A 25-year-old sous chef is through to the semi-final stages of the TV culinary competition MasterChef.

Sussex’s Freddie Innes appeared on the MasterChef quarter finals on Tuesday night.

His wood pigeon dish saw him safely through to the last ten professional chefs on the show, whittled down from the original 48.

Freddie, a senior sous chef at Ockendon Manor hotel in Cuckfield, said his success on the hit BBC One show “hasn’t changed things”.

“I’ve been stopped in street a few times by people wanting photos but I’m still myself,” he laughs.

“I’m not driving around in a Rolls-Royce or anything.”

Freddie made it through to the quarter finals with his dish of pan-fried sea bass, parsnip puree, fondant potato and a red wine jus.

Originally from Turners Hill, Freddie went to Imberhorne School in East Grinstead and then Crawley College.

He was already working in the kitchen at Ockendon Manor at the time and left college – where he “wasn’t really learning a great deal” – after one year to pursue a career as a chef.

“The hotel has huge reputation so it was straight in the deep end and crack on with it.”

Working in the Ockendon Manor kitchen under award-winning head chef Stephen Crane has made Freddie accustomed to the stress, but he said it was different cooking on the show

“It’s a completely different type of stress,” he said.

“Normally you’re cooking for customers, people are paying for the food and the hotel has a reputation to maintain.

“On the show I’m under a completely different level of stress because it’s a competition against other people.”

Freddie said cooking on MasterChef was mainly different because it was completely independent.

He said: “When you’re working in a team you rely on other people.

“Part of my job is to make sure that everyone is doing their job so that we can have a smooth service

“When you’re cooking in a competition it’s just yourself, you’re entirely on your own.”

But Freddie says that one is not more demanding than the other.

“They’re both stressful, they just have different pressures.”

Freddie and the other nine remaining chefs will next be split into two groups of five, who will compete in MasterChef’s new pop-up challenge, in which each contestant takes on a food stall at a busy London pop-up food venue.