‘You’ve always got to watch out for the quiet ones.’ Wise words from Andi Oliver to this week’s veteran, Lisa Goodwin-Allen as one newcomer chef took an early lead in this week’s heat. By contrast, we saw (and heard) the exuberant return of Caroline Martins, head chef at the Sao Paulo Project in Manchester and the promising debut of cheerful Sam Grainger, chef patron of Belzan in Liverpool. And then the cooking started. Caroline suffered a low-scoring starter and although she pulled ahead of Sam with her fish course, it was sad to see her joy and energy slipping away. Stepping in for a second week (this time to judge fish as Lisa has a seafood allergy), Spencer Metzger maintained his steely composure through slightly surreal critiques.
‘Do you think there’s enough truffle on the postcard?’ he asked Caroline of her Postman Pat fish dish. He didn’t like it, though Andi disagreed, insisting ‘I’ve never had such a delicious postcard’. ‘You promised me a caterpillar’ said a disappointed Spencer to Sam, ensuring his metamorphosis will have to wait for another year.
So, it’s left to Danielle Heron, head chef at Osma in Manchester, and Laszlo Nagy, head chef at The Nag’s Head in Haughton, Cheshire to cook again for Tom Kerridge, Nisha Katona, Ed Gamble and guest judge, Jane Horrocks.
Danielle’s canapé is a beetroot meringue topped with whipped blue cheese, compressed apple and dill. Laszlo’s is a scrambled egg, bacon and onion jam tartlet, minus the bacon for vegetarian Jane. Tom thinks the blue cheese one is a bit ‘blue cheesy’, Jane says the egg one’s ‘a bit too eggy’ and the scores are split two-all.
Encouraging diners to ‘Eat Like a Womble’, Danielle plates pan-fried oyster mushrooms with dots of roasted almond puree, lemon thyme gel and black garlic puree, adding pickled ramson capers, artichoke crisps, grated truffle and yarrow leaves. On the side are little trompette powder cookies topped with roasted sunflower seed hummus and mini teapots of mushroom broth. Tom loves the ‘autumnal’ flavours and says it’s ‘a great dish’. Jane finds the broth a little ‘acidic’, but Nisha stays true to the Womble work ethic and cleans her plate completely.