A MIDDLEWICH dentist has made it through to the quarter final of a TV cooking competition.

Thousands of hopeful chefs applied for BBC’s MasterChef from across the country, but Middlewich’s Chris Harbour, 56, has impressed the judges enough to be selected as one of the show’s quarter finalists.

Chris said: "Everyone who knows me knows how much I love food. My favourite thing in the world is having friends round for a dinner party and creating an amazing meal.

"Cooking for John and Gregg is a once in a life time experience and I can’t wait to get back into the MasterChef kitchen for the quarter finals!”

This year, the cooks range from a cathedral organist and an estate agent, to an airline captain and a fitness instructor. These contestants come from all walks of life and share one passion – food.

After impressing previous MasterChef champions, Natalie Coleman and Mat Follas, and 2014 finalist Jack Lucas in the heat stage, Chris secured a place in the upcoming quarter final.

The dentist produced a delicious-looking tarragon chicken, mushroom sauce, a crispy chicken shard and Hasselback potato, served with spinach and pinenuts for the judges.

Tonight's six quarter finalists will also take on the high-pressure ‘Critic’s Test’ challenge.

Each show welcomes a top UK food critic, with journalist Amol Rajan appearing on tonight’s show, to set the all-important food brief.

Tonight’s challenge for the amateur cooks is to make their own interpretation of the classic full English breakfast.

The aspiring chefs must cook their heart out for 90 minutes to deliver and present a dish fit for the three judges, before the group finds out their fate and which two will not be put through.

After cooking their dish based on the breakfast brief, the contestants stand before Amol and judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace, to hear face-to-face what they think of their dish and whether they’ve managed to rise to the challenge.

At the end of this stage, the best cooks will go through to ‘Knockout Week’ round, taking one step closer to being crowned the 14th MasterChef Champion 2018.

See Chris in the quarter final tonight (Thursday, March 22) at 8pm on BBC One.