London and South East Fish Great British Menu

HE COUGHS

Is this a tactic, this smokescreen between us?

Three of London and the Southeast's most celebrated chefs enter the fray

for the chance to cook at a breathtaking Olympic feast.

Yesterday, culinary heavyweight Phil Howard

bulldozed into the kitchen in a bid to scare his rivals.

I remember judging you, Marcus.

I'm not intimidated with Phil's reputation.

Go-getter Marcus McGuinness's radical style of cooking came under fire...

Sounds like a random bunch of ingredients.

..and Graham Garrett failed to get off to an Olympic start...

In the last-minute stages of panic.

..with the lowest score of the day.

Quietly, when Graham gets a seven, I think, "Result."

Tonight it's the fish course. It's crucial Graham makes a comeback.

I want to end today in front of the others. That's what I intend to do.

But his triumph is threatened by an octopus disaster.

BLEEP

In this Olympic year,

our chefs are pushing themselves to their physical and mental limits.

Goodbye, Mr Nice Guy. Come on.

Taking inspiration from Olympian legends past and present...

Good.

..in a bid to create ground-breaking food worthy of our world-class athletes.

Woo-hoo!

Judging them is an accomplished veteran of the competition.

Renowned for his award-winning cuisine,

he'll accept nothing short of Olympic excellence.

It's Jason Atherton.

I want those judges to make sure that dish goes to the Olympic banquet.

It's not only my reputation, it's the reputation of London and the Southeast.

After yesterday's close scoring the pressure is immense,

especially for Graham, who's desperate to make up points.

-Reckon you're going to catch up today?

-I hope so.

-You two are out there, aren't you?

-Not by much.

-A point, so you know...

Plenty of scope for leapfrogging, overtaking.

I'm glad you think so. It's what I'm hoping.

First up is Phil Howard, an intimidating culinary force

with decades of two-Michelin-starred cooking under his belt.

He's adamant he can transform his classical approach to honest food

into culinary gold.

If I pull this out the bag, I have an opportunity to take something modest and make it special.

I've got the edge on this course.

You're up first, Phil.

Yeah, I've got plenty to do. I'll see you in there.

-Good luck, Phil.

-Thank you.

-Hi, Phil.

-Here we go.

You want to tell me what you've got and the name of your dish?

A tasting of mackerel with oysters, mussels and winkles.

I think very few people would argue with the fact that a mackerel

is one of our country's greatest, most abundant and cheapest ingredients.

-I see horseradish here.

-Horseradish is a lovely seasoning to go with.

One thing we're doing with the mackerel

is to hot-smoke it, so it's smoked and cooked at the same time.

Season with creme fraiche, celery, salt, horseradish, capers,

and make a quick mackerel pate.

-We're making smoked mackerel veloute.

-You've got a lot to do.

-Loads to do.

What about this dish do you think is innovative?

We've got gelling agent to make a very thin sheet of jelly

with the oyster juice to encase the mackerel tartare

but it's the sheer quality of the dish that you haven't seen before.

Phil's out to elevate the humble mackerel

with four different cooking methods.

It's a demanding dish, relying on high-calibre ingredients.

But has he stretched himself enough for this year's brief?

Phil's doing a lot of things with the mackerel.

He's doing a veloute, a pate and a tartare.

I want to know that Phil's maxed out his inventiveness.

I don't want another two-star dish that looks like it belongs in a restaurant.

I want to see Phil push himself.

Next up is Michelin-starred young-blood Marcus McGuinness,

whose no-holds-barred approach to flavour combinations bagged him joint first yesterday,

something he hopes to build on today.

Jason said that, for the starters, I hit the brief

and, if I carry on, then hopefully that might push me ahead.

-So, Marcus, name of the dish?

-Pollock, peas, coconut in elderflower.

Looks more complicated than that. A lot of ingredients going on. Run me through the dish.

A lovely piece of pollock. I'm going to poach it

and serve it with pea drops and coconut jelly.

I'm going to make a stock then infuse that with kombu seaweed,

it just brings a lovely savouriness.

I'm going to infuse that with some dried elderflowers,

-an English forage ingredient.

-Flowers here?

I've got some begonia flowers, really acidic.

Some forage salad, so I've got chicory, bittercress, sorrel.

What component will knock my socks off to say this dish has to go to the banquet?

The flavours and how they play together.

Hopefully you'll get a beautiful, balanced dish again

with the peas, the coconut, the elderflower on a level pegging.

A lovely, light, floral dish to eat.

Marcus is going all out

with another revolutionary combination of flavours.

pollock, peas and elderflower with a Japanese-inspired fish broth

and fashionable foraged herbs. But has he gone too far?

Marcus has a box of ingredients that are pretty random.

Coconut, elderflower, elderberry, pollock, bonito, kombu.

The list goes on and on and on.

In the wrong hands, it could be an absolute disaster.

Completing the Michelin-starred line-up is Graham Garrett,

determined to defend his corner and come back with a winning dish.

I've got to get that Olympic spirit in my cooking.

That's what I need to do to win this to get to that banquet.

-Hi, Graham.

-Hi, Jason.

-Are you ready to go?

-Ready to go, make my point up.

-Good. Run me through the dish.

It's a salad. It's octopus with blood orange, feta, and black olive salt.

-Tell me what you're doing with him.

-I'm going to take the tentacles off,

cook them in a water-bath, pan-fry them.

-Confident it won't be tough?

-No, it won't be tough.

Lots of little leaves there.

Got some micro-watercress, nice and peppery. Interesting salad, different elements to it.

-A little dice of feta cheese.

-Nice and salty.

Then dehydrate some black olives

which I'm going to whizz up with some salt.

What's the inspiration?

I started looking towards ancient Greece when I saw the Olympic thing.

Those ingredients to me sound Greek, Mediterranean, and that was the starting point.

-What's ground-breaking about it?

-I'm going to make a crispy tuile garnish using fish ink.

That and the black olive salt are the two elements that hopefully will lift the dish.

Graham's channelling the Olympics of old

with a Greek-inspired salad using octopus,

a delicacy of the sea not often seen on Great British Menu.

Is this a risky move? Has he pushed himself enough to fulfil the brief?

Graham is doing octopus.

I'm quite excited by it but at the same time I'm very apprehensive.

This is a tough ingredient to get right.

If he doesn't cook it properly, it can go like leather.

If he gets it right, it could be a magical, magical ingredient.

The starter pistol's been fired and the hard graft begins.

Graham gets to grips with his octopus.

Phil fillets his mackerel and Marcus starts work on his pollock.

With five Michelin stars between them, Jason's expecting great things.

It's the fish course today.

This is the day they need to start making their move.

I want to see a ten or nine dish at the very least. Each chef's capable of doing that.

All three chefs are out to impress

and Phil wastes no time in smoking out the competition

with mackerel for his pate.

-Is this a tactic, this smokescreen between us?

-Yeah.

-I'm just sending my sous-chef a message!

-Do you smoke your own fish?

-We do actually.

-I take it you've got good extraction at the restaurant.

Yeah, very good extraction.

HE COUGHS

When you're smoking anything, the smoke is a very intense flavour

so if you go too far on the smoke, I equate it to licking the fireplace.

-Phil, a bit of smoking going on there.

-Yeah, yeah.

Has this stretched you as a chef?

Yeah. I've got four components to nail in not much time.

A dish that packs a punch with subtle flavours is not easy. You've got to get everything right.

How is Phil going to make something that packs a punch,

and tastes subtle like the tartare? How is he going to marry those together?

Marcus is making a jelly using toasted desiccated coconut

and coconut milk, just one of the unusual flavours in his dish.

Marcus's combination is a challenging one for me.

He's got kombu, so he's dipped into Japan,

coconut, which is kind of tropical.

There's a real mixed bag.

When I first heard what he's cooking,

my initial reaction was, "Why would you do that?"

I think a few people won't get it.

That's fine. That happens with all food.

As long as the majority get it, that will make me very happy.

Graham is keen to prove he can deliver ground-breaking food.

He's making a cuttlefish in tuile, one of the new techniques

he's relying on to ensure his octopus salad hits the brief.

But will it impress Jason?

Explain to me what's in that mixture.

Cuttlefish ink, water, isomalt and Crisp Film.

-And all that achieves what?

-A really fine, brittle crisp.

Where it's dehydrated obviously exaggerates the flavour of the cuttlefish ink and the saltiness,

along with the black olive salt as a seasoning.

Mind if I taste it?

-This is just dehydrated...?

-Dehydrated olives and sea salt.

Graham is talking up the tuile. He's telling me it's ground-breaking.

I'm a bit more dubious. He needs to prove to me

that this tuile will be the star part of the dish.

So Jason has serious doubts about Graham's cuttlefish ink innovation.

Rival Marcus is hoping his radical flavour combinations

will be on the money.

He's made his molecular pea drops and is on to his complex fish stock,

but is that what Jason's looking for?

-Is this your fish glaze?

-Yes.

-You've reduced it over the pollock bones, right?

-Yes, I've made...

Have you crushed the pollock bones?

No, just passed it through the sieve really quite strongly.

It's a nice, tasty fish stock. I'll infuse it with the kombu seaweed.

Then it's infused with bonito,

and then for the last time it's infused with elderflower.

He's made a fish stock with lots of strong flavours.

It was very powerful. It was everything I was hoping it wasn't going to be.

All I could taste was dehydrated elderflower. I think this could kill the dish.

Marcus's overpowering fish stock has bombed with Jason.

Will he be able to recover?

A trailblazer on the London restaurant scene,

Marcus is always on the lookout for fresh culinary inspiration

and can often be found scouring West London parks for wild ingredients.

I'd like to think the judges will be quite impressed

with some foraged ingredients, especially because it's from an urban setting.

The competition is all about the Olympics in London so hopefully it will be quite fitting.

But to really give himself the edge, he wanted to discover something totally unique,

so enlisted the help of expert forager Yun Hider.

-Good morning.

-Hi.

First up, his local park, Wormwood Scrubs.

-I gather it's your stomping ground. You live locally.

-I do live locally.

I come here often for a little forage.

They may be only a stone's throw away from a busy road,

but Yun is confident they'll find hidden edible treasures.

Around here, I reckon we're going to find

at least three or four interesting, tasty plants.

It's not long before something catches his eye.

How about this? Cleavers.

Nice little stem of it here. Lovely plant.

Yun has a novel way of identifying this wild treat.

Absolutely clear as day. Look at that. Sticky Jack.

Cleavers have that really nice, fresh pea flavour,

so I think this will go really well with the pea and coconut in the dish.

-I'm really pleased.

-Excellent.

Having exhausted the park,

they head out of town in their search for unusual ingredients.

-We've found some water, so if we find water, bittercress.

-Fantastic.

And yes, here it is.

-Try some of that.

-Thank you.

That's really good. That lovely pepperiness.

That's going to go really well, give the dish a bit more lift. Really pleased.

Marcus wants to find something that will really give him the edge.

I'm hoping to find some wood sorrel.

I hope we find some because that lemony freshness you get from it

will work really well with the pollock dish.

I'd hoped to find it and we have.

Hopefully you'll like this.

Oh, that's fantastic. That really sharp, lemony kick.

-That'll go fantastically well.

-Good to hear, mate. Lovely.

There's absolutely no doubt that with these wild ingredients,

stuff found from places like this and in nature, you can't go wrong.

We've had some peppery stuff, some acidic stuff,

so it's going to give the dish some different elements, a bit of a lift, more character.

Hopefully the judges will be really impressed.

All three chefs are at full pelt in their effort to deliver an Olympian fish course.

Marcus has prepared his pollock for poaching in the water-bath

and is now picking his wild herbs.

You think foraging is the way forward or is it just this year's trend?

It's very, very rewarding. It brings a lot of yourself.

You've gone out, prepped it, put it on a plate. You can't get much more personal than that.

There is a tendency at the moment, like with everything,

things become fashionable and trendy,

therefore everybody chucks loads of foraged gear at the plate.

But it's Jason Marcus has to impress and he's eager to find out

if the foraged herbs bring anything to the dish.

-Marcus, going to plan?

-So far, so good.

-With these leaves, do you mind if I taste a little flower?

-Please do.

What is this actually adding to the dish, do you think?

Well, you get the texture, the freshness.

Chicory tastes like raw peas. Just emphasising the pea flavour.

I've got nothing against foraged goods, I use them myself.

I just don't like people playing on them too much.

They only add things to a dish if they really work.

So Marcus's foraged herbs could be more yesterday's news than cutting-edge cuisine.

Phil's juggling the numerous elements of his complex mackerel dish.

He's made his mackerel tartare and, in a bid to deliver on innovation,

he's experimenting with an unusual jelly, which is unsettling rival Graham.

-What have you gelled it with?

-It's elastic, very similar to Vege-Gel.

-Do you think the jelly is your secret weapon on this one?

-No.

It is a part of the brief but I would be feeling a bit insecure if it was a secret weapon.

Hopefully it will play a part in keeping Jason happy

that I've stretched myself and fulfilled the brief.

Is Phil's oyster jelly awe-inspiring enough?

Has he intimidated his opponents?

On its own, a mackerel tartare is a classic thing. It's not ground-breaking.

Making the jelly in a different way and wrapping it in jelly,

that takes it to another dimension.

So is that enough for Jason? I don't know.

Graham is first to plate up but there's concern over his dish.

Octopus is a brave choice. It can be quite difficult to get right.

It can be rubbery.

As he checks on his tricky octopus, which has been poaching in the water-bath,

it results in catastrophe.

BLEEP! BLEEP!

Can he salvage his dish or is it dead in the water?

I'm cooking in the water-bath and as I'm taking it out of the bath, the bag's burst.

I'll admit my heart was in my mouth at that moment. I panicked.

Fortunately for Graham, he's got a back-up which is still intact,

but he can't afford any more setbacks.

-Graham, is your octopus OK?

-Yes, mate, luckily.

With time running out, Graham pan-fries the water-bathed tentacles

and can only hope that his octopus is cooked to perfection.

He plates slices of octopus together with blood orange segments,

beetroot, feta, micro watercress and chard

before finishing with a line of black olive salt

and those all-important shards of cuttlefish ink tuile.

There you go, Jason.

-Graham, are you happy?

-Yes, I'm happy with the dish.

Where's the innovation? What's "wow" about this dish?

When you eat the combination of the octopus with the cheese

and then the salt, then you get this nice little crisp ink thing.

It's just the combination of everything together taking it to another level.

OK.

Graham's banking on perfectly-cooked octopus,

a technical cuttlefish ink tuile

and inventive olive salt to make his Greek-inspired salad stand out.

But has he done enough?

-Feeling confident?

-Yeah, I'm feeling pretty good now.

It's a salad. I want it to look colourful and vibrant

and I think I've achieved that.

-Are you happy with the texture of the octopus?

-Yeah, definitely.

I love the flavours. Everything goes together very well.

The octopus is well cooked.

And the feta, what do you feel that brings to the dish?

A creamy element, slightly salty,

and maybe a slightly acidic thing going on with the sweetness.

Again, it's a kind of balancing act.

I think if you were to eat the whole thing,

actually, the flavour you'd have is probably cheese.

Not only is it cheesy but it becomes quite salty too.

I quizzed you a lot in the kitchen about the tuile. What do you think that adds to the dish?

It's got a nice, crisp texture

and the ink has a strong saltiness to it and...

-Too salty?

-I don't think so.

-You can actually taste the fishiness, the ink in it.

-Going onto the black sea salt.

It's a flavoured salt and I think the black olive definitely works.

I think he has brought innovation in there.

He's got his tuile, he's got his olive salt,

-but I do think the finesse has let him down on this one.

-I think so, too.

I think seven will be the upper boundary, probably, of his mark.

It's an Olympic feast.

Why do you think this dish deserves to be at that banquet?

I think it tastes great, for one. It looks really good.

Light and salady for me works ideal.

Right, it don't get any easier, does it? You can't read him.

You don't know what he's thinking. I liked the dish.

It looks colourful. It's what I was trying to achieve.

Next to the pass is Marcus with his far-out mix of ingredients.

He plates his coconut jelly, elderberries

and spherified pea drops before adding flakes of poached pollock,

followed by the wild foraged herbs.

Finally he pours that pungent, elderflower-infused fish stock into separate jugs.

-Happy?

-I'm happy with everything on there.

-Phil, what do you think?

It's very hard to know. It's absolutely up-to-date, inventive.

The techniques are there, it's certainly out there on flavour combinations and it looks great.

It's down to the taste.

Is Marcus's radical combination of flavours

a stroke of genius or a step too far?

-A little bit in between a soup and a salad really.

-Exactly, exactly.

-OK.

The texture of the fish, would you change that? Would you not poach it?

-Are you happy?

-That's the texture I want.

I know there's a lot of flavours going on

but they're subtle flavours, most of them.

If I started roasting the fish, it's going to change the balance.

Trying very hard to be something.

It is lovely because it's immaculately cooked.

The skill factor in the dish, there's no doubting that.

-Do you think the stock came up too powerful?

-I don't think so.

The fish has a good flavour. It works together just fine for me.

-That's certainly got a kick to it.

-Wow. Extraordinary.

-Is it ground-breaking?

-I think the flavour combinations,

I personally haven't seen it before with the Japanese influences.

I think it makes it stand out.

A very complex dish and a very clever dish.

Not easy to produce for 100 people.

I think almost to get to that standard is nigh on impossible.

-As soon as it goes cold, it will die very quickly.

-It already has.

You've got coconut, pea, elderflower, wild herbs. It goes on.

-Do you feel you've got the balance right?

-I think so.

I didn't think that was too bad. I'm pleased with what I produced today.

I'm feeling quite confident. We'll wait and see what he has to say about it.

The final dish under scrutiny is Phil's elaborate tasting of mackerel.

He's now up against it with four technical components to perfect.

He wraps the tartare in its experimental oyster jelly skin

and pan-fries the mackerel fillet for his salad.

Phil looks like a man under pressure.

Next, he fries the mussel tempura and tops his muffin

with smoked mackerel pate before adding the pan-fried fillet.

With so many last-minute elements to nail,

the pressure finally gets to him with his veloute.

BLEEP

With no time to waste, he quickly clears up and it's a dash to the pass.

-How do you feel?

-Yeah, I'm happy with it.

-A lot of components.

Doing this for 100 people, you'd be fine?

It needs a few bodies but I think it's not unrealistic.

Has Phil lifted the humble mackerel to Olympic heights

or has he rested too heavily on his classical laurels?

-Phil, second dish, do you feel more relaxed?

-Yeah, I do.

I knew this would stretch me

so I'm relieved it's there in front of you and not just in my head.

-It looks absolutely stunning.

-It does.

It is very Phil, isn't it?

That envelope of oyster jelly has delivered on the taste and texture you expected?

Part of delivering really special food

is about presentation and packaging

and tartare has to be packaged in some way.

Don't really get the jelly.

-But the tartare is lovely.

-Absolutely fantastic.

Is that going to take this to Olympic heights?

The vast majority of people will be familiar with mackerel

but they won't have had it smoked and in the form of veloute.

-Yes, lovely.

-That's fantastic. Nice and creamy.

Are you happy with the amount of smokiness?

I definitely didn't over-smoke it.

-How do you think Phil's smoked mackerel turned out?

-He's got it about right.

It's a fantastic dish, everything tastes really good,

but I don't see anything that's pushing boundaries very much.

Do you think you stretched yourself? Is this a bit more ground-breaking?

I'm not saying it is the most ground-breaking dish,

but I'm happy that, given the nature and modesty of the original ingredients,

that's an impressive plate of food.

It went all right. It was a push, I have to say.

Was that dish ground-breaking? I'm happy with it.

-I'm never going to produce plates of food as innovative as Marcus.

-That's not you, is it?

Young gun Marcus may be confident he's got the upper hand

when it comes to breaking culinary ground,

but it's Jason who's doing the scoring.

So how are we feeling waiting for the scores? A bit anxious?

More anxious than waiting for the scores on the starter, to be honest.

We've already got one down and I'm one behind.

Having seen your two dishes, you know, we'll see.

In the starter, Phil and Marcus both bagged an eight.

With Graham only one point behind on seven,

it's still all to play for.

-Hello, chefs.

-Hi, Jason.

Graham, your octopus, blood orange, feta cheese and beetroot.

The colours were beautiful.

The octopus, I know you had concerns about it,

but I felt it was executed perfectly.

Cuttlefish ink tuile, this was the bit for you that was ground-breaking.

It did what you wanted it to do, which was add seasoning to the dish

and it looked great and added texture,

but to say it was ground-breaking was probably stretching it a bit.

What I thought was more ground-breaking or more inspiring was the black olive salt.

I kept having to go back to it to season my own food.

I thought that was kind of cool. I liked that.

But essentially, this was a salad

and at this level, Graham, I've got to be perfectly honest,

-I was expecting to be stretched a bit more.

-OK.

Marcus, your pollock, peas, coconut and elderflower,.

Your pollock was cooked to perfection.

The dish looked beautiful, very modern, very bold,

delicate at the same time.

Foraged ingredients, just gone a bit too far with the foraging now.

If a chef talks to me about foraged ingredients, I'm going to chuck myself off a cliff.

A lot of flavours going on.

The kombu stock, I felt a bit too much elderflower.

Phil, your mackerel of oysters, mussels, winkles and samphire.

Very, very pretty dish. It came up, it was sparkling.

I loved elevating mackerel into something spectacular

and you did that in bucket-loads.

Oyster jelly, tartare, if that does go through

I think the judges are going to love the oyster jelly.

I've got to say, out of the two dishes you've served me,

that's by far the best dish.

Graham, for your octopus, blood orange, feta cheese, beetroot,

I'm giving you...

..seven out of ten.

Marcus, for your pollock, peas, coconut and elderflower...

..eight out of ten. Very good dish.

Phil, your mackerel, oysters, mussels, winkles and samphire,

I'm giving you a score...

..of nine out of ten. Well done. A great dish. Really liked it.

Thanks for making it tough for me and see you on the meat course.

-Thanks very much.

-Cheers.

Well, there you go.

INAUDIBLE

Well done.

So, after day two, Phil's pulling slightly ahead of the pack with 17.

Marcus is clinging on to a close second with 16

and Graham's fallen further behind on 14.

It's still pretty close.

It's close enough to make it a competition.

I'm more than happy with my position.

I'm not sure if you've seen my best yet. There's definitely more in the tank.

Having come out top at the end of the second dish,

I now actually want to win it even more.

Tomorrow, it's the main course and Graham's got his work cut out.

I need those two points. I need more than two points or I'm going home.

But when big gun Phil slips up...

BLEEP! BLEEP!

..will Graham steal the lead?

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