MasterChef Professionals champion Gary MacLean said he has been overwhelmed with praise from Scotland after his win on the culinary show.

The 45-year-old lecturer at City of Glasgow college stunned viewers around the country when he took the top title on Thursday night.

The Robroyston father-of-five said the achievement has outstripped many of his previous career highlights, including once cooking for Michael Jackson in New York.

Speaking to the Evening Times just hours after winning, Gary said: “It’s absolutely amazing, I still can’t take it in.

“I can’t believe the volume of responses I’ve had from people. I’ve been up non-stop since, I haven’t been to bed.

I helped do two of [Michael Jackson’s] kids’ birthday parties when I was in New York but [winning MasterChef] beats that, just a tad.

“It’s just one of about 4000 crazy chef stories people go through with people they meet. It’s an amazing industry.”

Ahead of the final, Gary’s wife organise for dozens of friends and family to watch the show at their home, unaware of the result.

Gary said:” Some of them knew the outcome, about five of them but most didn’t know. It was an amazing, we were all celebrating.

“My kids knew of course...They’re the most trustworthy people on earth.”

The lecturer says he has no plans to give up his teaching job now he has won the coveted trophy, but hopes to use the platform to do more teaching and educational work.

He said: “I’m definitely not planning to leave the college. I just hope this will open up other opportunities to teach and there are loads of things which I think may crop up that I can do in conjunction with teaching. It’s a massive platform.”

The talented chef said he was most inspired by working in the three star Norwegian restaurant Maameo, in the penultimate episode of the series, and hopes a similar enterprise could be set up in Scotland.

“I completely clicked [in Norway]” Gary said.

“ I loved the concept there.

“I kept thinking if someone did that in Scotland how good would it be, because our produce is awesome here.

“They are doing it in Norway when they have 6ft of snow so I just kept thinking why can’t we do that. Our produce is incredible. I wouldn’t like to say its better than Norway as I don’t know enough about Norway but it’s some of the best produce in the world.

“I don’t know if I will ever open up a restaurant. There might be a demand, and if I can do that in conjunction with teaching then great.

“Regardless of what happens happens I will always continue to be learning and try to do as much as I can.”