Like one long extended advert, the celebrity chef’s new show is not unpleasant – but it brings absolutely nothing to the table. He only makes two dishes!
There is nothing inherently wrong with Tom Kerridge Cooks Britain (ITV1), it is just that there is not particularly anything to it, either. Over half an hour, there are more mentions of the supermarket chain sponsoring the show than there are recipes for the ingredients it highlights (the dishes look delicious, but there are only two of them). Kerridge has been fronting ads for this chain, which pushes a “meet the farmers” campaign, for a while now. This six-part series is simply an extended version of those adverts, repackaged as a television series, in which we get to see some of the pickers, too. It is perfectly pleasant, if flavourless.
Kerridge is an institution of the British culinary scene, and his gastropub The Hand and Flowers, in Marlow, became the first pub to receive two Michelin stars. He has long been a familiar face on television, and for many years he has put his high profile to good use, campaigning for more government support for hospitality, organising against child food poverty, and providing thousands of meals for key workers during the pandemic. Here, we see him with another hat on: fronting a programme that removes the politics from food production almost entirely.
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