Kenny Atkinson serves up banquet of a lifetime

Jun 11 2010 by Katharine Capocci, The Journal

TOP North East chef Kenny Atkinson is still reeling after he won the ultimate prize of cooking at a Great British Menu banquet for the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.

Kenny’s line-caught mackerel with gooseberries won the fish course, one of four courses served up at the banquet, broadcast last Friday, and attended by some of the nation’s finest food producers.

And Kenny’s winning fish dish is now on the menu at the luxurious Rockliffe Hall hotel near Darlington, where he has his own eponymously-named restaurant. The mackerel is available as part of a three-course menu costing £45 and will be on throughout the summer. It will run alongside his six-course Great British Menu tasting menu costing £60.

Competing chefs were put through their paces on the BBC2 culinary competition which ran for nine weeks. They were charged with cooking up a meal using the best British ingredients sourced from the farms, gardens and neighbouring producers to their local National Trust property.

Kenny was joined by other winning chefs Lisa Allen, Tom Kerridge and Niall McKenna, who overcame stiff competition from four other regional finalists to prepare their winning dishes for 100 guests at the National Trust’s Assembly Rooms in Bath.

Kenny drew his inspiration from the National Trust’s Wallington Estate in Northumberland.

The chef, who was also a winner on last year’s Great British Menu with his starter dish of beef salad, said: “For the past nine weeks we’ve all been competing against each other. We all pulled together really well and helped each other out. It was hard work but I thoroughly enjoyed it.”

However Kenny does not have any plans at this stage to enter the competition for the third year running.

The other winning dishes served up at the banquet were Lisa Allen’s starter of wild rabbit and leek turnover with piccalilli, Tom Kerridge’s slow-cooked duck main course and Niall McKenna's dessert of poached rhubarb with strawberry jelly.