Is it any longer possible for our top chefs to resist the allure of a media career? David Smolt says he for one can't be bought
It was with distress and despair that I witnessed the antics of Gary Rhodes and Jean-Christophe Novelli on Hell's Kitchen. Although I've never met either, we are all bound together by the profound influence we've had on modern British cooking.
To watch my peers fall from grace as they prostitute their culinary gifts for a pocketful of silver brings me little satisfaction. Yet I suppose in some ways I should be grateful. Their descent from serious cooking means the band of us who can still be regarded as at the vanguard of Britain's culinary march grows ever smaller. Yes, there is still great potential in the likes of Tom, Marcus and even that bald youngster in Leeds, but increasingly I feel like the sole bearer of the flame. Believe me, it's getting lonely at the top.
Gordon, of course, has long been lost to the empty world of celebrity; fair play to him, he's even won a Bafta. But can that ever compare with reaching the last four in the 1996 Edible Essex Restaurant Awards? I for one will not be watching Heston Blumenthal in the new series of BBC 2's Full On Food - some of us have award-winning kitchens to run.
What made Hell's Kitchen even worse is that the whole thing was so obviously a setup. It must have been clear to anyone who knows their way around a kitchen that Geordie Terry is a talented chef who was playing a very crafty game in keeping his talent well disguised. Cleverly, he did just enough to impress gullible Gary and claim the 250,000 prize. His signature dish of King Prawn Rockefeller struck me as the work of a genuine innovator - and a kindred spirit - with the playful and witty use of instant mash a real masterstroke.
Gordon, Heston, Gary and Jean-Christophe may like to think they come across as the tough cookies of the kitchen, but in my opinion it takes much bigger cojones to resist the lure of the media honeypot. Naturally I too have had offers. Just last week I was offered the opportunity to join a line-up of celebrities for a light-hearted panel discussion on Chelmsford (South) FM about the latest rash of food scares. Despite the offer of not insubstantial travel expenses and the use of the subsidised canteen, it will come as little surprise to you that I'm seriously considering turning it down...
David Smolt is senior chief executive chef at the six-bedroom, two-AA-star Auberge du Montbazillac, just outside Chelmsford