At the start of next year, I will be assuming a new role: head chef at Claridge’s. This is a dream achieved off the back of the most exhaustive culinary training in the world: watching television. I have total confidence in my ability to sear venison, mousse parsnips and brûlée crème, thanks to a menu of shows ranging from MasterChef and Hell’s Kitchen to Sweetbitter and The Bear. And now, as the final part of my – your, our – training, comes BBC One’s Boiling Point, a four-part thriller set in a trendy London kitchen.
Carly (Vinette Robinson) is the chef at Point North, a new haute cuisine joint serving Northern-inspired food (“classic Northern cuisine, moving it into London five-star environment”). They serve things like hogget, squab and lobscouse (which categorically does not contain lobster). Her brigade is a ragtag mob of big personalities: temperamental sous Freeman (Ray Panthaki), mouthy Chef de Partie Bolton (Shaun Fagan), fragile pastry chef Jamie (Stephen McMillan) and his guardian angel Emily (Hannah Walters). Then there’s the front of house team, led by manager Dean (Gary Lamont). Into this broiling turbulence, Johnny (Stephen Odubola), an inexperienced cook in need of a payday, is dropped like blanched potato into sizzling oil.
