Hosted by Eamonn Holmes and featuring Michelin star chef Danni Barry and food critic Joris Minne as judges, Farm To Feast: Best Menu Wins returns for a second series.
The cookery competition celebrates award-winning produce from farms and fisheries across Northern Ireland. This series introduces seven brand new amateur cooks, who move into a castle in Fermanagh to live with and compete against each other, until one is crowned the winner.
The seven competing cooks are: Seana McCafferty from Londonderry, Kerry Kane from Newtownards, Alex Huston from Belfast, Shubham Baviskar from India and currently living in Belfast, Karen Mulholland from Bangor, Ricky Robinson from Belfast and now living in County Tyrone, and Mandipa ‘Mandi’ Dhliwayo, originally from Zimbabwe currently living in Belfast.
Episodes one to four begin with a reveal of two key ingredients, from which the contestants must create a menu for one small and one large dish. Danni and Joris blind select their favourite three menus – determining the three cooks who’ll battle it out in the kitchen for a place in the semi-final. Those not picked enjoy an opportunity to taste the competitor’s dishes, and a chance to try again next time.
After four heats, the judges whittle the contestants down to four deserving semi-finalists and the pressure ramps up as they have their culinary creativity put to the test once more.
All four semi-finalists will get to cook their small dish – the top three then go onto cook their large dish, with the cooks responsible for the judges’ favourite two dishes becoming the finalists.
In the finale the last two cooks standing face the ultimate culinary showdown. Revisiting two of the ingredients previously featured in the competition, they’re tasked with preparing a formal two course meal to be served in the castle’s grand state dining room; enjoyed by the Earl of Erne, the two food producers behind the key ingredients, the five cooks who didn’t make it into the final and judges Danni and Joris.
Which cook will triumph under pressure to become the worthy winner?
The series is made by Stellify Media and will able in its entirety on BBC iPlayer from Friday 24 March, and also shown weekly from the same date on BBC One Northern Ireland at 7.30pm.