‘Last Restaurant Standing’ Finale: My Couple Lost, But Show is a Winner

When I saw BBC America’s Last Restaurant Standing (LRS) (known in the UK as “The Restaurant”) for the first time, the first thought was this is really different. In it’s final several weeks it was in the identical time slot as the start of (the US version of) Hell’s Kitchen (HK). As BBC repeated it’s show later that night and Fox didn’t repeat HK at all. HK won out the time slot for me, making me wait until midnight for the BBC repeat to catch LRS.

Wow! If I thought LRS was different the first time I saw it, imagine watching it two hours after hearing Ramsay kick and scream a blue streak. Where HK is all blurry and bluster and the music is pounding drums, trumpet calls, violin crescendos and at times recalls the 1812 Overture in one’s mind. Here is LRS, hosted by the soft spoken Raymond Blanc. The helicopter views of English countryside and a traditional estate. The voice-over announcer gently whispering, and no doubt have spent the rest of his life announcing golf games. The background music is reminiscent of jewlery box tunes and Brahms. Yes, on the one hand here’s a Brit screaming at the top of his lungs on American television like a barrage of cannons going off, and there is a Frenchman on a British television show having a conversation as though speaking in a public library. Darkness and light, fire and brimstone versus placid and delightful, Sam Kinison or Charles Kuralt.

Although I’ve enjoyed the entire first season of LRS. And therefore look forward to next year. (I know the British version is currently casting and might even be starting to shoot soon.) I have to say it’s always so difficult to still like your favorite competition show your favorite reality show when your choice of winner didn’t win. Such was the case here with Last Restaurant Standing Tuesday night (er, since it was the midnight showing, make that Wednesday morning).

I have no idea how the hell — must be the damned editing these reality shows do, dunno — but I have no idea how the hell Jeremy and wife Jane won over the twins Jess and Laura. Well, I do. And yet, I don’t. Again, how much is clever editing on these shows and how much isn’t? And if it is clever editing that hides things then brngs them to light only very much later, does this help give the show momentum? Or does it help the viewer feel cheated, for they had had important info hidden from them for so long and therefore was not watching reality, only a staged and edited version of it which, in the end, was too different from what was shown. Again, in short, the viewer is cheated.

Even though such lofty philosophical debate is worth it and is germaine to this conversation, we’ll leave that go another day for it is almost impossible to answer. I can only say what I know. What I know is, from day one (week one?) Jeremy was resistant to the local produce challenge and never actually cooked with local. Yet the couple stayed. On the same show he didn’t even cook seasonal, he/they stayed. When it came to the frozen food competition he told the person in charge of a billion dollars of frozen food he hated microwaves. During the live eel challenge, he almost didn’t do that challenge either. The couple’s concept of the eight-courses was put down by Blanc and associates constantly throughout the entire season. They won. Huh????

 
Chef Raymond Blanc and his team (left); winners Jeremy and Jane (right).

Meanwhile the twin sisters seemed to flourish all the time. The week when the challenge was to push cocktails and desserts — that’s where the money is, said Blanc — Jess and Laura did an astounding something like 72 out of 74 patrons they got to purchase a drink. They won a star that week. When the challenge was another week to inspire staff, they had their waitresses go for a goal and the winner got some kind of card to spend at a shoe store (or something.) No one did anything close to that. When a challenge involved using fresh ingredients from Blanc’s own restaurant farm, the sister who was the cook was inspired by it. When they mentioned amounts of money brough in and profits versus gross, while other teams were up and down the twin’s were consistant. Oddly they kept getting taken to task for being stagnant, while other teams were up and down or just the money was down. Um, to me, duh, stagnantly making a consistant profit meant you were ahead.

But then, the producer’s editing kept some of this information hidden which later came back to surprise the viewers. For instance the engaged couple who ran the restaurant with food from Ghana, Lloyd and Adwoa, seemed like constant front-runners, head to head with the sisters. The camera almost always showed their restaurant busy. Then suddenly one week we hear for the first time that they are up one week, losing money the next, up the following week, again losing money. Huh? How did that happen with all those busy diners. Editing magic. Later that same episode we see Lloyd out in the streets trying to get business and they end up having something like 12 people on a Friday night. Amazing how we were LED to believe they were front runners up until that episode. Or, speaking of holding back on the money figures, how Jeremy and Jane were always berated for their slightly grandiose eight-course concept “at a time, Blanc said, when people want lighter meals and not so many courses” and yet it turns out they were almost consistently making top money each week and more each week after, a fact not mentioned until the last two episodes. Serioiusly, a total kick in the head from out of left field. And back to what annoys me worse about reality television.

From what I could make out the reason the couple that won won was because (and they said these things), he was the best cook of all of them and they made the most money then all of them. They also said when comparing them to the sisters Blanc thought this was more the married couple’s dream (he was a military cook before) and that while it was important to the sisters (who were children’s entertainers before the show) that it wasn’t as much their long-term dream.
Again though, a unique and interesting program. Quite delightful in many ways. You learn some business and some food. I do wish they would spend a bit more time on the food though. Otherwise, again, I really do enjoy this show. As you saw before I gave it four stars and now that the season is over that definitely remains. Even despite my annoyances at editing and the loss of the couple I was backing to win. And although I mentioend I think Blanc proved in two episodes to be prudish, and I stand by that, he’s a very personable man and a very enjoyable host. I do hope next season keeps the same high standards.

Delia Smith: UK Cooking Icon — and Rebel — Turning Things on It’s Ear

Ok, so what exactly is going on there in England when it comes to cooking? Basically, as with cooking in other parts of the world, Canada, America, Australia, France … The whole “organic” movement is taking root. Organic and artisan and free-range poultry and local veggies grown in a local farm or your back garden (we see this exemplified by television shows shown in the US such as Chef’s Afield on Public Broadcasting or UK’s own Jamie Oliver’s Jamie at Home on the Food Network, or the show Manic Organic on one of the Discovery Channels, or this summer’s Emeril Green.

Back to England now, and we’ve seen Jamie who keeps saying use free-range chicken and in every one of his recipes they no longer start off with “two eggs” they always start off with “two organic, free range eggs” and even more than he, chef Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has wept openly over hens pleading for the nation to stop on several occasions. And between those two chefs alone, well, see my previous post: Thanks to Chefs, UK Food Industry ‘Runs A Fowl’ of Ready Supply.

So with all of this laying down the landscape, giving you the “bead” of the land, world wide to some extent, and really dramatically in England … in steps the woman who is pretty much to England what Julia Child was to America. Consider her the returning elder leader, the matriarch of UK cookery, Delia Smith who does what? Turns everything on it’s ear. Here’s an example I mentioned previously.

Ok, so what’s she done now? Basically while the UK about her is all tuned into the organic, free-range movement and chefs are all pontificating how not to eat tortured animals and such, she’s telling folks how to open a tin of meat and some potato flakes and freaking out the food world there. The Restaurant’s Raymond Blanc (the program known in the US as Last Restaurant Standing has — quoting TV Scoop” “already had a go, saying that he has lost all respect for Delia and feels that she has sold out.”

Or look at this headline in The Times: “Delia Smith has sinned against the foodie priesthood” the article goes on to say:

Delia’s sin in her new book and series is to stray from the organic orthodoxy preached by the priesthood of celebrity chefs. She champions cheap and quick recipes using (the horror!) frozen and tinned food, and has offended the Green and the Good further by insisting that battery chicken is necessary to feed hard-up families.

Here comes the interesting thing though, TV Scoop ponders, is this grand mother of English cooking the only rebel?

Watching the show left me with one major question: Is Delia the only real rebel in cookery? Seriously. Think about it. Jamie Oliver may play the drums and have a camera man who is a little unsteady on his feet, and with that, has gone on his crusades to save us all from Belly’s Gonna Get You … and Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall has wept openly over hens, soothing their hock burns with his tears… but who is the only one in the maelstrom saying ‘y’know what? Stick your lofty notions, some people can’t cook to save their lives and if taking a few short-cuts is gonna kick-start a love affair with the hob, then here’s the big F.U!’ It’s Delia that’s who.

There isn’t a show on the box that shows people how to start cooking. Ramsay et al are useful for people like me who aren’t afraid to have a go in the kitchen… but if you’re nervous about the difference between flours or how rare a piece of beef can be, then this new Delia show might just be a godsend.

Review: ‘Last Restaurant Standing’

Last Restaurant Standing (BBC America)

Not sure why, but having heard the premise I didn’t think I would like this new reality competition food show. So much so it delayed my watching it, missing the first episode or two. I can report I was happily mistaken. Sometimes it’s in the editing, the pace, the coverage. Whatever, this show has it. For one, the completing folks here (usually married couples, but there are two twin sisters) have a real restaurant. I thought they were going to jam these people in “faux” restaurants, you know, the way they do the restaurant challenge segment every year on Top Chef. But these are real. And not even next to each other or stuck in one place. They’re 50-100 miles apart in some cases. As I said it’s real. And I was putting off watching this not expecting that, and delighted it is.

In short a famous French chef now in England, Raymond Blanc, who’s rolling in the dough gives nine sets of folks their chance to open a restaurant. We follow them each week. Besides how they do — do they loose patrons, do they make a profit — they are also given assignments, for instance this week it was “now that they are open, create cocktails and desserts and push them”. You see, this is where the money is made, not off the entrees as much. These are the things that keep restaurants in business and help them make a profit. We watch as the competitors each deal with their own struggling new business, new week problems, each other, and the new challenge. Each week a restaurant is closed down until one remains on which the main chef guy finds is worth his investing in. In short, they win.

Nice idea. Cameras in each restaurant. Case managers to check in. Well executed. It all comes down to, do I care to see what happens next week? And indeed I do. I’m looking forward to it. That’s the mark of any show, but especially the hallmark of a reality competition show. Another score for those folks across the Pond. If I find at the end of the season it stayed high, it could rank from me a rare five stars. As it’s new and I’m not yet addicted (and not sure if I will be or not) for now, a still excellent: 4 stars.

The TCB Ratings System : 5 stars : a sumptuous feast time and time again
: 4 stars : so good you want second helpings
: 3 stars : a decent meal but it needs spice
: 2 stars : brown-bag lunch with stale bread
: 1 star : a TV dinner from the Sixties
: 0 stars : I’d rather have salmonella