Great British Menu 2026 episode 25

Great British Menu 2026 episode 25 opens finals week with an unmistakable electricity in the air, as the eight regional champions step into the competition kitchen to fight for a starter slot at a red-carpet banquet celebrating the British film industry. The tension is heightened by a theatrical zombie cold-open, featuring Phil Wang groaning through the doors of the kitchen before being mock-chased out, and by the sheer calibre of talent assembled under one roof. The finale is being staged at St George’s Hall in Liverpool, itself an iconic screen location, and the chefs know that only the sharpest cooking, storytelling and execution will earn them a place on the menu.

The stakes in Great British Menu 2026 episode 25 stretch beyond personal glory. Each chef carries the pride of a region, with representatives from Scotland, Wales, the Central region, London and the South East, the North East and Yorkshire, Northern Ireland, the South West and the North West all lined up at the bench. Winning a course is both a career peak and a chance to plant a regional flag on a national stage, and that civic weight is palpable from the opening minutes. The film brief means dishes must read as cinema on a plate, with storytelling as central to the judging as flavour.

The depth of the field is remarkable. Several finalists hold Michelin stars, including representatives from two-starred and single-starred kitchens, while others have arrived without such accolades and are banking on being underestimated. The cooking brief for the starter course mirrors the heats in one crucial respect: every plate must be vegan. That constraint immediately raises the degree of difficulty, because each chef has to deliver richness, complexity and banquet-worthy poise without dairy, eggs or meat anywhere on the plate.

The judges for Great British Menu 2026 episode 25 are a familiar, formidable line-up. Lorna McNee returns as a Champion of Champions winner and the only Scottish woman to hold a Michelin star. Tom Kerridge is celebrating two decades since earning the first of his three stars. Phil Wang, navigating his first finals week, brings the comedian’s palate alongside a budding occasional acting career, which dovetails neatly with the film theme. Guest judge Marli Siu, the Scottish actress known for Our Ladies and for the Scottish BAFTA-winning Run, joins the trio. She admits she is a huge fan of the show and arrives hungry, drawing an immediate rapport by matching Phil Wang’s double denim.

Host Andi Oliver oversees the cooking floor, while veteran chef Adam Handling acts as mentor from the sidelines. Before the round begins, Andi and Tom Kerridge reveal that, as happened the previous year, each of them holds a wild-card pass to bring a returning chef back into the contest. Today, however, no one is at risk: every finalist cooks the starter. That reassurance does little to dampen nerves, because the chefs know only one name will be chalked onto the blackboard at day’s end.

Kitchen pecking order is established quickly. Orry from Scotland and Ciaran from the South West enter as the two highest-scoring chefs on this course from the heats, each having received three nines for their starters. Jamie from the North East and Yorkshire has nine-seven-eight to his name, while Jack from the North West carries a six and two eights. Others scored lower but have used the interim months to rework their dishes intensely. As Jack puts it, he has practised his starter at least once a day since winning his regional heat, treating the gap not as a rest but as preparation. Cooking, food and storytelling will collide on every plate.

Personalities show themselves in small, vivid moments. Corrin from Wales brings along a plush frog mascot called the Frogulator as his good luck charm, joking that it even looks a bit like him. Nikita and Orry, the only two finalists working in private catering rather than restaurant kitchens, wonder aloud whether their lack of Michelin stardust will lead the others to underestimate them. Lawrence from Northern Ireland keeps a video of his young nephew holding a good luck sign on his phone, promising to watch it each morning of the week. A running gag about the contestants casually listing their Michelin stars sets the tone of competitive camaraderie.

The kitchen divides into two cooking groups, with Ciaran, Nikita, Jamie and Jack serving first, and Josh, Lawrence, Orry and Corrin following in the afternoon. What unfolds over the day is one of the most varied starter line-ups the competition has assembled: pumpkin and shiitake homages to Batman, sunflower-driven tributes to Calendar Girls, poisonous Gothic teas, a clear blue Bridget Jones soup, a black-and-white pasta history of cinema, a smoked Nightcrawler dumpling, a Welsh-accented Under Milk Wood broth, and a War Horse artichoke dish. Cooking and food become inseparable from film.

Great British Menu 2026 episode 25

Pumpkin, Pecans And Gotham In Great British Menu 2026 Episode 25

Jack opens the first group with Bruce Wayne’s Breakfast, inspired by a breakfast scene from the 2022 film The Batman, which used Liverpool as its Gotham cityscape. The plate pulls pumpkin through multiple textures: barbecued and offcut pumpkin whipped into hummus, confit pumpkin shavings laid like a veil, pumpkin crumpets, a pumpkin-seed miso spread, candied pecans, pickled fermented quince, and shiitake tea. A fresh Batman silhouette cut from confit pumpkin, dusted with leek ash, acts as the dish’s final cinematic flourish.

Changes since the heats are deliberate. Jack has intensified the shiitake tea through a harder reduction, added fermented quince for extra acidity, and kept in the chilli oil that entered the dressing almost by accident in the earlier round. The crumpets, which collapsed on him in the heats, now hold their shape. At the judges’ table, the hummus, miso spread and pecan crunch land well. Lorna McNee finds the bread more aerated but still short of that toasted, crisp finish. The quince is singled out as a stand-out, and the shiitake tea, while richer, divides opinion on temperature, with some judges wanting it served hotter.

Phil Wang praises the intelligence of the plate, Tom Kerridge notes the leap forward from the heats, and Marli Siu enjoys the Batman theatricality. The consensus is that Jack has delivered a major improvement, though the dish still falls short of perfection. It sets a high, stylish bar early in Great British Menu 2026 episode 25.

Sunflower Stories And The Calendar Girls Tribute

Jamie follows with Calendar Chefs, a tribute to Calendar Girls, the film set and shot in Yorkshire. He ties every element on the plate back to the sunflower, which was the calendar’s emblem in the story. The dish features toasted sunflower-seed ice cream rolled in more toasted seeds, preserved sunflower chokes arranged like petals, sunflower petal vinegar, an English spiced butternut squash soup infused with verbena, and a sunflower miso-glazed tear-and-share bread with sunflower seed miso butter.

Jamie makes no changes, having scored nine, seven and eight in the heats. His confidence rests on execution: get the bread in on time and plate cleanly. The bread arrives gorgeously crusted and crunchy, and the judges seize on it immediately. The vegan butter provokes open admiration, with Lorna McNee describing it as the best vegan butter she has ever tasted, and Tom Kerridge calling the bread spot-on.

The controversy, as in the heats, is the temperature contrast. Hot spiced squash soup hitting cold sunflower-seed ice cream splits the judges. Tom Kerridge finds the cold ice cream fights the soup. Phil Wang observes that by the time you chew the crumb, the ice cream has melted, so the contrast makes sense. Marli Siu, trying savoury ice cream for the first time, says she could eat it every day. The soup itself is praised as rich and warming, lifting the plate despite the temperature debate.

Jerusalem Artichokes And A War Horse On The Plate

Nikita’s dish celebrates War Horse, with a nod to lead actor Jeremy Irvine’s Cambridgeshire roots. She builds a pot of caramelised Jerusalem artichoke puree topped with pickled turnip, roasted artichoke, sourdough croutons and an aerated Jerusalem artichoke foam. Alongside it she serves a laminated caramelised onion brioche, plaited like a horse’s mane, and dusts the foam with cep powder.

Her changes respond directly to earlier feedback. In the heats, a potato foam on top was deemed gummy, and she has replaced it with the lighter aerated artichoke foam. She has added more caramelised onion to the brioche and glazed it with Marmite and maple syrup. The line about being aggressive with that glaze becomes a running refrain on the kitchen floor.

The judges’ response is warm but split. Phil Wang loves digging into the pot, likening the textured interior to reaching into earth and discovering different layers. The croutons and the neatness of construction draw praise. The brioche is hailed as outstanding. However, Lorna McNee admits she preferred the potato foam, and several judges note the dish now reads a touch sweet for a starter, with one joking it would make a lovely pudding. Nikita’s War Horse cappuccino-topped bowl looks striking but lands just below the top rank.

Tisane, Poison And Parsnips From The South West

Ciaran closes the first group with Tisane, inspired by the Gothic film My Cousin Rachel, set in Cornwall. The plot hinges on the suggestion that Rachel is poisoning the men in her life with a herbal tea, and Ciaran leans into that theatrical darkness. His dish features parsnips three ways, battered, pureed and sliced into skinny crisps, alongside a black garlic and parsnip puree, beer vinegar gel, togarashi seasoning of seaweed and chilli, and a burnt garlic oil presented as poison.

The centrepiece is a root vegetable tisane tea infused with smoked tea and seasoned with mushroom soy, served on Victorian-style tea trays for maximum Gothic atmosphere. Ciaran makes no changes from the heats, where he scored nines across the board, putting him top of the pack going in. The battered parsnips get a double deep fry, pushed to a darker colour to counter their natural sweetness with bitterness.

Judges are emphatic. Lorna McNee calls the tea deep and dark in flavour, loves the crispy, creamy parsnip and its sweet-acid balance. Phil Wang praises the interactiveness of pouring the poison oil and the mousse-like parsnip interior. Marli Siu declares the presentation her favourite so far. Tom Kerridge gently suggests the parsnip side is a little sweet, but overall the dish confirms Ciaran as a serious contender in Great British Menu 2026 episode 25.

Bridget Jones’s Blue Soup Reimagined

The second group opens with Josh from Kent, whose dish, Blue Soup, nods to the notoriously botched dinner party in Bridget Jones’s Diary. Scoring a five or six and a seven in the heats, Josh has plenty to prove. He builds a leek and potato consomme, clarified using a 0.2 percent agar filtration method that traps impurities and releases crystal-clear liquid. Beneath the consomme sit rondelles of baby leek and coloured leek strands that turn the soup Smurf blue when hot liquid meets them in the bowl.

He has reworked the potato element, replacing his original pomme dauphine with new leek and potato cakes flavoured with toasted nutritional yeast. New strands of baby leek replace the earlier stringy hay-bale presentation, and he adds a sherry vinegar gel, chervil, chives and a vibrant leek oil.

Responses are mixed. The consomme is the undisputed star, praised for seasoning, clarity and a genuine leek and potato flavour despite being clear. Phil Wang loves the blue reveal. However, several judges openly miss the cheesiness of the original dauphine, feeling the new potato cakes are less characterful. The core flavour profile, they note, has not changed, even if the dish is easier to eat. Lorna McNee finds it clean and clever but some judges question whether the change was needed.

Storytelling, Solidarity And Cooking Under Pressure

Between services, Andi Oliver checks in with the chefs at the bench. Marli Siu joins the conversation, and the discussion turns to collaboration. She notes that creative work, including being a chef, is usually a team effort where people feed off one another’s work. Phil Wang teases her with a comedian’s line about stand-up being solo, and the kitchen laughs. The moment captures something important about Great British Menu 2026 episode 25: despite the ruthless stakes, these cooks help each other plate, strain, glaze and carry dishes, even when they are direct rivals.

That solidarity underlies practical drama too. Corrin admits to Jack mid-service that he wishes he had poached his potatoes whole, because they are crumbling. Ciaran helps Jack spread miso. Nikita helps Ciaran with parsnip crisps. Lawrence passes ingredients to others between his own plating runs. The judges watch this with approval, noting the visible confidence required to stick to your guns while surrounded by seven equally ambitious rivals.

Alongside the cooking, there is levity. A new crossword in the bench area produces a “ceremonial feast for many people” clue that Jamie cracks instantly with “banquet.” The Scottish connection surfaces when Orry and Marli Siu discover they are both from Forres, a tiny Scottish town, prompting her to ask what the chances were. Little by little, the first day of finals week softens its edges even as the scoring logic sharpens.

Black-And-White Pasta And A Cinematic Odyssey

Lawrence from Northern Ireland, who scored the lowest in the heats, rebuilds his dish aggressively. His plate, A Gastronomic Odyssey, references The Story of Film: An Odyssey by Belfast-born film critic and director Mark Cousins. The concept is a journey through cinema from monochrome into high-definition colour. He makes black-and-white vegan ravioli, rolled into film-reel shapes, filled with a fermented cashew vegan cheese, and serves them over roasted hazelnuts, a new sunflower petal sauce, and a sunflower seed and roast tomato romesco.

His critical fix is the pasta itself. In the heats it was thick and chewy, because, as he diagnoses, he had been overworking the dough and strengthening its gluten. He stops laminating it, reduces machine time, and improves texture. He also ups the flavour in his vegan cheese, creates a new furikake of chopped popcorn, wakame seaweed and nori powder, and retires the film reel serving cases, repurposing them as table decorations with tickets tucked inside. A 2:2 degree in Film Studies, he jokes, might finally earn its keep.

Judges confirm the transformation. The romesco is praised as delicious with a warming split of red oil. The vegan pasta texture is a notable achievement without egg. The storytelling arc from black-and-white into colour is hailed as one of the best translations of theme on the day. The popcorn furikake draws real affection. Some still find the pasta portion a little thick at the centre, but the leap from his heats performance is unmistakable in Great British Menu 2026 episode 25.

The Night Crawler, Smoke And Truffle From Scotland

Orry delivers The Night Crawler, inspired by Alan Cumming’s character Nightcrawler in X-Men 2, built around a black charcoal potato dumpling holding a girolle and black truffle mix. Around it he arranges cashew condiment, walnut ketchup, potato crisp tuiles, black truffle puree, pickled and baked baby beetroot, charred pickled onions, beetroot stems and a coal oil dressing. The beetroot is roasted with lemon rind, thyme, bay and garlic, adding herbaceous depth.

The dish arrives under a cloche of smoke, released theatrically at the table. Adam, Orry’s veteran mentor from the heats, had advised him to be generous with the sherry vinaigrette, and Orry leans into that counsel. The black potato and onion ash tuiles fry delicate and shatter-crisp.

Judges are near-ecstatic. Phil Wang says the smoke stays in the mouth and plays off every other flavour. Lorna McNee admires the acidity coming from the beetroot and pickled onion petals against the deep, earthy flavours inside the dumpling, wrapped, she says, like a warming duvet. Tom Kerridge calls the acidity superb and the balance phenomenal. Marli Siu, a horror fan, finds the dangerousness of the dish exactly what she hoped to see on the show. Only a mild reservation on charcoal emerges, but the dish is clearly banquet-calibre food.

Welsh Atmosphere And Corrin’s Under Milk Wood Tribute

Corrin, the Welsh finalist, closes the day with a dish celebrating actor Richard Burton and the 1972 film Under Milk Wood, filmed mostly in Fishguard. He has celeriac poached Parisian-style in soy milk and shaped into roses, served on wood to evoke the film’s opening titles, accompanied by a celeriac broth, teriyaki shiitake mushrooms, wild rice, a nori furikake seasoning and a fresh herb bouquet tucked into the tea cup for aromatic infusion.

Corrin’s heats scores, seven from Phil, six from Lorna and eight from Tom, told him the broth was too one-note. He rebuilds it by infusing shiitake mushrooms and blackened onions, and adds a new potato, truffle and celeriac foam at the bottom of the cup, finger limes for pop, and extra truffle around the roses. The presentation unfolds to Richard Burton’s recorded rendition of Under Milk Wood, with its line “To begin at the beginning”, and Corrin urges the judges to sniff the bouquet rather than eat it while the tea infuses.

The judges are absorbed. They describe the warmth and umami from the seaweed, the intense shiitakes at the bottom, and the delicious espuma. Lorna McNee praises the crispness of the potato, the furikake crunch and the way presentation and food marry. Tom Kerridge says it feels like eating out of a hole in a tree, and signals that this is exactly the kind of banquet-grade cooking they came to find. Corrin has lifted the dish materially from his heats score.

Judgement Day For Great British Menu 2026 Episode 25

The judges retire to deliberate, and even before scores are tallied, Tom Kerridge acknowledges that three dishes stand out with fine margins between them. Phil Wang has two favourites and one overriding standout. Marli Siu has top picks across morning and afternoon, naming Jamie, Corrin and Orry in her top three. Lorna McNee rates Lawrence, Jack and Orry; Tom Kerridge puts Lawrence first and Corrin second. Josh finishes himself on praise for his clarity, while Ciaran emerges in conversation as a strong contender throughout.

The final placings, revealed to the chefs one by one, run as follows. Josh finishes eighth, with feedback that the dish was easier to eat but lost the cheesy character of the original pomme dauphine. Lawrence comes seventh, with particular applause for his romesco. Nikita is sixth, her brioche adored but the pot’s overall sweetness costing her against stronger rivals. Jack is fifth, praised for the shiitake tea and the Batman storytelling. Jamie finishes fourth, with Marli Siu giving the dish a nine and citing it as proof of how competitive the top places are.

Corrin takes third, with the broth singled out for bringing what the judges call a zen to the chamber. That leaves Ciaran and Orry as the last two standing. The win, and the right to cook the starter at the banquet celebrating British films and film-makers, goes to Orry, with Ciaran, who came super close, graciously saying he was just happy to be in the final two. The judges describe both dishes as sinister yet delicious, dark, mysterious and beautifully balanced. Orry speaks of pride for his wife, daughters and family, and already sets his sights on placing another dish at the banquet later in the week.

The closing scenes of Great British Menu 2026 episode 25 confirm the tone for the days ahead. The cooking, food and film brief have fused into a genuinely strong field, and the fish course, judged by one of the nation’s favourite actors, is already looming. Fine margins decided the starter, and several chefs leave the judges’ chamber with cracking dishes that earned nines and tens yet still fell short. The standard, everyone agrees, is sky-high, and the competition for the remaining three courses is wide open.

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