As BBC 2’s Great British Menu’s fifth heat is set to kick off on Wednesday 17th April, we spoke to the Scottish contestants Lorna McNee, Benedict Reade and Gordon Jones about what it was like to take part in this year’s competition.
Lorna is the sous-chef at the two Michelin-starred Restaurant Andrew Fairlie at Gleneagles.
It was the Scottish Chef of the Year 2017's second time on Great British Menu: last year, she took on Edinburgh Food Studio’s Ben Reade and Ross Bryans, and only just came short of taking her dessert to the NHS banquet. We asked her about what it meant to her to compete again this year.
Given what happened last year, how important was it for you to come back and bring your dishes to the banquet?
The second time around, as competitive as I am, I pushed even harder. I came so close in last year’s competition and didn’t make it, which was disappointing to say the least.
How was it competing against Ben again, and Gordon for the first time?
It was totally different to the year before – new kitchen, for a start, which was really good, last year’s was badly needing a refurb to be honest.
The three of us have really different styles, which was good. It was more of a challenge - people expected more of me because of how far I got last year. It was quite intimidating and quite hard to try and prove myself for the second time.
How different was it to be judged by Richard Corrigan compared to Phil Howard last year?
I probably cooked differently this year to how I cooked last year – last year I focused a lot more on Scottish produce and Phil really respected and understood that. This year I tried harder to stick to the brief. It was tougher with Richard Corrigan because we didn’t quite find that same bond that I found with Phil Howard. I think Richard would have liked it if I’d done the same thing as I did with Phil – he was very produce-driven.
Can you talk me through your dishes? Your starter was inspired by Elton John, 
right?
I found this idea for a dish which I thought was great and tried to make a dish around it, which is really difficult to do. You’re better finding a dish and then weave your inspiration into it.
Every year Elton John hosts a party to make money for charities – I think it’s an AIDS one – and he has this signature cheese toastie and every year a different chef does a different take on it, so we had gorgonzola cheese, pear, fruit bread. I tried to stick to this cheese toastie idea but make it a little bit more modern, a little bit more my style, but it was difficult.
Image: from left to right, Benedict Reade, veteran judge Richard Corrigan, Lorna McNee, Gordon Jones. Credit: BBC Pictures
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