Star chef’s TV triumph

Apr 18 2009 by Jane Hall, The Journal

SEAHAM Hall’s Michelin-starred chef Kenny Atkinson last night won through to the final of the BBC’s Great British Menu.

The North East’s only Michelin chef beat fellow Geordie Ian Matfin into second place in the very public ‘knives at dawn’ televised contest.

Millions of viewers have tuned in over the past week as the pair have fought out their culinary battle using only the finest local ingredients as their weapons.

At stake has been the honour of cooking for Britain’s returning war heroes at a summer banquet to be held at the RAF’s historic Halton House in Buckinghamshire.

Both Kenny and Ian were charged with putting together a starter, fish dish, main course and dessert that reflected a “taste of home,” for our frontline forces returning from Afghanistan.

Kenny, 32, opted for a salad of Aberdeen Angus beef, carrots, horseradish and Shetland black potatoes followed by Craster fish pie, a main course of Northumberland Blackface lamb, asparagus, baby leek and pease pudding and finally strawberry textures for dessert.

And last night Great British Menu judges Prue Leith, Matt Fort and Oliver Peyton selected Newcastle-born Kenny’s four courses to catapult him into the televised final in May against seven other regional winners.

The public will then be asked to vote on which chefs dishes will be served at the glittering banquet for 100 troops and their families.

Last night an ecstatic Kenny, who joined the White Room restaurant in County Durham in August and lives near Seaham Hall with his pregnant wife Abbie, 29, and three-year-old son Aaron, said he was “over the moon” to have made the final eight. “It is a fantastic achievement and is the next step to being a part of the banquet and showing the rest of the country that the North East can compete against the best when it comes to food.

“But for me it is really all about the banquet. My brother is in the forces and has served in Iraq, so I have a personal reason as well as a professional one for wanting to see my food on the menu at the troops homecoming banquet.

“As chefs we can find ourselves living in our own little world, and I think we often forget about people like our troops and their families who in each and every way give up so much.