MasterChef: The Professionals - Season 18

2016 winner Gary Maclean, who has gone on to become the first National Chef of Scotland, sets the challenges for four chefs seeking to make it through to the quarter-finals.

The challenges for another group of contestants aiming for a place in the quarter-finals include preparing a dish of steamed razor clams and a dessert with authentic cranachan cream.

It's the first quarter-final, and the chefs face an invention test demanding that they do something magical with an ingredient they will all have probably worked with before – king prawns!

2020 professional finalist Philli Armitage-Mattin sets the contestants a Korean-inspired skills test to make it through to the quarter-finals.

Philli Armitage-Mattin sets the chefs a skills test challenge using her own recipes. Two must recreate chicken wings stuffed with pork mince, the other chefs, souffle pancakes with sake-poached plums.

The chefs are challenged to create their own special twist on rice pudding, before serving up two plates of food to impress restaurant critics Jimi Famurewa, Jay Rayner and William Sitwell.

2022 champion Nikita Pathakji sets a new group of chefs the task of recreating her dish of king prawns served in a coconut and lemongrass broth.

The chefs have just 20 minutes to prepare and cook a bavette steak served with a papaya and noodle salad and crispy noodles.

This week's quarter-finalists are faced with an invention test that must scream chicken, but which only includes off-cuts.

2018 finalist Matthew Ryle sets the competing chefs skills tests inspired by French classic cookery, highlighting just what you can achieve with red mullet and roasted poussin.

2018 finalist Matthew Ryle sets the skills test challenges: raviolo stuffed with pea and ricotta and poached pear mille-feuille with a hazelnut praline cream.

The last group of quarter-finalists must do something magical with mince if they are to make it through to knockout week.

Knockout week has arrived. It will see the best 13 chefs who have cooked their way through the heats and quarter-finals face an invention test.

Knockout week continues as the ten remaining professional chefs are split into two groups. Five of them head to Boxhall in central London to meet Marcus and Monica for their first challenge.

Five more chefs take on the pop-up challenge of a lifetime as they prepare tacos, octopus and custard tarts.

The semi-finals begin with the remaining eight chefs challenged to deliver a dish that uses all the chosen ingredients, with absolutely nothing wasted.

The six semi-finalists are asked to cook their own Thai-style dish from a larder of ingredients selected by John Chantarasak.

The semi-finalists are whisked off to the stunning Scottish Highlands, where maestro Mark Donald puts them to work at The Glenturret Lalique, a two-Michelin-star restaurant.

Finals week has arrived, along with the biggest challenge the four remaining in the competition have faced in their careers: cooking for 27 of the UK and Ireland's leading chefs at the Goring Hotel.

The three chefs left standing head off for an Italian culinary adventure in South Tyrol, where they help prepare a lunch service at the three-Michelin-starred Atelier Moessmer.

It's the endgame, and the three extraordinary remaining chefs do battle in the MasterChef: The Professionals final. Each dish plated and each mouthful tasted in this competition have led to this moment, and just one cook-off stands between these ambitious contestants and the title.

They have used every ounce of talent, dedication and creativity to get to this point, but to win, they need to take things one step further.

The brief is to cook the best three-course menu of their lives. Cooking against each other at the highest standard, each chef must prove extraordinary levels of technique and deliver flavour combinations that rock the judges' world.

Marcus, Monica and Matt will taste all nine plates and will then have the ultimate decision to make – to separate these chefs and award the trophy to the most deserving. Only one can be crowned MasterChef: The Professionals 2026 Champion.