The BBC’s Great British Menu,where top chefs compete to serve at a banquet for D-Day Veterans, is now long finished but we still had to review Scotland & Wales which has taken some time to investigate.
For Scotland the judge was Jeremy Lee of Quo Vadis. It’s been reviewed before and is a stylish and accessible restaurant but although there is a ground floor toilet it is not a disabled one. So they got just 2 BBS Ticks – yet again the judge lets the side down. Here’s how the competing chefs fared in our search for 100% ‘accessibility’ and on the BBS Tick ‘Fronts’ of style, accessibility & facilities:
Neil Rankin is a classic chef who specialises in up market barbecuing & relaxed dining having worked at Pitt Cue, Barbecoa and now the Smokehouse in Islington. His Scottish roots qualified him for this competition. Thankfully this restaurant lives up to the ideals of BBS in that it’s a trendy (got style) gastropub and is accessible (flat access) with a disabled toilet. Neil didn’t succeed to the final but he’s a winner as far as we’re concerned. Food looks good as long as you like meat cooked on a barbecue. Smokehouse gets 2.5 BBS Ticks.
Stevie McLaughlin is Head Chef at the 2 Michelin star Andrew Fairlie restaurant at Gleneagles Hotel. The restaurant is within the hotel and there are three steps to navigate to get from hotel to restaurant using their portable ramp. The disabled toilet is in the hotel so you have to use the ramp again and it takes about 10 minutes to get there, down ‘two and a half’ corridors – not ideal. As far as the hotel’s concerned, they have 3 accessible rooms with wet-room showers but they do get booked up quickly. We also reviewed their Spa which sounded idyllic with some disabled facilities but not completely ok, see the Spa Break review here. We think both restaurant & hotel deserve 2.5 BBS Ticks as the D-Day Veterans would feel very comfortable here. Oh, and his food looked good although he didn’t win the heat.
Jacqueline O’Donnell is chef at The Sisters at Kelvingrove, Glasgow. This is not a good advertisement for inclusivity as there are 12 stairs into the restaurant, located in an old tenement building in the ‘edgy’ part of Glasgow near the new music venue – Hydro. A wheelchair would have to be carried and the stairs are steep so even with sticks this could be tricky (a stair climber is unheard of in this part of Glasgow!!?). Needless to say there’s no disabled toilet but it does look stylish & trendy and her food was quite wholesome. So, unusually, we are only giving 1 BBS Tick. The other restaurant owned by The Sisters is in Jordan Hill, Glasgow, is just the same – up 10 stairs with no disabled toilet and double doors to contend with. So we’re giving them half a BBS Tick. She did get to the chefs final week but not through to the banquet which is a good thing, as any Veteran would have a hard time enjoying either restaurant!!!!!!!!!!
So what of the cooking in the competition? Here’s a summary:
Jacqueline’s “Not Quite Your Mammie’s Liver & Onions” starter consisted of onion puree, calf’s liver, granola of pecans and paprika, onion tuille garnish and pots of cassis sauce on the side. It was liked by the judges getting comments such as “this is absolutely divine,” from Prue Leith and “the crunchiness of the granola on top is a master stroke,” from Matthew Fort.
Stevie’s main dish, “A Letter From Home”, was made to an authentic wartime recipe, including lard and potato pastry, beef wellington, chicken and mushroom mousse over pancakes and fillet of beef encased in puffed pastry. The presentation was okay, including the letter that came with it and the food was outstanding according to the judges. “Wow…that beef is the perfect colour,” said Prue. “As near to perfection as you can get,” said Jim ( the veteran).
Jacqueline got through to the final but not the Banquet and not before she served up a white chocolate Remembrance Candle ‘that was not to be remembered’. It was filled with some sort of ginger confection and by the looks on the judges’ faces, didn’t taste good. There was a distinct lack of green vegetables from the Scottish Chefs and just like the other heats we reviewed, not all the restaurants were 100% accessible to the Veterans and in the case of Jacqueline O’Donnell it would be like a D-Day landing to get into her restaurant.
Wales is next – will they surprise us?? Keep reading……..