Great British Menu fish course revealed

The judges of BBC competition Great British Menu selected the fish course last night for a banquet celebrating the best of British animation and illustration, inspired by Paddington Bear's 65th birthday.

Nick Beardshaw, representing the south-west, will be cooking the fish course at the banquet, a dish of scallops with Thai sauce, compressed marinated cucumber, finger lime, scallop roe mayonnaise and black rice vinegar jelly. The dish, ‘A moon shaped pool’, is a tribute to the artwork of Radiohead’s 2016 album of the same name.

Judge Ed Gamble described it as an “absolutely outstanding dish” that “blew us away on every level”.

Beardshaw said he was “over the moon”, adding that “to have won that course… with the standard being so high is amazing”.

Beardshaw has worked with mentor Tom Kerridge for more than 10 years. He was part of the brigade when the Hand & Flowers won a second Michelin star in 2011 and was the head chef that launched the Coach in Marlow, which won a star in 2017. In 2018, he moved to Kerridge’s first London restaurant as head chef at Kerridge’s Bar and Grill.

The winners from the regional heats of the competition are competing this week to earn a place at the six-course banquet, with dishes influenced by cartoons, comic books and computer games, ranging from Horrible Histories to Heartstopper.

Earlier this week, Avinash 'Avi' Shashidhara’s Gruffalo-inspired ‘scrambled snake by the lake’ was selected as the starter for the banquet.

Photo: BBC/Optomen Television/Ashleigh Brown