467. Great British Menu Central Region Heats (2).

 

  Continued from Blog 466 …

  Thom Bateman chose to present a pork-based dish for his main course and titled it Origin of the Species which celebrated Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution and illustrated his theme by centring it on the evolution of the wild boar to the domestic pig. The dish was made up of braised and shredded wild boar shoulder and collar served on a pork fat boulangere with barbecued mangalitsa pork fillet glazed with black garlic and honey accompanied by barbecued Granny Smith apple and a pickled walnut ketchup, celeriac purée and pork sauce.

Wild boar collar and shoulder

Ingredients for Original of the Species - Mangalitsa to right of the picture.

When delivering his verdict on the dishes Tommy Banks noted that only once before had a pork dish won the right to be the Great British Menu banquet main course. Banks made very positive points about the dish and had no negative points to mention. He awarded it 9 points.

  For his predessert Bateman served what he described as a chive biscuit ice cream sandwich to honour the scientist Dorothy Hodgkin and her work on X rays. The predessert was made from homemade pine oil, sugar and citric acid in the form of a spruce sherbert, a cherry gel and the ice cream was replaced by a pistachio yoghurt. When judging it Banks felt that the bone shape made it look like a dog biscuit which he found off-putting but he placed it second out of the three presdesserts.

  For his dessert course, Thom Bateman presented a dish titled The First Tycoon which celebrated Josiah Wedgwood. This took the form of a chocolate mousse marquise made from black tea infused cream with a bowl of cocoa nib, soya bean crumb and sherry gel topped by raw milk ice cream, caramel and blond chocolate crisps, all to celebrate what Bateman described as the “really famous tearoom” at the Wedgwood factory site. The marquise was not wholly convincing as a jasperware decoration and looked somewhat rough edged though the overall dish looked attractive plated up as it was on beautiful blue jasperware pottery.

   When presenting his conclusions, Banks felt that the dessert was “quite sweet” and he did not feel that Bateman had “got the balance quite right” and consequently awarded Bateman’s dish seven points giving him a total of 32 points which was not sufficient to keep him in the competition. 

  The West Midlands had therefore lost its two representatives and Sally Abé eventually won the third round of the heat and was selected to go forward to represent the Midlands and East Anglia in the final selection of those chefs who would cook at the 2025 banquet. In the final heat her main course was iawarded a perfect 40 points and she proved to be a worthy and charming winner of the 2025 Midlands and East competition.

466. Great British Menu Central Region Heats 2025 (1).

 

  For the second year running the Central and East regional heats of BBC’s The Great British Menu, now in its twentieth year, were scheduled to be shown towards the end of the programme’s 2025 run.

  There was much to dread - the judges still included the jollily bullying Tom Kerridge, the not at all funny comedian Ed Gamble and a new judge in the form of a stony-faced, dour Scottish woman chef with the disapproving, unsmiling demeanour of a dreich day in the Highlands and the sense of us all being ‘doomed’ (to recall Private Fraser). Perhaps it is unkind to label the trio as ‘The Bad, The Worse and The Miserable’ or perhaps not. Of course, this trio was balanced by the excellent Andi Oliver full of energy, discernment, knowledge and ebullience - there could be no better celebrity to front the programme than she in her colourful glad rags and distinctive look, less a wet weekend in Edinburgh and more a calypso on an Antiguan beach.

  The region’s four competitors included only two who worked in the West Midlands, the others inevitably working in London. This latter pair were Sally Abé with her East Midlands roots who seems to be a perpetual Great British Menu competitor though always very charming and Harry Kirkpatrick from Norfolk, Head Chef at Trinity in Clapham, that well known Midlands/East Anglia suburb.

  The West Midlands however was well represented by two chefs - Thom Bateman, chef proprietor of The Flintlock in Cheddleton in Staffordshire, who has previously appeared in the programme although he was beaten on the Judges day by Tom Shepherd, and Grace and Savour’s and Kynd’s David Taylor, originally from Nottingham but now well established as a star of West Midlands cuisine. I have dined at Taylor’s restaurant several times and enjoyed watching demonstrations by Bateman at last year’s Ludlow Food Festival.

Kirkpatrick, Thom Bateman, Andi Oliver, David Taylor and Abé.

  This being the 20th anniversary season of Great British Menu the theme of British heroes, in particular those local to the individual chefs’ regions, was chosen, presumably implying that the BBC and all who sail in it are also heroic in some way or the other. The West Midlands has its fair share of heroes of national significance and it was inevitable, and quite right, that our chefs should give the nod to the likes of Shakespeare, Josiah Wedgewood, Dr Johnson and their ilk.

  The meal started with canopés - David Taylor’s took the form of Jerusalem artichoke crispy skins filled with fresh artichoke with bay leaf pickle and apple and thyme while Thom Bateman served a Staffordshire cheese custard and salt-baked beetroot tart with black garlic ketchup. Unfortunately the guest chef-judge, Tommy Banks, felt that David Taylor’s canopé did not have “the depth of flavour” he was hoping for and the canopé was his least favourite of the four. Thom Bateman’s canopé was placed third because it appeared to have too much flavour, “enough for a main course”. Too much, too little, interesting.

David Taylor’s canopé 

Thom Bateman’s canopé

  And so, on to the starters. Here the chefs were obliged to provide a vegan course. David Taylor based his dish, Talking Potatoes on, er, potatoes dedicating it to a trendy 20th century Birmingham poet of Caribbean heritage who apparently grew his own potatoes which he used to make samosas. The potatoes were confited with spiced coconut, onion velouté finished with a variety of roasted nuts and a vegetable samosa. Bateman’s dish was titled Po-tay-toes and inspired, he said by the works of JRR Tolkien. The dish involved confiting pink fir potatoes and then barbecuing them and serving with a plant-based pomme soufflé ‘ring’ (“one ring to rule them all”).

  Sally Abé’s dish was a tribute to Florence Nightingale and saw the obliging David Taylor dressing up in a 19th century nurse’s costume and carrying a lamp for the presentation of the dish. This reflected the wonderful spirit of cooperation and friendliness in which the heat was carried out by all the chefs, for years the Central heat has always been the happiest of the regional heats due to the generous and well-balanced personalities of those who work in the hospitality industry in this geographical area.

  At the judging Andi Oliver expressed the view that this had quite possibly been the strongest start ever to a regional heat and Tommy Banks felt that Taylor’s dish represented what “modern Britain is - on a plate” and that Bateman’s dish’s link to “the brief was bang on the nose”. Banks awarded Taylor’s dish nine points and Bateman’s eight but Sally Abé’s received a remarkable ten points which put her in the lead.

  Next came the fish course. Taylor served a dish titled Perseverance which honoured Dr Samuel Johnson, who, in passing, it is worth nothing was one of the great English gourmands of his time. The dish took the form of poached brill in a herb butter, with a crispy herb stem salad and pickled shallot, and a leek cream sauce with oyster leaf. Bateman meanwhile served The Bard of Avon celebrating of course, William Shakespeare, which was brined halibut dusted in nori powder and poached in brown butter and served with dashi gel and a Stratford upon Avon wine sauce containing leek, fennel, shallot, pink peppercorn, kombu, dill, parsley and finished with smoked butter.

   When the judgement on the course was delivered Andi Oliver stated that they were “standing in the kitchen with four exceptional chefs”. When commenting on David Taylor’s dish Banks said that he would have preferred the poached brill to have been roasted a little more to give it more flavour and texture. Banks felt that the dish “lacked a little bit of oomph and a little bit of seasoning in the overall dish”. He felt that another element might have been included “to bring it together but it certainly had potential”. He awarded the dish 7 points.

  Banks had nothing negative to say about Thom Bateman’s dish and awarded it eight points. 

  When all the points had been delivered it was clear that while Abé was out in the lead, the three other chefs, including the two from the West Midlands, were all tied on the same score and, this being the case, David Taylor was eliminated on the basis of his canopé being judged to have been the least satisfactory. This obviously came as a surprise to all, if not a shock, but Taylor took it well and hopefully he will return in a future season for another attempt to win. Meanwhile Thom Bateman lived to fight another day and battle out the second day of main, predessert and dessert courses.

To be continued ….

465. Kynd.

 The day after my most recent visit to David Taylor’s immaculate Grace and Savour at Hampton Manor back in November 2024, it was announced that the manor’s other esteemed restaurant, Stuart Deeley’s Smoke, would close in February 2025 with Deeley leaving at the end of 2024, and would be replaced by a second David Taylor restaurant to be called Kynd (see Blog 446). I’m sure the time relationship between my visit to Hampton Manor and the important announcement was purely coincidental.

  Kynd opened on 28 February 2025 as planned and I was delighted to be the first paying customer through the door on that opening day. I was in a happy mood as I headed along the country lane, walking from the railway station to Hampton Manor and I was buoyed up by the late afternoon sunset and the groups of snowdrops in the hedgerows on either side of the road. It was only the second time I have visited one of the manor’s restaurants while it was still daylight and it was certainly easier to find my way around the grounds with the light still present. And so I alighted on Kynd in the building which had once been home to Smoke. Where once Stu Deeley had been Lord of this particular part of the manor, now David Taylor held the reigns of culinary power.

  I was the first diner. Not quite the first man at the top of Everest or on the moon but a nice feeling especially after the relaxed, friendly greeting from Keoghan who had been so helpful in arranging a taxi for me when I was last at Grace and Savour. To all intents and purposes this was just like a revisit to Smoke which was not a bad thing at all. It was cosy and warm and nicely lit and decoratively rustic. It was  easy to make myself comfortable and feeling vaguely euphoric, I launched straight into a decidedly lip smacking, spicy margarita which was an absolute riot in the mouth and then a ‘snack’ of three different types of charcuterie including venison with fennel and cured beef and then I was presented with fresh, delightful sourdough with Ampersand butter, one of my favourites (fie! though marmite or miso or seaweed butters! give me rich, golden traditional butter to spread on to my comforting fresh, delicious bread any day! Fie, I say!)

  I would have opted for the Tasting menu but to be honest I found that the à la carte included dishes more to my liking, including gurnard instead of skate of which I am not a fan. The starter was a pretty and delicious dish of Cornish crab with salted turnip espuma and pickled fennel which bought great pleasure.

  The line-caught gurnard was delicious and meticulously cooked giving me good, tender, moist white fish meat and the happy flavour of fennel all in a tasty velvety bisque with the lovely salty texture of little pieces of sopressata adding little hits of a comforting texture. Alongside was a dish of crispy, tasty potato rosti which did not go unloved.

    Winter was coming to an end and I was delighted with what I thought was a seasonally apt choice for dessert of organic Welsh rum-soaked Tipsy cake with lovely brown butter ice cream. The cake was beautifully light though perhaps not quite discernibly tipsy enough. The feeling of seasonality was rounded off by the dessert being accompanied by a rhubarb and ginger sauce and I felt contented enough to drink a gorgeous ice cider with it.

  Night has fallen. It was a clear night and as I walked back to Hampton station, I thought about my new love - Kynd - and I was planning my next visit there as I walked through the deep darkness of Hampton village. In these gloomy times, pleasures such as those which David Taylor is delivering at Kynd make dark streets suddenly flood with the light of great pleasure.

Rating:- 🌞🌞.

  Meanwhile next week, the 20th season of the BBC’s Great British Menu enters the final week of the regional heats and will feature chefs representing the Central region. Apart from an East Anglian chef who works in London and yet another appearance by East Midlander Sally Abé who also works in London when she’s not appearing on The Great British Menu, there are two West Midlands chefs featured. One is Thom Bateman of The Flintlock in Staffordshire who, on his first appearance was beaten by Tom Shepherd of Tom Shepherd at Upstairs in Lichfield, in the end-of-week Judges episode and the other is none other than David Taylor who with his meticulous, inventive, fine cooking must surely be in line to go through to the final week ‘cook-off’.

  Meanwhile, I’ve had a very pleasing week - a night in Stratford upon Avon staying at the excellent Hotel Du Vin where I dined before going to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre to see the present fabulous production of Hamlet (meets the Titanic) which, improbable as it may sound, worked wonderfully well particularly with its spectacular special effects and remarkable acting though here the director is worthy of special mention. Luke Thallon was a splendid Hamlet, the best I have seen in the theatre, and Nancy Carroll, was the best Gertrude, stately and long suffering like Queen Camilla, I have ever seen, full of convincing emotion highlighting her guilt and shock and horror of what is going on around her and how much she is responsible for it all. Few scenes in the theatre will ever be as memorable as that where the dead and dying characters slide down the severely sloping deck of the sinking ship Elsinore and plunge into the ocean while Horatio prays that flights of angels will give Hamlet a good send off.

  But back to my Stratford dinner. On this occasion I chose the excellent prix fixé menu and enjoyed 2 courses for £29. To start I had a generous slice of Wye and Severn smoked salmon which was entirely edible and no problem for the chef to place on the plate. I liked being served a large piece of lemon in a muslin bag- no chance of having to deal with annoying lemon pips - but the accompanying dill creème Fraiche was more soothing than tasty.

  The main course was a large, nicely cooked chicken schnitzel accompanied by a salad of sweetly picked red pepper and red pickled red cabbage, capers and rocket which, like mange touts, remains a personal enemy of mine. The schnitzel was very generously portioned and though nice became a little boring as the meal went along - it really needed a sauce, or perhaps a defibrillator, to add a bit of life to it. 

  I was too full for any dessert and though I thought the meal could have been a little more exciting it was well cooked and enjoyable though the dishes seemed to be veering a little too far away from the overall French-style theme, I still have an affection for the hotel’s restaurant. It needs to revisit its character, restore the Gallic element and give us a bit of can can au Moulin Rouge.

  The following day I revisited The Wildmoor Oak near Bromsgrove. My dining companion ordered an impressive basket of breads and I started with an item from the ‘specials’ list - reasonably tasty ham hock croquettes which were rather large; the size I think was a problem as the contents seemed rather insubstantial and light. For the main, neither of us could countenance eating anything other than the truly remarkable, battered haddock and chips. The size was colossal and the magnificent fish was utterly accurately cooked, the batter as perfectly golden and crispy as one could ever imagine, the chips irreproachable and the lovely mushy peas nicely minted. This was a fabulous plate of fish and chips, very pleasingly priced and as memorable as the final scene of the previous evening’s production of Hamlet which as memorable as anything comes. Happy days. Happy Days indeed.