You be the judge

As Jude Kereama prepares to offer his Great British Menu dishes to diners through November and December, he looks back over his experiences on the BBC’s iconic culinary show.

The first time I was invited into the Great British Menu (GBM) kitchen was in 2016. I remember the phone call vividly as if it was yesterday. The story goes that the phone rang at Kota and I answered it and a chap introduced himself as Sam from Great British Menu. He was explaining to me that he was doing research on me and had spoken to a few people in hospitality, asking  if I would be a good candidate to be on the show, and asked if I would like to apply. I panicked, and said I would call him back as I needed to ask my wife Jane. I took a deep breath and thought about whether I wanted to put myself through this trial. GBM is known to be the hardest cookery competition in the world, and I would be competing against the best chefs in the UK. It is the ultimate challenge for any chef. I found Jane and told her about the phone call.  I explained about how petrified I was and that it would be the hardest thing I have ever done, and I wasn’t sure if I was up for it. She said: “You will get on that phone right now and tell Sam that you are going to do it! You will do it for me, your son, the restaurants, and yourself.” To put it another way, any success I’ve enjoyed from the show, is thanks to Jane forcing me into it! 

To enter the competition is to expose yourself to the public. It is a scary prospect to enter the kitchen and compete not only against your peers, who are amazing chefs, but also cooking in front of judges and the TV audience. The pressure is immense, with many TV cameras there to pick up every mistake. GBM is a double-edged sword and if you do well you enhance your reputation and your bookings become crazy. If you don’t, it can reflect just as strongly, but in the opposite way. The thought that your families, friends, regulars, village, and staff are all watching and the desire not to let them down adds extra nerves to your performance. Also, the fact you are in a foreign kitchen with different equipment and all the other factors taken into consideration, the GBM kitchen makes you start doubting your abilities and eats away at your confidence, especially as you look at all the other chefs cooking around you and what ingredients and recipes they have come up with. In your head, it becomes a real ‘pressure cooker’ experience.

Some of the highlights of my appearances on GBM have been making new friends with chefs I would not ordinarily have met. For the most part, the contestants become friends for life as they have all shared the highs and lows in the kitchen. Every chef who I have cooked against has agreed with how exhausting the week is. It is the mental, physical, and emotional strain that really knocks you for six. As chefs, we are used to working long hours under extreme pressure, but this still doesn’t prepare you for GBM. At the end of the week, we all got together and shared a beer, swearing we will never do it again. Obviously, I am a sucker for punishment as I have now appeared on the show four times! But after the last time of trying, I finally made it to the Banquet, which is the dream of every chef. That was my culinary highlight and one that has given me my proudest moment in cooking. It was amazing to have my son Joe with me sitting at the Banquet enjoying the day. I will never forget the feeling of relief as I dedicated the win to my late wife Jane, whose persistence and belief in me made me get out of my comfort zone and compete on GBM.  This was for her and Joe.

Every dish on GBM was created especially for the show, and the briefs that we were given each year. You don’t get much time to decipher the information and then come up with all the recipes. Normally, you get the brief in August, which is the busiest time in Cornwall, so you don’t get much practise time either, especially if you are a parent as well as having busy restaurants. Coming up with the ideas for each course and connecting the dish with an inspiration can sometimes be quite tough, and then there are times when you find a deep connection with the dishes straight away. One of my favourites, and probably my most famous, is the Rockpool. The brief was the National Women’s Institute, and I chose one of their key inspirations of family values. It was inspired by the time I loved to spend with my son Joe when he was younger and what we would do together on a day off. One of his favourite things to do was hang out in a rockpool and try and find crabs, mussels, limpets, shrimps, oysters, and foraged seaweed for the restaurant. I decided to create a dish that incorporated most of these elements and make it look like a rockpool. I have had a version of the Rockpool on the menu before, and as I think about it, it might just make a return for the winter!

Great British Menu has had such a positive impact on my cooking. I have had suppliers approach me, wanting me to use their produce and introducing me to the best and freshest ingredients available now. Also, being on the show and seeing so many different cooking techniques has been a real eye opener. Some of the cooking techniques have really impacted on the way I cook and I now use ingredients I never would have used beforehand.  It has also helped me to realise that I can compete with the best and win, which gives me confidence that I can carry into my own restaurants and throughout the kitchens with my chefs.

Participating on GBM has also helped my restaurants with the number of bookings we receive. After the last GBM, we were receiving up to 300 emails a day, and our phone didn’t stop ringing. It was impossible to keep up with! It took three of us up to six hours a day to deal with the huge influx. There were emails from all over the world that wanted to come and dine with us, lots of well-wishers too. GBM goes out all over the world and my mum was so excited and very proud to be watching me back in New Zealand with all her friends and family. Although GBM is a big risk to be on, the benefits have been immense for Kota and Kota Kai.

To any chef who wants to enter GBM, I wish them all the luck. It is the toughest test you will put yourself through and it really is a test of your character. We have seen some of the best chefs struggle and promise never to enter GBM again as they couldn’t cope. There have been many tears shed with disappointment, yells of anger, mistakes made, shaky handed moments, sighs of sorrow, and this is what makes it the ultimate test of how to handle pressure. You must be crazy to do it!

This winter will see Kota offering a mix of all the dishes I have done over the course of four series of Great British Menu. This will include two of my dishes that scored 39 out of 40 in the finals week. It will be a cracking couple of months, I’m sure, as I try and recreate all the dishes to judging chamber quality! My poor kitchen team are going to go through a tough couple of months. Not only do we do around 50 covers every night, but each of the dishes is very intricate, too! I have every faith in them, and when you come and visit us, you can be the judge!

Kota Restaurant
www.kotarestaurant.co.uk