurants in Oxford, and Masterchef was a good way of showing that.”