Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
BACK ON THE MENU – the recipe for stardom
It’s the cookery contest that made stars of Tom Kerridge and Marcus Wareing. Now, as Great British Menu returns, Prue Leith and co reveal why this year’s line-up is the hottest yet. By Lisa Sewards
There aren’t many jobs as enjoyable as getting paid for eating your fill of world- class food, lovingly prepared by our finest chefs. But that’s what the three judges on Great British Menu – cook Prue Leith, award-winning food writer and restaurant critic Matthew Fort and restaurateur Oliver Peyton – have been doing since the show started in 2006.
Even so, at the end of each fiercely competitive nine-week series there’s a massive sense of relief when the judges can finally chorus, ‘I’m not eating any more!’
In the show 24 chefs battle it out for the chance to cook for a special banquet in the final week, with the four successful contestants each making one of the courses. A springboard for emerging talent, the series showcases the best of modern British cuisine and has helped boost the careers of Michelin-starred chefs such as Tom Kerridge, Marcus Wareing, Richard Corrigan, Tom Aikens, Angela Hartnett and Michael O’Hare.
It’s come a long way since the first series, when it pitched the then unknown Wareing, Corrigan and Hartnett against famous chefs John Burton Race, Antony Wor ral l Thompson and Gary Rhodes among others. The show has proved such a success that it’s now in its 11th series and has established a new generation of star chefs along the way.
‘Chefs want to be on the show because they understand it’s a shop window for them,’ says Oliver Peyton, 54, who runs the restaurant at London’s National Gallery.
The first eight weeks are heats, in which three chefs from one region of the UK cook different courses from Monday to Thursday. Thei r efforts are judged by one of a stellar panel of competition veterans, who this year include Michael O’Hare, Angela Hartnett and Richard Corrigan. One contestant is eliminated and the other two then present their full four-course menu to Prue, Matthew and Oliver, plus a guest judge, on the Friday.
The winner of this head- tohead contest goes forward to the final week, for the chance, this year, to cook a course at the Great Britons’ Banquet, held to honour everyday people who’ve been recognised by the Queen over the years for their extraordinary achievements in different walks of life. The banquet is being held in the House of Commons Members’ Dining Room at the Palace of West- minster and it will be the first time a dinner has ever been filmed there. ‘We eat eight courses between 10am and 5pm each day when we’re filming,’ says Prue, the doyenne of British cookery. ‘That doesn’t leave a lot of room. But the one who really amazes me is Matthew – he’s even been known to eat a croissant before we start filming, then have a fruit and nut bar halfway through the day.’ Matthew, 69, laughs. ‘That’s a gross exaggeration,’ he says, without conviction. ‘I’m a model of self-restraint.’
The evidence is indisputable today as they dress for our photoshoot. ‘Well, it’s true I couldn’t get into my clothes this morning,’ he admits. ‘We had to split everything down the back in order to get me into them.’
Prue has some sound advice for him. ‘I try to eat just half of each dish, while Oliver only has a teaspoon of each. No wonder he looks like a stick insect.’
Matthew, however, is unrepentant. ‘I was brought up in that generation who believed that if there was food on the plate you should eat it. That childhood discipline is allied to the fact that I feel each dish might be my last, so I must make the most of it.’
The three judges have been with the show since it started and Prue, now 76, says she has to pinch herself that she’s still there. ‘I’m driven to the studio, then I sit there and the best chefs in the country feed me. It’s the best job in the world. Also I can’t tell you what it does for your standing with your grandchildren. They say, “My nana is on the telly,”’ she smiles.
She does admit though that being a judge can feel like being in a food bubble. ‘I find one does get a completely false idea of how British food is. Occasionally, by some ghastly mistake, I find myself in an unknown three- star hotel in the middle of nowhere and the food is shockingly disgusting. I think, “My God, I thought British gastronomy had
come on in leaps and bounds” but that’s because I judge it all by the Great British Menu.’
This year’s cooking, she feels, is the best ever. ‘The chefs have got over that blip we had a few series ago when they felt they had to show off all their technical skills on one plate so everything came in a water bath or with drizzles and foams.
‘This year they recognise the most important thing is the quality of the ingredients. Our chefs are a lot more confident now, even though they’re younger.’
The show is inundated these days with chefs wanting to appear on it, but it was a very different picture when recruiting for the first series ten years ago. ‘Back then I asked the production company how they found the chefs, and they said, “With great difficulty,”’ recalls Prue. ‘ Firstly there weren’t as many out there and secondly those that were, said, “Who’s going to cook in my restaurant while I’m on your show?”
‘There was a sweet story of Tom Kitchin from Leith in Edinburgh who didn’t think he could leave his new restaurant to come on. He was bemoaning this fact to the chef Pierre Koffmann, who he’d worked for a few years ago, and Pierre, who was retired, said, “I’ll run your restaurant for you so you can take part.”’
Prue displays a compelling mix of maternal compassion and brutal honesty on the show – for the competitors as well as her fellow judges. ‘Quite often the three of us don’t agree. Sometimes I think the boys are being silly and are in danger of forgetting their job is to judge these poor chefs whose lives are dependent on this. I used to just plonk a hand over their mouths to shut them up, but I can’t do that now because I’ve got a frozen shoulder!
‘Sometimes they’ll tease me for being bossy and banging on about the flavours. But this isn’t just television – it’s seriously important.’
Oliver admits they can behave ‘like naughty school boys’, but agrees that ‘ the competition is paramount’. So does Matthew: ‘One of the reasons the show works so well is that the chefs take it seriously, and so do we. We’re three people with very different approaches to food and very strong personalities, and there’s bound to be a certain amount of room for discussion. I see my role as a fat bloke having a nice time who occasionally puts the boot in.’ But despite any disagreements Prue has a great fondness and respect for her co-judges. ‘I don’t think anybody knows more about the history of British cooking than Matthew, even if he can appear a bit pompous. Oliver, meanwhile, may come across as a grumpy old man but he has such remarkable taste buds he always knows what he’s eating.’ As for this year’s hotshot chefs, Oliver agrees these are the best yet. ‘By the end I just felt it’s cemented the regionality of British cooking and producers,’ he says. ‘In a short space of time Britain has gone from being nowhere to being number one in world gastronomy.’ Great British Menu, Monday-Friday, 7.30pm, BBC2.