Seaham Hall (Byron's Bar and Grill)

Food ✪✪✪✪*
Service ✪✪✪✪ 
Ambience ✪✪ 

Seaham Hall Hotel
Lord Byron’s Walk 
County Durham 
SR7 7AG 

0191 516 4100 
www.seaham-hall.co.uk 

[*WARNING: Change of chef - Simon Bolsover has moved to become Regional Executive Chef of Macdonald Hotels in Cumbria] 

I love that bit in Masterchef when the most nervous chef-victim gets flung into service at a top London gastro-temple for a day. 

“You’ll be cooking the quail, with 17 components including three sauces and the quail brain mousse – it’s our signature dish, and we have five Hollywood celebrities who’ve flown in specially, so make sure it’s perfect,” says the head chef with an evil smile, raising a carefully rehearsed eyebrow for the closeup which the editor needs for the horror film music sequence. 

The contestant gulps, then with trembling hands clutching sharp knife, picks up the first tiny bird. 

“It’s OK, we have plasters,” says the smiling head chef, as the blood begins to flow from the first cut finger, “but you have just 30 minutes before the customers arrive.” 

More horror music; cut to mound of bloody raw quail. 

Sadly, this isn’t quite how it works in real top restaurants. No one person is responsible for an entire dish; the brigade de cuisine system has chefs working on stations - veg, meat, sauce, garnish and so on – and all their efforts are brought together at the pass. Teamwork is critical; but teamwork, and reality, don’t make for riveting television. 

Simon Bolsover, installed as executive chef of Seaham Hall’s two restaurants last year, has made a point of talking up his team in the catering press, and quite right too. It’s clear that they’re working well, for Bolsover was absent from the stoves on the night of our secret visit.