The Wright Taste is a five-part BBC Wales documentary series that started in late October 2008.
The title is a pun on the name of food critic and restaurateur Simon Wright, who featured in the series. [1] Wright was a partner in the restaurant Y Polyn in South West Wales. Y Polyn also features on cookery show The Hairy Bikers' Food Tour of Britain .
Simon Wright is a food writer, broadcaster and restaurateur who was formerly editor of the AA Restaurant Guide and was Restaurant Consultant for Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares . [1] In 2010 he won a "Wales the True Taste Champion" award from the Welsh Assembly Government for supporting the Welsh food and drink industry. [2]
Wright rose to public prominence in 2002 when he became involved in a row about Petrus restaurant, co-owned by Gordon Ramsay and his former protégé Marcus Wareing. The restaurant's rating was downgraded at the insistence of Roger Wood, then managing director of the AA. Wood had visited the restaurant before dining there and expressed himself as unsatisfied with the arrangements. Wright objected to Wood's intervention and backed the recommendation of the organisation's professional inspectors. Eventually Wright resigned in protest, leading to substantial coverage in the national press. Following the publicity the decision was reversed and Petrus received the rating originally recommended by its inspectors. [3]
Wright did not rejoin the AA. He wrote several books and produced radio and television programs for BBC Wales. [4]
Wright later presented Wales on the Menu , a BBC Radio Wales six-part food series.
A book was also published by Wales-based Gomer Press. It features recipes from the series along with stories of Wright's experiences tracking his journey from field to fork.
Gordon James Ramsay is a British chef, restaurateur, television personality and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 17 Michelin stars overall; it currently holds a total of seven. His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. After rising to fame on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1999, Ramsay became one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the world.
Marcus Wareing is an English celebrity chef who is currently Chef-Owner of the one-Michelin-starred restaurant Marcus in Knightsbridge. Since 2014, Wareing has been a judge on MasterChef: The Professionals.
Mark Sargeant is an English chef and restaurateur from Larkfield, Kent.
British cuisine is the specific set of cooking traditions and practices associated with the United Kingdom. Historically, British cuisine meant "unfussy dishes made with quality local ingredients, matched with simple sauces to accentuate flavour, rather than disguise it". International recognition of British cuisine was historically limited to the full breakfast and the Christmas dinner. However, Celtic agriculture and animal breeding produced a wide variety of foodstuffs for indigenous Celts. Wine and words such as beef and mutton were brought to Britain by the Normans while, Anglo-Saxon England developed meat and savoury herb stewing techniques before the practice became common in Europe. The Norman conquest introduced exotic spices into Great Britain in the Middle Ages.
Angela Maria Hartnett is an English Michelin-starred chef. A protégée of Gordon Ramsay who became well known by her appearances on British television, she was Chef-Patron at Angela Hartnett at The Connaught in London. Currently, she is Chef-Patron for Murano in Mayfair, Café Murano in St James's and Covent Garden, Cucina Angelina in Courchevel (France) and joint owner of Merchant's Tavern in Shoreditch.
Jason Atherton is an English chef and restaurateur. His flagship restaurant Pollen Street Social gained a Michelin Star in 2011, its opening year. He was the Executive Chef at Gordon Ramsay's Michelin starred Maze in London until 30 April 2010. In 2014 he co-hosted the Sky Living TV series My Kitchen Rules.
Hell's Kitchen is an American reality competition cooking show that premiered on Fox on May 30, 2005. The series is hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who created and appeared in the British series of the same name. Each season, two teams of chefs compete for a job as head chef at a restaurant, while working in the kitchen of a restaurant set up in the television studio. A progressive elimination format reduces a field of 20 to 12 to a single winner over the course of each season. In a typical episode, a single contestant is selected for elimination. The series notably features Ramsay's explosive anger towards contestants, which in reality is heavily dramatized for the benefit of the audience. Hell's Kitchen has been nominated for six Primetime Emmy Awards. A chain of Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen restaurants have been opened, inspired by the show.
Wales on the Menu is a BBC Radio Wales series where restaurateur, writer and food critic Simon Wright challenges home cooks of Wales to get their dishes on the menu of top restaurants across the UK. They must survive the criticism of leading chefs before a panel of diners decides whether they have succeeded in putting Wales on the Menu.
Ramsay's Best Restaurant is a television programme featuring British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay broadcast on Channel 4. During the series restaurants from all over Britain competed in order to win the "Ramsay's Best Restaurant" title. The initial 16 restaurants were selected by Ramsay from a pool of some 12,000 entries submitted by Channel 4 viewers.
Pétrus is a restaurant in London, which serves modern French cuisine. It is located in Kinnerton Street, Belgravia and is part of Gordon Ramsay restaurants owned by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay's Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Ltd. It has held one Michelin star since 2011, and 3 AA Rosettes.
Amaryllis was a restaurant located in the One Devonshire Gardens hotel in Glasgow, Scotland. It was opened by chef Gordon Ramsay, with David Dempsey operating the restaurant on a daily basis for the celebrity chef. It was awarded a Michelin star in 2002, which it held until the restaurant's closure in 2004.
Aktar Islam is a multiple award-winning British Michelin starred chef, restaurateur and entrepreneur. He left the Lasan Group in 2016 to work on his new, flagship project, Opheem and launched his new Italian restaurant, Legna in winter 2018. His new group of restaurants concentrate on celebration of ingredients and are dedicated to gastronomy. Both Opheem and Legna have opened to critical acclaim and Opheem has received its first Michelin star in October 2019 and is the first and only Michelin starred Indian restaurant in the UK outside of London. Pulperia; an Argentine restaurant built around the celebration of beef opened its doors in March 2020 and has gone on to become the only Michelin listed Steak restaurant in Birmingham.
Angela Hartnett at The Connaught, also known as MENU, was a restaurant owned by Gordon Ramsay Holdings and run by chef Angela Hartnett. It was located within The Connaught in Mayfair, London. The restaurant was opened following Ramsay's successful opening of Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, within the Claridge's hotel, which is owned by the same equity group. Ramsay had originally been asked to move Restaurant Gordon Ramsay into the space, but suggested that Hartnett should run a new operation there instead. The restaurant was awarded a Michelin star in the 2004 guide and held it until it closed in 2007.
The Fat Cow was a restaurant owned and run by chef Gordon Ramsay and his business partner, Rowen Seibel. It opened in 2012 at The Grove shopping centre in Los Angeles, and after a series of legal challenges, it closed permanently in 2014. The menu was described by Ramsay as one you might expect to find in a "neighborhood restaurant."
Stephen Gomes is a Welsh chef and restaurateur based in Cardiff and Essex and originally from Mumbai. He represented Wales in Series 10 of the Great British Menu in 2015. He won accolades for his restaurant Moksh and operated other restaurants across Cardiff.
The Walnut Tree is a restaurant in Llanddewi Skirrid, Monmouthshire, Wales, run by chef Shaun Hill and holds a Michelin star. It was previously owned by Franco Taruschio for more than 30 years, and had previously held a star when Stephen Terry was head chef there. It closed briefly in 2007, which the owners blamed on an appearance on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares three years earlier. It regained its Michelin star in 2010 and continues to hold it.
Paul Ainsworth is a British chef from Southampton, England. He is chef-patron at Paul Ainsworth at Number 6 in Padstow, Cornwall which was awarded a Michelin star in 2013 and has four AA Rosettes. After studying at catering college, Ainsworth worked for Gary Rhodes, Gordon Ramsay and Marcus Wareing.
Fred Sirieix is a French maître d'hôtel best known for appearing on Channel 4's First Dates, and BBC Two's Million Pound Menu. Sirieix grew up in Limoges, France and trained to work in front of house in a Michelin-starred restaurant in France before working at La Tante Claire in London. Until 2019 he was the general manager of Michelin-starred restaurant Galvin at Windows at the London Hilton.
Gordon Ramsay Hell's Kitchen is a multi-national fine dining restaurant chain, owned by British chef Gordon Ramsay, and based on the reality TV show Hell's Kitchen. As of 2022 the chain consists of four US locations and one in Dubai.