Great British Menu 2022: Three Yorkshire chefs at Joro, Home and Fleur Cafe will be competing in the BBC Two cooking show

Sheffield-based head chef at Nordic/Japanese restaurant Joro, Luke French, will join Bobby Geetha and Mark Aisthorpe, chef patrons of Fleur Cafe and The Bull’s Head respectively, and Yorkshire-born chef, Liz Cottam, who owns the restaurant HOME in the North East and Yorkshire heat.

The theme for this year’s competition is celebrating 100 years of British broadcasting and chefs from all over the country will be competing to have their dishes served in the Great British Menu banquet.

Andi Oliver is presenting the series with a new line-up of judges including Michelin-starred chef Tom Kerridge, restaurateur Nisha Katona and comedian and food podcast host Ed Gamble.

The next episode, which airs on Tuesday, March 8, at 8pm, will feature for the first time the North East and Yorkshire.

The four chefs will compete to represent the region in the finals week, with one lucky winner selected to compete against chefs from across the country to have their dishes picked out for the banquet.

The judge for this episode will be a previous winner of the Great British Menu and remains a surprise to the chefs until the moment they walk into the kitchen to sample the first course canapes.

Both Liz and Bobby are shortlisted as Chef of the Year in the Yorkshire Evening Post’s Oliver Awards 2022.

Here is everything you need to know about the four chefs competing in the next episode of Great British Menu.

Who is Luke French?

Luke is the owner and chef director of the Sheffield-based restaurant Joro, which serves Nordic and Japanese cuisine and first opened its doors in 2016.

The popular establishment has since expanded into a mini-empire with branches in Sheffield and Liverpool.

Luke grew up in Cambridgeshire and has been passionate about food since he was a teenager, having worked as a pot wash at the age of 14, which led to a catering NVQ following his GCSEs.

When he was 18 years old, he moved to Cambridge and landed a job cooking at the university, where he worked with a team of people who cooked for thousands of students every day.

Following his university cooking years, he joined Alimentum, an aspiring Michelin star restaurant, where he experienced his first taste of fine dining.

Inspired by his background at Alimentum, Luke decided to take the plunge and approached Cambridge’s most prestigious restaurant, the two-starred Midsummer House. Not long after, he moved on to do a stage at The Fat Duck, where he could experience a different style of gastronomy.

It wasn’t until he left the UK to travel around Asia that he had a vision. When he returned to the UK, he spent time working for hotels around Cambridge, then decided to move to Sheffield where he worked as a station chef at the highly popular gastropub, The Milestone. Over the next five years, he worked his way up to head chef, meeting his wife Stacey and then went on to help expand the business.

Who is Liz Cottam?

Elizabeth Cottam is the owner of Leeds restaurants HOME, The Owl and CORA.

She found fame when she appeared on Masterchef in 2016, where she reached the semi-finals of the competition.

HOME is featured in the 2022 Michelin Guide, along with her new contemporary bakehouse and restaurant CORA, based in Boston Spa.

Who is Mark Aisthorpe?

Mark’s culinary career began at the University of Sheffield catering team, before going on to work at Cliveden House and Petrus, under Marcus Wareing. He has also worked with Gordon Ramsey.

In 2016, he saved up enough money to fund his lifelong ambition of owning his own pub restaurant, The Bull’s Head in Holymoorside, Derbyshire, where he uses locally sourced produce wherever possible.

Whilst cooking, his goal is to ‘give traditional British food the elegance of a contemporary fine dining experience’.

Who is Bobby Geetha?

Bobby Geetha was born in Kerala, India, and owns Fleur Cafe, based in Leeds, and Casa Peri Peri in Wakefield, alongside owner Zack Isaak.

He was the finalist in The Masterchef: The Professionals in 2015 and has decades of hands-on managerial experience at five-star luxury hotel kitchens.

Bobby is the author of five cookbooks on fine dining Indian cuisine and is the founder of the website, finediningindian.com.

He has trained at Michelin-starred Noma in Denmark and has worked in Dubai, where he was named United Arab Emirates’ Best Indian Chef in 2018.

Bobby is now based in Leeds and is a consultant chef, restaurant owner and his cooking will be inspired by his Indian heritage, and love of the North, in Great British Menu to showcase Yorkshire’s culinary skills.

How can I watch Great British Menu?

The first North East and Yorkshire heat will air on BBC Two on Tuesday, March 8, at 8pm.

One chef will be eliminated at the end of the episode before the remaining chefs compete in an episode airing on Wednesday, March 9, at 8pm.

A winner for the North East and Yorkshire heat will be announced by the judges in an episode airing on Thursday, March 10, at 8pm.

You can watch the episode live on BBC Two or alternatively you can catch up on the episode on BBC iPlayer.