Gastropub chefs go head-to-head in Great British Menu

Two gastropub chefs are competing in the final of BBC Two's Great British Menu this week.

Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge of Greene King tenancy the Hand & Flowers in Marlow, Buckinghamshire, won last week's South East heat and Andrew Pern, chef/owner of freehold the Star at Harome, North won the North East heat in April.

The chefs are among eight finalists competing in the final (which starts today) to win a prize of seeing their dishes on the menu at The People's Banquet at London's Leadenhall Market.

The winning chefs from each heat are cooking their entered dishes again for judges Matthew Fort, Prue Leith and Oliver Peyton.

Kerridge is cooking Spring lamb broth; lobster burger with mackeral patty, homemade cheese slice and slow-roasted tomato in a brioche bun with thermidor mayonnaise; roast hog with apple sauce and salt baked potatoes and PYO strawberries and cream.

Pern's final dishes are Corned beef with brown ale jelly, salad cream & pickles, blue cheese biscuits; North Sea fish soup with scallops, prawns, lobster and Scarborough Woof, with a kipper sandwich with wild garlic mayonnaise; "deconstructed suckling pig" with miniature pork pies, black pudding scotch eggs, sticky ribs and a loin stuffed with lemon and herbs; and a "Celebration of Yorkshire rhubarb" — rhubarb jelly and custard, Yorkshire puddings with pistachio cream, rhubarb schnapps and elderflower rice pudding.

The other finalists are Chris Ferron, head chef of Deanes at Queens in Belfast, who won the Northern Ireland heat; Lisa Allen, head chef at the Northcote in Lancashire, who won the North West round; Atkar Islam, chef director of Lasan in Birmingham, won the Central heat; Paul Ainsworth, chef/patron at Paul Ainsworth at No. 6 Restaurant in Padstow, who won the South West heat; Michael Smith, head chef at the Three Chimneys on the Isle of Skye, winner of the the Scottish heat and Hywel Jones, executive chef at The Park restaurant, Lucknam Park Hotel near Bath, won the Welsh heat.

The final starts at 6.30pm tonight on BBC Two.