TV Review: MasterChef: The Professionals, BBC2

Michelin-starred Michel Roux Jr and his cooking protege Monica Galetti seem to embody the precision and perfectionism required to make it as a top chef.

These are handy qualities for judging Masterchef: The Professionals, a competition that puts 40 trained chefs through their paces before a winner is crowned.

The fourth series opened last night. The first challenge was an invention test in which contestants are given six ingredients and 50 minutes to make a show-stopping dish of their choice.

In the knockout round they have just ten minutes to impress her plus Masterchef regular Gregg Wallace.

After the first four weeks of knockouts, the remaining chefs will go on to face the brutality of the restaurant critics, cook a busy lunch at a Michelin-starred restaurant and be expected to prepare a three-course menu for 30 of the world’s leading Michelin chefs with 40 stars between them, before the final cook-off at the Masterchef kitchen for Roux Jr and Wallace.

So no pressure there, then.