A COUPLE who run a restaurant at Camelford have spoken of their brush with fame after appearing on TV with top chef Marco Pierre White – who praised their cooking.
At the beginning of the year, Neil and Nicky Buckley of The Riverside Restaurant applied to take part in a new show for Channel Five called Marco Pierre White's Kitchen Wars.
After several interviews, they were chosen out of hundreds of restaurants to cook for him on screen.
Representing Cornwall, they travelled to Cardiff shopping centre, where they cooked for him on the back of the Battle Truck.
Neil cooked Bodmin Moor venison haunch steak on a wasabi-infused new potato mash, drizzled with a pear, juniper and port reduction, topped with parsnip crisps.
He had only 30 minutes to prepare, cook and serve the dish – but managed to plate up in a speedy 18 minutes.
Nicky said: "It was all very nerve-racking, but an amazing opportunity to cook for the best.
"We were not chosen to go through to the next round, as Marco thought the dish was too complicated. A more simple choice may have got us through so we will try again next year."
The couple appeared on screen on Thursday evening last week, and their cooking was also praised by Marco Pierre White on Graham Norton's BBC Two radio show on Saturday morning.
Tim Pitt, one of the regular diners at the restaurant and who has amazingly large side-burns, said that if the couple got through to cook for Marco he would shave them off for charity.
He has agreed to do so but needs to raise some money first for two charities, the Cornwall Air Ambulance Trust and Children's Hospice South West.
