Great British Menu 2024: North East England recap
It's been a brilliant first week of heats in the Great British Menu kitchen, with four chefs from the North East trying to make it through to finals week. Howard Middleton fills us in on what transpired and who came out on top.
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Great British Menu 2024Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. That’s French for something, which, with my limited grasp of the language, could turn out to be appropriate. As Team GB prepares to head to Paris, GBM has decided to send everyone off with full stomachs, making Olympics and Paralympics the theme of this year’s banquet. As it did twelve years ago, when fresh-faced newcomers like Paul Ainsworth and Daniel Clifford first threw their chef’s hats in the ring.
In that year’s Central England heat, young Aktar Islam was the first to be eliminated. As this week’s veteran chef, he decided that was the sad fate of competition newcomer Adam Degg from Horto Restaurant in Harrogate. Fellow newbie Scott John-Hodgson from Solstice in Newcastle tied with the returning Samira Effa, head chef at EightyEight restaurant at Grantley Hall in Ripon, but Samira’s superior pre-dessert sent her back for a second trip to the judging chamber, along with Cal Byerley from Pine in Northumberland.
Ready to tuck in for another year, regular judges Ed Gamble, Nisha Katona and Tom Kerridge are joined by Britain’s first ever medal winning sport climber, Shauna Coxsey, who’s soon sampling Samira’s canapé of a crispy potato cylinder filled with beef tartare, kimchi, wasabi and furikake. Ed and Shauna liken it to a beef-flavoured potato crisp. ‘But not in a bad way,’ Shauna hastens to add. Cal serves a Doddington cheese, chive and nasturtium canelé, topped with pickled shallot jelly. ‘Clever’ is Tom’s assessment, though he’d like a cheesier ‘kick’.
Starters are all vegan again this year and, for hers, Samira takes inspiration from her mum’s Iranian cooking to produce an Olympic torch of spiced, charred aubergine with dehydrated tomatoes, glazed dates and vegan feta. Its ‘flame’ is a crispy, saffron-scented rice tuile. Nisha is disappointed that it feels ‘really restrained’ and Ed and Tom agree that it’s like a sample pot of a starter, rather than the full dish. ‘Brilliant… but nowhere near enough of it,’ concludes Tom.
Cal’s starter is a gold ‘Winner’s Medal’ of Jerusalem artichoke purée, served with herb-infused black garlic and buckwheat miso broth, homemade bread and vegan seaweed butter. Nisha thinks the broth has a ‘really deep, good umami’ but Tom is ‘slightly jolted’ by the cold artichoke in the warm broth. He also thinks the Nisha-like soup is too delicate for his ‘bruising lump of bread’. Ed notes the bread even has a ‘Kerridge-esque shine’ on top.
With a laurel-crowned nod to ancient Greece, Cal uses smoked garum as a key ingredient in the creamy fish mousse that fills his pollock Wellington, along with blanched cabbage and pickled yellow courgette. It’s served with a creamy champagne and dill sauce. Shauna is wowed by the contrast of textures and Tom loves the analogy of a dish that puts an underdog fish like pollock on a ‘world-class level’.
Champagne flows into the sauce again as Samira’s fish dish celebrates the success of athletes from Yorkshire at the 2012 Olympics. A white rose of salted kohlrabi sits atop a fillet of brill, sea herb and brill mousse and artichoke purée. ‘What a pretty dish,’ says Nisha. Tom is less impressed. ‘I really want to like it and I don’t,’ he admits, yearning for another plate of pollock pasty.
For her main course, Samira translates the five continents of the Olympic rings into five components. Africa is ras el hanout venison (along with a spiced venison faggot) and Europe is potato fondant. Oceania is a Granny Smith relish (acknowledging the apple’s Australian origin), Asia is a pickled maitake and America is a bourbon cocktail. ‘Really yummy,’ says Shauna of the cocktail and Nisha agrees. Everyone loves the dish’s accompanying sauce, but Ed says, ‘we were expecting a feast’ and Nisha admits to feeling ‘slightly punished’ by the small portions.
Olympic medal winner and local legend Brendan Foster is the inspiration for Cal’s main course ‘Big Bren’s Runner Duck’. With confit duck legs, barbecued duck crown, duck neck sausage, duck gravy and a smoked duck fat muffin, Nisha says ‘this is a lot of duck’ before she’s even tasted it. ‘It’s been a good gravy day,’ says Ed, and all agree. ‘Lovely, but a bit bitty,’ is Tom’s overall assessment. ‘And bitty isn’t really banqueting,’ concludes Nisha.
Pre-desserts are up next, and Cal’s is a tiny rhubarb, gooseberry and chocolate ice cream cone, whilst Samira serves yuzu curd ice cream with candied olives and an olive oil tuile. ‘Very very nice,’ is Tom’s judgement of the cone, but Samira wins unanimous acclaim with her ‘fantastic’ creation.
With Cal and Samira’s stunning desserts both scoring perfect tens from Aktar Islam, it promises to be an exceptional ending to the day. Samira’s beautifully realistic stopwatch is carefully constructed of almond sponge, white chocolate, makrut lime and lemongrass mousse and boozy cherry compote. Tempered chocolate work completes the illusion, which Nisha calls ‘exceptional’. ‘What a special little dish this is,’ says Tom in admiration.
The peach-shaped chamomile cheesecakes that were Cal’s nemesis in last year’s competition have been transformed into another clever illusion – white chocolate and lemon cheesecake tennis balls, which are served with a choux tennis racquet handle filled with woodruff ice cream. ‘Pretty impressive,’ says Tom, and Nisha praises its ‘fantastic flavour.’
In the end, Cal’s ‘Game, Set, Match’ proves to be an appropriately titled final dish as he secures his place in the finals. ‘Never again!’ exclaims Samira, relieved to down a much-needed glass of fizz. Twelve years ago, I wonder if Aktar Islam said the same thing.
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