You can’t have a banquet at Abbey Road Studios featuring a fab four of Britain’s best chefs without that shot. Striding across the famous zebra crossing, Adam Reid, Tom Anglesea, Luke Selby and Lorna McNee march towards a hard day’s night of banquet preparation.
Andi Oliver is there to welcome the chefs and to gently break the news that they’re going to be cooking in the café kitchen. Well, once the chairs and tables are moved out and the catering equipment arrives… some time later that afternoon. If this is a programme producer’s idea of adding drama to the event, it’s one our chefs could well do without.
Taking a break to discover some ‘unsung heroes’ of the music world, the chefs are introduced to the delightful Doreen Dunkley, who has run the Abbey Road kitchen for thirty years. Doreen accepts her banquet invitation, before disclosing ‘you can’t steam in both ovens at the same time’. With Luke’s steamed custard and Tom’s steamed scallops on the menu, Doreen nods with the worldly wisdom of a woman who has known Rod Stewart and impending disaster in equal measure.
We pause briefly to give some much-need credit to Ivory Tickler, the unseen, unsung and unfairly unbilled pianist who throughout the series has entertained us to her instrumental renditions of Beatles hits when, presumably because of some obscure copyright reason or public performance restrictions, the original was unavailable.
Ms Tickler took a break on Monday whilst her colleague, good old Stringer Strum treated us to a melancholic guitar rendition of ‘Till There Was You’; technically a Beatles cover, not an original, but I fear I’m being too picky for my own good. It accompanied Luke’s dramatically dry-iced starter of meadowsweet-infused cheese custard, confit egg, hazelnuts, sweetcorn, truffle and charred cabbage.