Worthing chef and MasterChef: The Professionals contestant who has cooked at top restaurants settles at ‘unknown gem’ in South Downs

Ben Miller has plied his trade across a host of Sussex eateries – including Tottington Manor in Henfield, Amberley Castle, Butler’s in Arundel, Indigo in Worthing and the George at Burpham.

Stints in Australia, Bangkok, Bath, London and Marlow – encountering Tom Kerridge before he became a famous Michelin-starred chef – added to a bulging culinary CV.

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But he has now settled in the quiet countryside surroundings of Sutton as head chef at The White Horse Inn – and it is a venue that lies undiscovered by the majority.

“This is a little unknown gem in my eyes,” he said.

“We are doing some of the best and most consistent food I have done for a very long time.

“Unfortunately we are right in the sticks and I don’t know if people know we are here.

“The food is a real melting pot of everything I know, learned and loved.”

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Food has been a lifelong passion for Ben, from Worthing, whose father David was executive chef at the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel and the Ritz in London before taking over at Tottington Manor when Ben, was nine.

Ben, 43, said: “I left school at 17. I was told to either knuckle down or leave and do something else. I said I will see you later!

“I had been washing up for my dad and when I said I was leaving school he said I was working in the kitchen.

“I had no idea I would not just like it but love it but it happened really quickly.

“I spent my time off watching Can’t Cook Won’t Cook and reading textbooks and recipe books. I idolised Gordon Ramsay in Boiling Point and I loved everything about the hardcore cheffing life and I lived it for many years.”

Ben said he was fortunate to have his father to train him – alongside formal training at Brighton College – and admits he was a huge inspiration.

He said: “My dad bar none is my biggest influence. Even today I ring him and ask for his supports and ideas.

“My first job was with my dad. I didn’t know anything when I was growing up about food and didn’t know how to cook anything.

“My old man gave me such a good grounding. He took me to the Ritz and the Sheraton Park Tower where he worked when I was a child so I had seen what it was about.

“My dad taught me the need for presentation and the need for speed and he taught me the classics which I still use to this day.”

Ben left Tottington Manor aged 21 to work as a commis chef at the three-rosette Frederick’s in Maidenhead.

Restaurant One-O-One in Knightsbridge later gave Ben a taste for fine dining in the capital. He said at the time it was considered the ‘premier’ fish restaurant in London.

“It was probably one of the best jobs I have ever had in my career as an experience – being young, in London and learning extremely decadent food for the time,” he said.

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This experience was not the end of his encounters with fine dining.

At Danesfield House, he worked under Aiden Byrne, who at the age of 22 was the youngest chef to be awarded a Michelin star. Ben said Tom Kerridge, now famous for owning the two-Michelin star Marlow pub The Hand & Flowers, made regular appearances in the Danesfield kitchen.

Success in Ben’s own right came when he achieved two AA rosettes at The Bath Spa – where he met wife Joanna before moving back to Sussex.

And he has Joanna to thank for one of the highlights of his career: reaching the quarter finals of MasterChef: The Professionals in 2011.

“I remember watching it at home with my wife and I think I must have said ‘I could do better than that’,” he said.

“One night my wife said ‘I have got something to show you’. She had signed me up and had a call back from the company.”

What followed was a memorable TV journey which saw him cook for one of his idols.

He said: “Michel Roux Junior who was someone I looked up to. He was an absolute gentleman and it was a real privilege.”

Ben excelled at the notoriously nerve-wracking skills test – for him tieing and deboning a shoulder of lamb – which he said was the highlight of his competition.

His idol, though, delivered a crushing blow later in the competition: “I made a panna cotta for dessert and I remember Michel Roux coming up halfway through saying ‘Have you got the panna cotta in the fridge?’. It had completely slipped my mind and it never set.”

He said of the competition: “One thing I would say is it doesn’t necessarily have to come down to the best chef but it is the chef that maybe handles themselves in the best way and chooses the right dishes. I personally took on too much and tried to impress when we had very limited time.”

After his job in Bath, Ben and Joanna moved back to Sussex. His longest stint at a restaurant came at Worthing’s Indigo, at the Ardington Hotel, where he stayed for six years.

He praised his former boss Simon Margeroli as a ‘fantastic guy’, ‘proper hotelier’ and someone who treated him with ‘so much respect’. It is the type of working environment he also now treasures at the White Horse.

When he was made redundant during Covid, Ben suddenly had more time to spend with his family – moments he treasured after years of working long hours in tough environments.

He said: “You can’t sustain those working conditions and hours. I am 43 and I have got a baby girl at home. My work-life balance is so important to me now.

“I want to be here [at the White Horse] in ten years. They look after me and understand I have a family and that is really important.”

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The locally owned and independent White Horse, in The Street, Sutton, is open Wednesday to Sunday. It offers lunch, dinner and Sunday lunch menus, including a three-course lunchtime promotion for £19.50.

The regularly changing menu is noticeably influenced by Ben’s travels. It currently features his ‘signature’ dish – crispy Asian belly of pork in black spiced vinegar caramel, green papaya and orange salad and roasted shallots and peanuts.

The focus is on ‘quality’, manager Billy Lewis-Bowker said, offering everything the traditional inn would, including rooms to stay in and is welcoming to all, including cyclists, walkers and dogs.

It is seeking chefs to join Ben. Contact the inn for details.