MasterChef serves up joint winners

MasterChef judges have served up a first - by declaring joint winners in the final of the latest series. Keri Moss, 41, and Anton Piotrowski, 30, shared the title as MasterChef: The Professionals reached its climax and they still could not be separated. The pair had been through four intense weeks of heats and a tough semi-final during which they had battled head-to-head but both went on to win a place in the final with fellow contestant Oli Boon, 23. Michelin-starred chef Michel Roux Jr and fellow expert Gregg Wallace were unable to choose between Moss and Piotrowski, whose dishes had included cocoa-marinated loin of venison and confit duck-leg cubes. During the final week viewers have seen them designing and preparing a Michelin-standard course each for more than 30 world-renowned and critically acclaimed Michelin-starred chefs - who have amassed 47 stars between them - inspectors and restaurateurs. And they were also let loose in the kitchen of the famed Heston Blumenthal restaurant The Fat Duck. Their last task was to prepare a three-course meal for judges Roux and Wallace. Moss, a freelance caterer from Nunhead, south-east London, said: "Joint winners is just fantastic, we've had a good run together, Anton is awesome. Today has surpassed anything that I have ever achieved in my career, in my whole life, this is just massive." Piotrowski, who lives in south Devon with his wife Clare, where they run a pub, The Treby Arms, said: "It's absolutely amazing; to share the title with someone that's so talented and so amazing is unreal. It's a good start to the rest of my life, mind-blowing." Roux said of the difficult decision: "This has probably been one of the hardest, tightest finals that I have ever seen. It was just impossible to split them - their talents have been matched plate for plate for the past several challenges and it was truly impossible to award one the title over the other."