A week of Come Dine With Me featuring contestants from Croydon came to an end last night with ‘Croydon enigma’ Robert Preston scooping the £1,000 prize with an unlikely menu of Badger salad.

The self confessed big kid and ‘skateboarding geek’ beat out competition from Michael Jackson impersonator Keith Preddie, cat-mad Suzie Phillips, trainee solicitor Vanessa D'Souza and office administrator Sarah-Marie Palmer.

Despite winning the top prize, the self styled mystery admitted that he is ‘not even a cook.’

On the final night of the show he said: “Most of my recipes are born out of me coming in drunk and throwing stuff in a pan and every now and then shouting ‘eureka!

“I’ve created a work of art.”

His vegetarian menu kicked off with an intriguing badger salad, later revealed to be a salad of beetroot, avocado, dried tomato, goat’s cheese, egg and rocket.

Acronym mad Robert continued his unconventional starter with CBGB pizzas with cranberry, brie and grapes followed by a main of butternut squash risotto and a dessert of home-made pistachio ice cream.

Robert’s guests scored him an impressive 32 points narrowly pipping Vanessa d’Souza and Sarah-Marie Palmer, who came joint second with 31 points, to the to the top spot.

Vanessa said: “I’m really pleased Rob won.

“He’s a nice guy and really deserved to win.

“I don’t think it came across on telly how shocked he was to win and how emotional he was which was nice to see.”

A man of his word, Rob kept his promise to take his Come Dine with me contestants for dinner with his prize money treating the group to dinner at the Boulevard restaurant in Ruskin Road, South Croydon a couple of weeks after filming.