Chef Philli, who grew up in Welwyn Garden City, lost out on the final three of MasterChef: The Professionals but she has been left undaunted and has big plans for her future.
Philli Armitage-Mattin was knocked out on Wednesday, which left 25-year-old Alex Webb, from Essex, the chance to go on and win the final of the BBC One TV show on Thursday.
She told the WHT: "It was a great experience I learnt a lot. I couldn't prep meat in the beginning and I wasn't confident. Now I'm a lot more confident. I grew and learned a lot of skills. "
Though the 28-year-old is sad to have missed out on the finals, she says she built strong friendships with her fellow contestants.
"You always have that dream of getting to the finals," she added. "The guys really did amazing. They are excellent and I am so lucky to be calling them my friends."
But she is still waking up in the middle of the night thinking: "I really should have put my fish in the oven sooner."
After Masterchef, she has big plans for getting street food recipes into restaurants and home kitchens.
"My style and flavours are quite unique," she said. "I want to make street everything. And design food for the home kitchen."
There are also plans to make a pop-up place in the New Year with the four other finalists and she wants to do more broadcast work.
As well as designing more ready meals, which is her background, Chef Philli's passion is to bring more regional flavours from Asia to the UK pallet.
In the show, her favourite dish of the whole competition was the Xinjiang lamb tartare, which she was able to draw on from her experience of travelling in the east.
Another great highlight for Philli has been the support of her family, who she says cannot be more proud of her accomplishments.
"The influx of messages I have had saying you've done amazingly.
"I am so lucky to have has the chance."
To find out more about Philli visit her website here.
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