A “rosy cheeked” teenager will soon be cooking for the stars after becoming England’s youngest head chef.

Luke Thomas, 18, has taken over the culinary duties at Sanctum On The Green, the Berkshire country cousin of Soho’s Sanctum Hotel.

Guests at the hotel in Cookham have included Zara Phillips and Princess Eugenie. Its restaurant was previously run by two-Michelin-starred chef John Burton-Race and will now be renamed Luke’s Dining Room.

Thomas, whose favourite meal is steak and chips, is living in a room 10 feet from the kitchen and works from 6am to 10.30pm. He said: “It’s amazing. It’s such a huge opportunity for me and there’s a big challenge ahead.

“I started cooking at four – I was never into cars or toys, it was always pots and pans for me. When I started secondary school I thought, ‘This isn’t for me – I want to be in the kitchen’.”

Hotelier Mark Fuller, who also owns Embassy nightclub in Mayfair, said: “I met Marco Pierre White many years ago when he was a young chef, and he had something about him. Obviously the rest is history. When I met Luke, he had the same thing about him. I was introduced to him by a friend of mine when he was only 17. This little rosy-cheeked lad walked into my office, and he blew me away with his knowledge and conversation.

“It was like I was looking at a boy but talking to a 30-year-old. I’ve had more than 20 restaurants and worked with Marco, Gordon Ramsay and Joel Atunes – he is as good as any of them.”

Mr Fuller admitted: “People have said to me, ‘What the heck are you doing?’ But I don’t see an 18-year-old lad. I see an experienced 30-year-old man.”

At 13, Thomas approached Soughton Hall, a hotel near his home in North Wales, to ask if he could work in the kitchen unpaid. By 15 he had moved on to the five-star Chester Grosvenor while studying for his GCSEs.

via >The boy with Michelin stars in his eyes: youngest head chef hailed as the new Marco Pierre White | News.