Raymond Blanc's "The Restaurant"

[britcook]

Anybody else watching this? At least it doesn't dumb down and suffer from the multiple repeats of recent cooking shows. A week was probably too short a time to get ready, but it shows it's a tough business. And for those who didn't see her post Erica Graham's Allium has been transformed into Ostrich.

[Matthew Grant]

Do the winners actually get to keep the same restaurant they were running? If so were you prepared to leave Erika?

[Gary Marshall]

i don't think that's part of the deal , it sounds like the winner gets a joint venture with raymond blanc in a restaurant rather than the one they were running.

Watchable show i thought, brought back a lot of memories

[bakerestates]

The Apprentice does restaurants............I thought they were dropped in the deep end.....but hey makes good TV and I'm sure not having the pressure of bank loans and life savings lost reduced the fear factor slightly.

[insomniac]

I actually got so agitated watching the pre and opening night that I changed channels for 5 minutes to calm down but I guess that makes good TV...does anyone know how the 'contestants' were chosen??

[jackal10]

Take assorted incompetent and inexperienced couples and drop them into setting up and running a restaurant, then set them pointless challenges.

What a surpise that running a restaurant is hard, and that if you are in the weeds, people wait 2 hours for undercooked food.

Its crap. TV for masochists who like seeing tears. Not even about good food.

[erica graham]

Bless them, it was like lambs to the slaughter- and believe me it WAS a slaughter in The Ostrich, the programme made it look a million times better than it was!!

Still, I never realised that Fairford looked so pretty!!

I was 9 months pregnant whilst it was all going on hence the reason for us allowing a couple of muppets loose on the general population- and yes the town has forgiven us as it caused such hilarity all round.

They even telephoned us at the hospital when I was in labour to ask us how to fix the broken dishwasher!!

I might appear on tonights episode as I was present at the challenge- but hopefully I managed to hide from the cameras- however if you see a HUGE HUGE pregnant woman in a black sack- well that was me!! (I gave birth 2 days later!!!!)

[algy]

was there a tie in with tesco or is that where all chefs buy their supplies?

[Magnus Lindgren]

watched it today ok i know my patience w reality tv cooking shows (yes that is actually a senctence)is not the best, but what a load of crap poor RB to give these people the control of one of his restaurants in the end. That american lady made me wanna drop my pizza slice, jump out of my skin, into the tv and shut her up. o my god how annoying was she. No i feel dirty after wasting my time watching that crap.

and you wont see me again in this thread.

/Magnus

Edited August 30, 2007 by Magnus Lindgren (log)

[erica graham]

That american lady made me wanna drop my pizza slice, jump out of my skin, into the tv and  shut her up. o my god how annoying was she. No i feel dirty after wasting my time watching that crap.

and you wont see me again in this thread.

/Magnus

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Jackie really was like that too- no editing required. She was sweet, but only in small doses and wide spaces- in an enclosed room it was like being faced with betty boop crossed with minnie mouse!

Edited August 30, 2007 by erica graham (log)

[britcook]

Jackie really was like that too- no editing required. She was sweet, but only in small doses and wide spaces- in an enclosed room it was like being faced with betty boop crossed with minnie mouse!

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Nicely put! I think it was incredibly brave of you to hand over your restaurant to novices. As I explained to my wife, they took over perfectly good restaurants for a short time and turned them into disaster zones (and that was before the flood). Do keep us posted on the return to normality/

[olicollett]

Take assorted incompetent and inexperienced couples and drop them into setting up and running a restaurant, then set them pointless challenges.

What a surpise that running a restaurant is hard, and that if you are in the weeds, people wait 2 hours for undercooked food.

Its crap. TV for masochists who like seeing tears.  Not even about good food.

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Agreed. I'd much rather see such a program with some young, enthusiastic chef's who have kitchen experience. Dare i say it, I thought Jamie's kitchen was a much better concept in that respect.

[Gary Marshall]

I don't think they need the challenges, given the inexperience of the teams just letting them get on with it will provide enough entertainment.

It's not really about the food or fine dining it's about the dream that many capable home cooks have that they could pack it all in, and run a restaurant, at least this show is giving a flavour of the reality.

and like any of these shows if the people were too competent it wouldn't make 'good tv'

[erica graham]

Do keep us posted on the return to normality/

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We have the final confrontation, oops I mean meeting with our loss adjuster today, and if we manage to sort out the final settlement we will be buying our new kitchen on Monday, with a plan to open the restaurant week begining 1st October!

[Corinna Dunne]

That american lady made me wanna drop my pizza slice, jump out of my skin, into the tv and  shut her up. o my god how annoying was she. No i feel dirty after wasting my time watching that crap.

and you wont see me again in this thread.

/Magnus

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Jackie really was like that too- no editing required. She was sweet, but only in small doses and wide spaces- in an enclosed room it was like being faced with betty boop crossed with minnie mouse!

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She's what you'd call "grate TV"... so we'll probably be seeing plenty more of her and her partner (who is probably just practising for his real role in a .Jools-Holland-does-serious-music-Apprentice).

[Jonathan Ellis]

Do keep us posted on the return to normality/

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We have the final confrontation, oops I mean meeting with our loss adjuster today, and if we manage to sort out the final settlement we will be buying our new kitchen on Monday, with a plan to open the restaurant week begining 1st October!

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Look forward to it. We'll be there for my Wife's birthday begining of October....we live in Ampney Crucis by the way, so not far to come!

[erica graham]

She's what you'd call "grate TV"... so we'll probably be seeing plenty more of her and her partner (who is probably just practising for his real role in a .Jools-Holland-does-serious-music-Apprentice).

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No, I can honestly say she wont bother you for weeks and weeks!! (if you get my drift)

[Matthew Tomkinson]

Does anyone know of anywhere where this programme can be watched again online?

Thanks

[jackal10]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/restaurant/ but why would you want to?

[Matthew Tomkinson]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/restaurant/ but why would you want to?

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I was away on holiday and missed it

[Duncan]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/restaurant/ but why would you want to?

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I was away on holiday and missed it

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We were on holiday too, but we caught up last night (they nearly caught us out by doing two episodes a week, but we'd tivo'd the first episode and the second was repeated yesterday).

Jackie was just as bubbly as we remembered (nice in small doses), but the jazz thing was obviously even worse thought out than we'd realised at the time: the mayor was dead right saying she thought it would be too loud for the space, and I guess we'll never know why Sam spent time setting up his drum kit while customers were waiting for food.

The scary bit (for us) comes on Wednesday evening when they'll be covering the evening we spent at the Ostrich. Maybe they'll concentrate on some of the other restaurants though, I though they seemed to give the Ostrich an awful lot of coverage in that first episode.

[ravelda]

I've been meaning to ask for a while but, has anyone else noticed that Raymond Blanc looks just like Duncan Banatyne (Dragon's Den) in certain (read "a lot of") poses?

[fisherman]

Was that a very bored and hungry looking Duncan and Judy I just saw on my television?

[erica graham]

Was that a very bored and hungry looking Duncan and Judy I just saw on my television?

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And what star potential..........Great to see you Duncan and Judy!! Knew it was bad, but... damn......I was in labour whilst you were waiting....I think my ordeal was way better than yours!!!!!

[RDB]

Come on Duncan did you pay or not