The competitors: Polly, Will, Chris, and Kat David Parry/ The London Paper

Prev

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Next

View gallery

CHANNEL 4’s sleeper hit Come Dine With Me is not only a ratings winner, it has spawned thousands of real-life imitators. Here Jessica Fellowes reports on what happened when we assembled four strangers for some highly competitive cooking.

Take four strangers and a camera crew, add a sprinkling of dinner parties, a soupcon of back-stabbing and a pinch of high-camp attitude. Bake with scores out of ten and a frosting of £1,000 cash.

The result is Come Dine With Me. In just over four years and 499 episodes, this low-budget entertainment – in which four people each host a dinner party for the others, who then mark their food and entertaining skills at the end of the night – has gobbled up viewers as voraciously as the guests eat their cheesecakes.

The omnibus on Sundays has an average of 3 million tuning in and it is regularly More4’s most watched programme. The format has been sold to 13 countries.

There are Facebook groups dedicated to the programme – the official one has 17,703 members – with forums debating villains of the show. And it’s the villains that make it – such as the guest who fell asleep, the host who used a restaurant for everything from the cutlery to the food, and the dinner so disgusting even the host’s cat was sick.

As hosts are rated not just on their cooking but for their entertainment skills, some go to extreme lengths to mark themselves out: whether it’s hiring a magician or dressing up and staging an impersonation of Amy Winehouse.

The camp, sarcastic tones of narrator Dave Lamb make the programme unmissable. In case there’s any doubt as to what the guests are really thinking, Dave will be on hand to clarify: “Liam’s shirt is so loud it arrives some time before he does.”

Now the phenomenon has moved from TV to real life. Londoners are organising Come Dine With Me parties.

We put thelondonpaper’s Kat Brown and three other young Londoners to the test. Did they stay cool in the kitchen or collapse under the pressure of a week of three-course dinners?

DAY 1 - Nice food, dodgy presentation

CHRIS GORNELL

26, digital producer for a cancer charity

Location: One-bed flat in Tulse Hill

Budget: £53, £21 booze

Menu

Morecambe Bay potted shrimp with toast

Roast leg of lamb with cannellini beans and purple-sprouting broccoli

Lemon and orange cheesecake

First, I made the cheesecake. It was very simply flavoured, with orange peel, lemon juice and vanilla seeds in with the mascarpone, egg and cream.

I baked it in a water bath for 45 minutes and it came out looking beautiful. The only problem was stopping myself from eating the left-over cheesy mix.

Next, I potted the shrimp: I melted a lot of butter in a pan and added anchovy paste, cayenne pepper, nutmeg and a bay leaf. Once I’d let it cool I added the shrimp, then separated into ramekins and left to cool. Finally, with a couple of hours to go, I put the leg of lamb on to roast with garlic, rosemary and thyme, and started the beans, flavoured with thyme, lemon juice and bay.

The potted shrimp went down well, although in my opinion it didn’t melt into the toast as well as I’d hoped. The lamb was lovely and everyone ate it, but I got the impression people didn’t like the cannellini beans – they were slightly hard, and floury in the middle. I consider them my biggest failure (which is ironic as I cook with beans all the time, but this is the first time I have made potted shrimp, cheesecake and cooked a leg of lamb).

The cheesecake went down well. It was a nice and simple Nigel Slater recipe and in my opinion tasted great.

Overall, it was a lovely night. I was very nervous as I didn’t know anyone and, because I went first, was unsure how seriously everyone else was going to take it.

THE VERDICT

Polly: “Chris was a nice host, if a bit shy and on his best behaviour. The vegetables were a little bit undercooked. It was nice – but it wasn’t amazing.” 6

Will: “I don’t eat shellfish, but the lamb was lovely. The beans with it felt rather healthy. The dessert was delicious and I liked having the log fire. But there weren’t any napkins or water on the table.” 7

Kat: “The main bits of food were amazing but he could have made more effort with presentation. The toast was hunks of bread and the vegetables were cold. Loved the real fire (and lit it), but felt a bit like we were being taken through the rigours of a meal rather than enjoying a party.” 6

SCORE: 19/30

DAY 2 - Stirred by the chilled Martinis

WILL TYLER

26, senior account manager with an ad agency

Location: Two-bed flat in Borough

Budget: £100, £45 booze

Menu

Parma ham, buffalo mozzarella, with vine tomatoes on olive focaccia

Noisette of lamb, with new potatoes, honey roasted carrots and purple-sprouting broccoli

Chocolate torte with creme fraiche and rum raspberry mulch

I don’t normally cook, so I found the whole thing quite daunting.

All my shopping was done at Borough Market, so my wad of crisp £20s was soon gone.

I made the pudding on Sunday and luckily my friend who had lent me the recipe helped supervise. On the day, I got everything out to set the table before work.

I left work early to buy a few last condiments from M&S, then rushed home to finish laying the table and start pans simmering and, more importantly, chill the vodka for the French martinis.

All went well on the starter, as the vine tomatoes were so good. The balsamic glaze also held everything together and made it look nice.

The lamb was in the oven before we sat down for starters, but it still didn’t cook fast enough, and this made for a long wait. I could feel the points slipping away, but what could I do?

I brought the chocolate torte out of the fridge to much applause. Something I had actually made myself by hand. Wow!

THE VERDICT

Polly: “He was very self-critical so I noticed things I might not have. The carrots were a bit shrivelled.” 7

Chris: “Technically, Will produced very good food. But I heard he had a friend helping him with his pudding, which tempted me to downgrade his mark. Still, I was impressed.” 8

Kat: “Will’s French martinis were excellent. I had several. Considering he’d never really cooked before, he did very well, although reassuring your host is unnerving for guests and he showed a bit of panic when his lamb took longer than expected.” 8

SCORE: 23/30

DAY 3 - Fired up over ‘stolen’ pud

KAT BROWN

26, arts writer

Location: Four-bed house off Old Kent Road

Budget: £50, £30 booze

Menu

Roasted red pepper soup with Greek yogurt and crumbled pistachios

Beef in horseradish cream with jacket potatoes and jammy red cabbage

Scandinavian iced berries with hot white chocolate sauce

Cheese plate

After Will’s gourmet banquet I am tempted to slope off to Borough and follow his example, but a quick tot-up on the calculator sends me back to the supermarket.

I buy all my ingredients from Asda and Tesco, then head home to sort everything out.

I get up on Wednesday feeling relieved I’d prepped the night before. I can totally understand why CDWM cooks on TV take a day off to do their menus.

The weather is quite nice so we sit out in the garden, where Chris introduces me to how bonfires work and what a rake is for. Have lots of Tesco cava, which is my parents’ recipe for happy pre-dinner tippling as it has a lovely smooth taste and is ridiculously cheap.

Disaster strikes at the main course as, while hunting around for the horseradish to add to my beef before serving, I realise I didn’t buy any and have overcooked the beef. Damn.

Learning from Will, I keep this quietly to myself. No point signposting mistakes unless you want to lose points.

I get so excited at being allowed to put Phantom Of The Opera on before pudding that my napkin falls in a candle and catches fire.

Fail to notice until Will screams: “Your bloody house is on fire,” leaps up, and does an exceptional cover and roll before putting it safely in the sink.

Unfortunately, this is rather more difficult to ignore than a missing ingredient – hope everyone just chuckles over it.

Pudding goes well, everyone is too stuffed for cheese so we nibble at it with more wine. An utterly nerve-racking evening.

THE VERDICT

Polly: “Kat decanted the wine, which seemed like a terribly grown-up thing to do. The dining room looked lovely. I don’t like cabbage, but the rest of it was nice. She also let slip that the pudding recipe was stolen from the Ivy.” 8

Will: “She did a great job with good food. But I do think the pudding was rather a cheat – it wasn’t something she’d ‘made’, like I had. I think Chris and I pushed the boat out a bit more pudding-wise.” 8

Chris: “Kat’s place was very relaxing and she gave us champagne. However, she nearly burnt us all to death so she lost a point for that.” 6

SCORE: 22/30

DAY 4 - Bunny burgers a hit

POLLY WEDDLE

25, headhunter

Location: Her parents’ house in Richmond

Budget: £85, £30 booze

Menu

Quail egg nest of wild mushroom and wholemeal spaghetti

Hot cross bunny burgers with spring vegetables

G&T sorbet surprise

Sourcing minced rabbit was a bit of a nightmare, but I found it in the end from a lovely Mayfair butcher that I’ll definitely go back to.

I picked vegetables from the allotment on the Sunday before and made hot cross buns, sorbet and the mid-course treats (rhubarb and custard, and pomegranate shots) the night before. This was because they needed time to set and chill, while the rolls take a bit of time to rise and cook.

I probably made the menu a little too complicated, as a lot needed preparing on the day and even during the meal. But I enjoyed pushing myself to cook something new.

I could have poached the quail eggs in advance as they are a bit fiddly. The starter could have had a bit more seasoning as wholemeal pasta has quite a strong flavour.

The rabbit burgers were a little thick and so took longer to cook than expected. It was disappointing to have to make my guests wait. But I was pleased with the flavour and would definitely make them again.

The dessert would have been better prepared if I had a separate kitchen rather than an open-plan one.

I tasted the sorbet earlier, but was pleasantly surprised at how well it went with the chocolate eggs.

Although I was generally pleased with the food, I don’t feel like I had much of a chance to entertain properly, so it didn’t feel like a proper dinner party.

THE VERDICT

Will: “Loved the bunny burgers, but the homemade bread was too heavy.” 8.5

Chris: “I enjoyed the bunny burgers. But the second course was so amazing, it made the first one seem a bit bland.” 7

Kat: “Polly’s menu is the best of all of ours: creative, lovely-sounding ingredients and it makes me giggle out loud. Of course she gets full points.” 10

SCORE: 25.5/30

THE MOMENT OF TRUTH

THE final night can be the most drunken and tense. I’m filled in on how the week has gone so far: the highlight has been the moment host Kat, in her enthusiasm to jump up and put on the Phantom of the Opera score for entertainment, nearly burnt the house down when her napkin landed on a candle and caught fire.

The starter was dished up and everyone duly oohed and aahed. But I couldn’t help noticing that Will added more salt and Chris left his mushrooms on the side.

When Polly served up shot glasses of pomegranate and gin – “My bouche is amused,” quipped Kat – we couldn’t fail to be impressed. Yet, I detected a little resentment simmering: had Polly upped the ante at a time when they couldn’t retaliate? Was this her game plan?

Over the hot cross bunny burgers, the other suppers they’d had that week were barely mentioned. Clearly, they were taking their scores very seriously indeed.

At last, the moment had come. I took the guests upstairs one by one to ask them what they really thought of the meal and to find out their scores.

In the final reckoning, Polly was crowned the winner. She looked happy, but I wonder if there was an inevitability about it that took the edge off the competition?

“I think I probably got too complicated with my menu and neglected my guests too much,” she reflected.

Chris took his position of bottom with a shrug of the shoulders: “I am quite disappointed. But going first hindered me – I didn’t know the level I had to be at.”

Kat looked genuinely crushed to have been pipped to second by Will. Later, she admitted that she hadn’t really enjoyed her night as a host.

“I really felt the pressure,” she said, adding gamely: “Considering I set the house on fire, I’m slightly amazed to come only one point behind Will.”

Will was delighted with his position of second: “Polly just had to win, didn’t she? And I got the satisfaction of knowing I was better than the other two.”