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Things start to bubble over as formidable chef Jason Atherton attempts to whip ten trainee cooks into shape in a new BBC show
Our 52-page guide includes Jaci Stephen’s Soap Watch, your Movie Planner and a special preview of fiery new cookery challenge The Chefs’ Brigade
Jason Atherton doesn’t take any misbehaviour in his kitchen. If you’re mucking about with food or on your phone – let alone burning something – you will feel the full force of his laser-like glare. So he is a TV natural who fits perfectly into the mould of his former mentor Gordon Ramsay.
Jason, who has 18 restaurants – and four Michelin stars – turns down a lot of TV work because he prefers being in the kitchen.
But the lure of new show
The Chefs’ Brigade was too enticing. It involves Jason searching for his new brigade – the culinary term for a kitchen team – by training up young chefs to compete against world-class restaurants.
Over six weeks he takes the ten cooks to Europe’s gastronomy hotspots, including Puglia in southern Italy, Bergen in Norway and San Sebastian in Spain, and teaches them how to cook traditional dishes in each location. The team then take part in a ‘cook-off’ against chefs from one of the top restaurants in the region, and their efforts are judged by three experts in that area’s cuisine who decide whether they’ve outdone the locals. ‘Turning them into a worldclass brigade in a short amount of time seemed like fun,’ says Jason.
Among the trainees are pub chef Reann, who’s never left the UK before, military cook James and private caterer Daisy, who gets a black mark for forgetting her
knives. Jason admits it’s a slog. ‘It’s monotonous, the hours are long and it’s stressful. I’m anxious people don’t see me as a monster. At one point you see me shouting with frustration, because I knew they could do better. They took 45 minutes to bring out the main course – and it was overcooked.
‘One of the hardest things was getting them off their phones. They wanted to be on Instagram – even in the middle of prep.’
Anyone who fails to make the grade is sent home by Jason and replaced. ‘I don’t say, “There, there, it’s OK,”’ adds Jason. ‘Life is not a bed of roses. It kicks you in the butt and you have to get on.’
Each week Jason chooses the hierarchy of his brigade. The lowest rung is porter, but there’s no
shame in that – Jason started as a porter. ‘I grew up in a caravan and ran away to London at 16,’ says the Skegness-born chef, 47. ‘I lived in cockroach-infested bedsits. It made me realise that if I didn’t get good at cooking, life would be tough.’
Jason was Gordon Ramsay’s righthand man for nearly a decade and they set up Maze together, which won a Michelin star. But when Jason left to open his own chain, they fell out and haven’t spoken since.
Now, just as Gordon does, Jason is cultivating a group of chefs in his restaurants and the best from the show will join them. ‘It was exciting to be cooking with some of them,’ he says. ‘I’m really glad I did this show.’