A MICHELIN-starred chef will find out tonight (Thursday) whether he has made it through to the final of a hit TV cookery contest.

All this week, Phil Thompson, executive chef at the Auberge du Lac restaurant on the Brocket Hall estate, has been battling it out in the kitchen on BBC Two’s Great British Menu – a prestigous competition that sees some of the UK’s top chefs compete to serve one of four courses at a lavish banquet.

This year’s show is based around the theme of sharing, and contestants have been cooking up their finest and most inventive platters in a bid to impress former Great British Menu winner Jason Atherton and the imposing panel of judges – Oliver Peyton, Prue Leith and Matthew Fort.

Phil is competing in the South East regional heat alongside kitchen heavyweights Tom Kerridge and Tom Aikens, and will be hoping his menu of a Cream Pea Velout� with Rabbit Canap�s starter, seaside platter, a pie, mash and liquor main course and a desert of mint vanilla and chocolate vienetta with candy floss is enough to see him through.

Ahead of the results show tonight, Phil told the Welwyn Hatfield Times that taking part in the show was “one of the hardest things I’ve ever put myself through”.

“It was nerve-wracking,” said Phil, who is the only Michelin-starred chef in Hertfordshire. “They put you up in this nice hotel, but you can’t sleep because you’re that nervous. All you want to do is get in that kitchen and cook, and get in the zone.

“People can’t understand why it’s so difficult when I do it every day. But when I do it every day I’ve got 16 boys helping me and no cameras filming me.

“It was very, very difficult.”

The Great British Menu is on BBC Two tonight, at 6.30pm.