Great British Menu episode 19 2020 – Wales – Starter & Fish Courses: This week, the battle is on with the heats for Wales. Competing for the top spot are four newcomers to the competition – some of the most exciting cooking talent from Wales. Calm and collected, Tom Phillips from Newport is a proud Welshman now working in London.
Having earned his stripes in a string of Michelin-starred restaurants around the UK, including The Ritz, L’Enclume and Per Se, he is now head chef at Restaurant Story. He is hoping his detailed, elegant plates of food will see him through to the judges’ chamber. At 20 years old, Georgia Sommerin from Pontypridd is the youngest chef in the competition. Despite her youth, she has been working in her dad James Sommerin’s Michelin-starred kitchen since she was 13 and is now its sous chef. Determined and ambitious, Georgia hopes her cooking, which is centred around seasonal and local ingredients, will take her all the way to the banquet. John Chantarasak is from the Wye Valley.
He draws on his duel heritage in creating Thai-flavoured dishes using British produce. John trained in Bangkok and gained experience across Asia before opening up his own restaurant, Som Saa, with a friend in Spitalfields, London. He hopes that his aromatic Anglo-Thai cuisine and creative flavour combinations will help him stand out from the crowd in this year’s competition. Welsh-speaking Hywel Griffith is from north Wales and is head chef patron at Michelin-starred The Beach House on the Gower Peninsula. He honed his modern Welsh style working at the Lanesborough Hotel in London and the Chester Grosvenor Hotel, before returning to Wales and the Ynyshir Hall Hotel. He is determined to fly the flag for Wales at the banquet and hopes his traditional Welsh dishes, elevated to fine-dining standard, will get him there.
Great British Menu episode 19 2020 – Wales – Starter & Fish Courses
Presenter and comedian Susan Calman welcomes the chefs to the competition. One of the four talented chefs is going home today, so they have to impress their surprise veteran from the outset. First, they must whip up a new course: an amuse bouche. Unaware of who their veteran is, the four chefs rustle up delicious mouthfuls, including leek, potato and Welsh truffle and a Welsh rarebit tart, and bring them to the pass as veteran chef Lisa Goodwin Allen steps into the kitchen to pass judgement. Although not officially scored, this mini-course is ranked and used in the event of a tie-break.
This week, the chefs are specifically tasked with honouring books by Welsh authors and the legends of giants and dragons. Hywel is paying homage to the Welsh legend of Twrch Trwyth with a slow-cooked pig’s cheek starter. Tom is making a Giant’s Stew using Welsh lamb, whilst John is honouring The Secret Garden with his raw beef laab dish. Meanwhile, Georgia is concocting an ode to Roald Dahl with her pork starter, Georgia’s Marvellous Medicine. The chefs’ fate depends on the scores they receive from their veteran and, with one person leaving after the fish course, nerves are running high.
There is a surprise for the chefs in the fish course as, due to Lisa’s seafood intolerance, she has invited a friend along to judge the fish course – Michael O’Hare! Hywel’s fish course is inspired by the book The Accidental Pirate and showcases octopus served with a chicken wing and cauliflower. Tom is planning on giving him a run for his money with his lobster cocktail inspired by Roald Dahl’s Vicar of Nibbleswicke. John too is inspired by Roald Dahl and is making a snozzcumber soup, and Georgia is hoping to top them all with her fish picnic, inspired by the Welsh novel Ynys Elen. With some surprising scores all round, who will be eliminated from the competition and not cook their entire menu? The pressure is on for all the chefs to deliver.
