Big chef Heston crashes into Little Chef
You knew there was going to be a car crash from the moment you saw chef Heston Blumenthal glancing over his shoulder to talk to the film-maker on the back seat as his shiny black BMW sped up the motorway to Sheffield, Little Chef’s HQ.
Blumenthal, owner of the ridiculously poncey and expensive restaurant The Fat Duck in Bray and creator of dishes such as snail porridge and eggs and bacon ice cream, has been parachuted in to try to save ailing roadside restaurant chain Little Chef. It’s a moot point as to whether this has been arranged by the company’s managers or by Channel 4 for the purposes of its series, Big Chef Takes on Little Chef, which started on C4 last night.
Suffice to say, the inevitable car crash TV ensued. Heston correctly identified Little Chef’s existing menu as a bag of shite, something its customers have known for years, and played it relatively safe by coming up with new menu ideas that were essentially British, iconic but with just a touch of the “magic” that he is renowned for in the world of haute cuisine. Hence the oyster and lamb thyroid Lancashire stockpot.
Needless to say, Little Chef customers didn’t like what was on offer and continued to plug away at the Olympic breakfasts and Hawaiian burgers sponsored by Allied Carpets.
The only point of interest in this story is what Little Chef managing director Ian Pegler wants out of the whole process. An over-stuffed suit full of business cliches, he says he wants “blue-sky thinking” from Blumenthal and suggested the lamb stockpot and chocolate ice cream with an “aura” of dry ice weren’t enough. But if he wants something even more radical he is clearly more out of touch with his few remaining customers than a visit to any Little Chef on the A303 suggests. Popham, the first Little Chef you meet heading south on the 303, is barely useful for a loo stop.
Perhaps the MD was playing a long game over the summer when this was filmed. By allowing Heston to make such a fool of himself, he might hope the chef will be hounded out of the chain so that Pegler and his band of grey-faced businesspeople can continue ruining the Little Chef business themselves.
