When I read the list of stellar names that were to appear in this years series of Great British Menu, I was actually quite excited. There were the usual suspects: Aiden Byrne; Stephen Terry; Johnny Mountain; James Sommerin; Nathan Outlaw and Daniel Clifford, all of which have had numerous appearances over the years. But then there was a smattering of new names which were surprising to see: Phil Howard; Simon Rogan and Simon Hulstone, all Michelin star holders in their own right (two in the case of Phil Howard at The Square in London, which is highly recommended). Here is a pdf of the complete list of which chefs took part & their restaurants.
With a career spanning 20+ years in catering as a professional chef, I’ve met, worked for & eaten quite a lot of these chef’s food. They are talented individuals & with the possible exceptions of Mr Mountain & Stephanie Moon, most of them hold a minimum of two AA rosettes with expectations of getting a third & or a Michelin star. So to give them a brief which is so out of their reach is ridiculous.
The brief which I’ve managed to put together from reading pages on the internet & watching hours of television footage was this:
The chefs’ task is to create a menu that captures the Olympic spirit – food that is both breathtaking and awe-inspiring. (via the BBC website)
But listening to the judges, the following sub-brief also seemed to be apparent
The food must be worthy of & display Olympian qualities. Illustrating ground breaking techniques, ideas & presentation, the food must be perfection.
I say a sub-brief, it’s principally based on the judging process & 1 to1 pieces to camera by the chefs. I’ve scoured the internet and looked in its darkest corners to find anything concrete but the producers have managed to keep the official version either
a) tightly under wraps
or
b) made it so vague that it was possible to interpret in many different ways.
The more I looked at ‘Great British Menu’ the more it became about making good TV rather than championing the diverse talent we have cooking in our restaurants. There is the well documented Wareing & Mountain clash for which I’m convinced that Mr Wareing did a quick piece to camera to say how hard he was going to be on the scoring, after Mr Mountain had his ‘moment’, which was then conveniently edited into the Monday show. The problem with that is the next two days he then awards 9’s & 10’s before awarding Mr Mountain a 2 for his fish dish, which has had elements tasted & mentored by Heston Blumenthal’s group executive chef, Ashley Palmer-Watts. Which doesn’t quite make sense?
So as I bring up the 3 Michelin starred chef’s name it swiftly moves me on to another topic, which has been featured quite heavily on the social networks in particular Twitter. Plagiarism, there I’ve said it. Whilst Mr Mountain may protest that that he hadn’t heard of the ‘Sounds of the Sea’ a la Fat Duck previous to meeting Mr Palmer-Watts. The Quail in the Woods by Colin McGurran was essentially the 1999 dish from the Fat Duck: ‘Jelly of Quail, Langoustine cream, Parfait of Foie Gras’, but as PETA launched an anti foie gras campaign on the BBC, I dare say to be ‘PC’ that was dropped. There have been suggestions from better travelled & educated chefs than me, that several courses were not dis-similar to dishes from the 3 Michelin starred restaurant Arzak in Spain throughout this series as well.
So far we have a brief which is as clear as mud and sloppy editing at the cost of hard earned reputations for entertainments sake, not looking great for the BBC or Optomen (who make GBM for the BBC) is it? Now we arrive at the final.
From the shows I’d seen there were a couple of standout dishes: Alan Murchison’s terrine starter & Daniel Clifford’s chicken main course, both of which I’d have had pencilled in for the final. Unfortunately Mr Murchison’s terrine didn’t make the cut & let’s face it, the producers would have struggled to create drama out of a methodical & technically gifted chef like ‘Murch’. Instead they decide to generate several faux scenarios: where deep frying was going to be an issue; & that Phil Howard’s fish hadn’t turned up on time; or the even more ridiculous idea that chefs of this calibre wouldn’t have thought about the logistics of a kitchen that was so far from the dining room that they would have been better using a transporter from Star Trek to deliver the food hot.
The final episode took on such epic proportions of hilarity that I just descended into mocking via twitter. Phil Howard seemed to be doing virtually no work due to lack of fish, yet Daniel Clifford was up to his neck in chickens. Normally in these types of kitchens there is a three musketeer type attitude of all for one etc. But no, Phil is made to look like he’s swaning around scratching himself while Mr Clifford is sinking. To the point where Phil Howard appears to have done no mise en place on day1 yet buggers off down the pub leave Mr Clifford to do an all nighter prepping chickens.
So conclusion from this years farce & suggestions on how to amend for next year:
- There are so few genuinely ‘ground breaking’ chefs in the world, don’t include in the brief words like: innovation; ground breaking or progressive. The likes of Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adria, Grant Achatz, Rene Redzepi, Juan Mari Arzak or the like, are unlikely to be taking part.
- Choose a venue where actually doing decent food is possible, it’ll show respect not only to the chefs but also the guests at the banquet so they might not have to eat cold food.
- Actually consider going back to basics. No waterbaths, SoSa / MSK chemicals or other excessive toys. Get chefs to show true skill with pans, ovens & knives. This will sort the wheat from the chaff with regard to the cooking by numbers generation.
- Stop trying to create fake tension. If you want to do that, film it in real time or live.
- Maybe consider replacing the judges, after Prue Leith’s outburst with Matthew Fort about him not knowing a good plate of flavoursome food when it was in front of him, maybe it’s about time.
- If not going to replace the judges, at least make sure they are upto date with what the very best in world are currently doing. A recap on Stephanie Moon’s previous GBM experience was a half baked copy of the dessert at Alinea in Chicago, which started 3 years ago. Dispensing with plates, Grant Achatz ‘plates’ the dessert directly onto the table. Stephanie Moon tries to emulate this with a crass meringue galleon, only for an over excited Mr Peyton to declare “Never had anything close to this ever”. Get out more Mr Peyton, or actually do some homework on the subject you’re supposed to be judging.
- And finally, spherification isn’t ground breaking or innovative. According to internet research Ferran Adria was doing it nearly 10years ago at El Bulli.
Just to tie this post up, I thought I’d give you some of my twitter feed featuring #GBM:
https://twitter.com/ChefHermes/status/210439604413792258
Media Guardian today suggests that Optomen contracts include a clause preventing ‘disparaging comments’ which may explain why so few chefs have commented.
I think this is the article to which you’re refering:
Would imagine it would be a pretty standard contract, so if that’s the case, we might not possibly be seeing the one competitor who decided to speak up against the blog in a less than articulate way.
Kind of watch this space, I suppose.
Just held off reading this until I’d watched the episode where the winners were announced because I guess there were spoilers in it. (was right!)
The format of GBM just doesn’t make sense. The mentor and the three cooking really doesn’t make sense. They allow someone to win on the basis of their menu but the winning chef doesn’t get to cook all of their menu, as it’s judged dish by dish. If that is the case, why not allow the chef mentor (if to continue) to pick two out of three best dishes by course to be tasted by the judges and allow them to pick their favourites to go through to the finals.
The chef mentors seem to be at odds totally with the judges. Case in point, Chris Bell was clearly ahead of Chris Fearon in the Northern Ireland heat when judged by Corrigan. Yet, the final comes along and Chris Fearon wins. All that tosh about them not knowing who hasn’t cooked each menu – I suspect they know full well who has as many have such distinctive styles. In that case, I think they chose style over substance, a fact borne out by the fact that Chris Fearon did so poorly in the finals, closer to Corrigan’s judgements than their own. At the moment, some stunning dishes are not getting anywhere near the judges and they are eliminating some great dishes by eliminating a chef’s menu. If the best menu is to be built, surely each dish should be judged on its own merits? Especially this year, with them not allowing some chefs to cook their dishes in the final. It makes a complete nonsense to put someone’s menu through in toto when they hate one of the dishes. It also seems pointless to have a third contestant who doesn’t get a single dish in front of the main judges.
I also hate the way they try (and often fail) to rack up the tension between chefs, especially when it just doesn’t exist and it’s such good natured banter (again, NI was a good example of this, they seem to have a great time).
Someone else said to me about the judges that they seem very set in their ways. None of them are particularly young and they may have very set likes and dislikes (don’t we all?). Matthew has irritated me this year but Oliver always has – he’s like an old woman most of the time. I dislike the way they comment on chefs’ dishes but not say anything like as cutting to their faces. If you can’t say it to someone’s face, don’t say it all.
A simple brief for next year is definitely called for. This year’s was too like the one they did with Heston Blumenthal a few years back. I’d like to see them do something that just shows the chef’s raw skill with great ingredients, and more of a focus on great regional food. I always liked that about previous series, something that is severely lacking this year.
Do I think the BBC will take note of its audience? Uh huh. Will I keep watching if it comes back next year? Probably. (But I won’t be watching Marcus Wareing, I still haven’t forgiven his behaviour).
Oh, and by the way. Someone give Alan Murchison a chill pill. I can feel the intensity through the TV screen.
Thank you for taking the time to write such a lengthy comment.
All of the chefs except one have kept their counsel on this subject, where normally they’re quite active on the social networks.
However Paul Foster from the Midlands regions says on my Facebook page
So where as the audience (& ultimately, the license fee payers) would like to see a more back to basics approach, Mr Foster takes the ‘I’m the chef & I know best’ type of attitude.
On the whole I do think the judges do need to be looked at, maybe MPW combined with say a Marina O’loughlin panel. How Oliver Peyton has been mistaken for one of Prue’s leather handbags is beyond me.
With regard to Mr Murchison, he has that steely determination which is admirable, just reading his twitter feed some days is mind boggling. Off to do a 10mile run in between services etc, something most chefs wouldn’t do on their days off, and that is the measure of the man. Near enough isn’t good enough for him & I really felt for him not to go through to the banquet.
Ultimately it’s a TV programme & thus there for entertainemnt, but it could have been so much more had it not forced some chefs to be something they’re not.
Yeah, sorry about the length of comment. I could have put this on my own blog and made a proper post out of it but it all came flooding out!
I’d just like to see less of the tech and more of the food.
I agree with you about Alan Murchison. Admirable, but scary. I was pleased for Daniel Clifford that he finally made it all the way to the banquet but it was interesting that 3 out of the 4 dishes were cooked by newcomers to the competition. I was really gutted for Chris Bell when he lost his NI heat because his food looked brilliant. I have actually met him when he was still at Longridge and it was amazing so perhaps I am biased. Or maybe I’m just a hick. 😉
I’m gratefully that you did comment, as it does reinforce what I’ve said in the post.
Thx again
Agree with your comments. I see that on Twitter you have been criticised as being too negative – I think you were quite kind to the programme.
My suggestions – get rid of Fort. Surely the most pompous know-all on TV. Alter the format to ensure that the best dishes are in the final, not merely the best from each region – some in the final were weak, as ever. This would mean having the heats judged by the same person. Why regional heats anyway? Stop creating fake tension/rows/antagonisms etc. Acknowledge that the chefs get plenty of help – something conspicuously lacking in the final.