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The Great British Menu 2010 hits our TV screens in a few weeks and as ever we are keen to find out which chefs are taking part.

There have been rumours flying around for a few months as to the format this year and with the help of Caterer's forum, Table Talk we can start to reveal the line-up.

Competing chefs are first judged by a former winner, with one chef getting knocked out. The remaining two have the chance to cook for the judges, Oliver Peyton, Prue Leith and Matthew Fort.

The participating chefs have been allocated a National Trust House, and have to source their ingredients from the surrounding area.

So here it is: The Great British Menu 2010 line-up so far...

London region

• Tom Kerridge, The Hand & Flowers, Marlow
• Anthony Demetre, Arbutus, London
• Tristan Welch, Lauceston Place, London

Judge: Jason Atherton, Maze, London

Central region

• Daniel Clifford, Midsummer House, Cambridge
• Will Holland, La Becasse, Shropshire
• Richard Bramble, Morston Hall, Norfolk

Judge: Glynn Purnell, Purnell's, Birmingham

NE region

• Kenny Atkinson, Rockliffe Hall, Darlington
• Lee Bennett, Le Pont de la Tour, London
• Tim Bilton, Butchers Arms Hepworth, Yorkshire

Judge: Nigel Haworth, Northcote, Lancashire

Scotland 

• Alan Murchison, Paris House, Woburn
• Tony Singh, Oloroso, Edinburgh
• Michael Smith, The Three Chimneys, Isle of Skye

Judge: Jeremy Lee

Wales

• James Sommerin, The Crown at Whitebrook, Monmouthshire 
• Aled Williams, Plas Bodegroes, Gwynedd
• Richard Davies, Bybrook Restaurant, Manor House Hotel, Wiltshire

Judge: Stephen Terry, The Hardwick, Abergavenny

NW Region

• Aiden Byrne, The Church Green, Lymm
• Lisa Allen, Northcote, Lancashire
• Johnnie Mountain, Mosaica Restaurant at the Factory, London

Judge: Marcus Wareing, Marcus Wareing at the Berkeley, London 

SW region

• Nathan Outlaw, Nathan Outlaw Seafood and Grill at St Enodoc Hotel in Rock
• Chef 2: TBC
• Chef 3: TBC

Northern Ireland

Sorry, once again, no info on this as yet!

Finally, we have a winner for the Apprentice role - and she works in hospitality.

Restaurateur Yasmina Siadatan, owner of Mya Lacarte restaurant in Caversham, Reading, beat favourite Kate Walsh for the top job.

She strikes a blow for catering - despite the derogatory comments about the profession last week and the quality of her winning product.

In a final which asked the two contestants to produce a box of chocolates - because real life is like that - Yasmina triumphed with her cheaper, more mass market version.

Kate's were, everyone concurred, delicious and in fact, during filming for the promotion of Yasmina's chocolate brand, one of the models spat out a chocolate after a shoot.

It brings to mind one of the earliest tasks, when she was in charge of a contract catering task in which her food was likewise of very poor quality.

Strange for someone who runs a restaurant.

Sir Alan's other concern with Yasmina was that she'd find it hard moving from being self-employed to working for someone else - "two years in from running my own business I was set up for life," he said.

"Also will I be putting 20 people out of work?"

But Yasmina said that her brother was now taking over the running of the restaurant, and reiterated that she definitely wanted to work for him.

And, thanks to Sir Alan going on his "gut instinct", she will be now.

Former MasterChef winner James Nathan has joined the Michelin-starred Bath Priory as junior sous chef, Kitchen Rat can reveal.

The 2008 winner of the BBC show, which gives amateur cooks the chance to make the jump to becoming professional chefs, will be working under the guidance of the property's new executive head chef Michael Caines.

Caines has taken over the reins at the Bath Priory following the departure of Chris Horridge, who left in January to join von Essen's Cliveden hotel.

Head chef is James Sheridan, who joins from Caines' two-Michelin-starred restaurant at Gidleigh Park, where he was sous chef. It's his first role as head chef.

The Bath Priory will reopen Monday week (16 March) after a six-week refurbishment programme, which included a complete revamp of the kitchen.

Look out for a Minute on the Clock interview with general manager Sue Williams in next week's issue of Caterer and Hotelkeeper out on 12 March. 

He's just completed his first installment of Big Chef programmes, but senor Blumenthal was back on our screens last night for more with his new series looking at chowing down throughout the ages.

Blumenthal is targeting those epochs when large meals went hand in hand with culinary invention. And to kick off he turned to the Victorians.

"It was extraordinary", said The Guardian's TV critic Sam Leith of 'Heston's Victorian Feast'. "Heston lacks telly charisma...lines were delivered with the uncertain enthusiasm of a born lab-tech - but what he does with grub is gripping."

The three-star chef served wacky food to Radio 5 presenter Richard Bacon, former Scud star Rageh Omaar, Dawn Porter, Kathy Lette, Jemma Redgrave and Toby Young.

And what dishes: cow's head soup reduced to a stock cube wrapped in gold foil shaped as a watch, which was then dissolved in water. There was also an Alice in Wonderland-inspired layered liquid infusion with toffee, hot-buttered toast, custard, cherry tart and turkey flavours. And he finished with a six-foot edible garden, complete with olive soil and potato rocks.

According to Serena Davies, TV critic for The Telegraph, "it's great. If food can seem this amazing even when you can't taste it, heaven knows how divine the experience of actually eating it must be".

However, Times television critic Andrew Billen thought the whole thing "utterly pointless". Heston now "flaps around wondering where on television his future lies", he added.

Heston Blumenthal puts on a brave face >>

Heston Blumenthal hopes to reopen Fat Duck this week >>

Heston Blumenthal gets green light to reopen Fat Duck >>

Gordon Ramsay isn't usually short of a swear word or five but his latest show isn't foul-mouthed enough for Channel 4 executives.

In the US version of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the celebrity chef's effing and blindings have been bleeped out, much to the dismay of Channel 4 staff who have been working frantically to edit the curses back into the show.

"Gordon is Gordon so he does swear, as do some of his contributors," a Channel 4 source told The Daily Star.

"The American network usually bleep the bad language out but we will not."

The news is kind of ironic considering Ramsay came under fire last week after he served up no less than 312 swear words in just 103 minutes (that's one every 20 seconds) in his Ramsay's Great British Nightmare show.

It seems that Heston Blumenthal, everyone's favourite three Michelin-starred chef/scientist, isn't off our television screens at the moment.

After an appearance on BBC2's irreverant music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks earlier this month which left Heston shuffling nervously in his seat, our Heston turned up on Sky Sports' Saturday morning show Soccer AM over the weekend.

Heston - a huge fan of nouveau riche Islington side Arsenal - turned up on Saturday and proved he's perhaps better off in the kitchen when he missed the target in Soccer AM's 'Road to Rome' segment (but then, to be fair, so did everyone else).

Kitchen Rat got to thinking about what other TV shows Heston could make guest appearances on.

A stint on Location, Location, Location perhaps? "I'm looking for another large house in Bray, with a massive kitchen and fireproof walls"...

How about Cash in the Attic? I have found this old bunsen burner - how much could I flog it for on eBay?"...

Perhaps we could come up with a new format- Challenge Heston - where contestants have to come up with even more palate-challenging food concepts than bacon and egg ice-cream. Or How to Cook Good Naked, with regular guests Gok Wan and Jamie Oliver. 

Kitchen Rat considered a concept that would see Heston being filmed as he attempted to save Little Chef but decided it was too far fetched...

The BBC's Children In Need fundraising programme tonight is set to feature F-word celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay as well as a special edition of Masterchef.

The stars will be 'Doing Something Different' to raise money for the charity appeal which raises money for disadvanaged children and young people.

Masterchef has set up a special children's version of the programme, while Gordon will join the Osbornes, Jack Black, Colin Farrell and Stevie Wonder in making appeal messages to viewers, lets hope he keeps it clean or they schedule it after the watershed....

Elsewhere across the country, restaurants, pubs and hotels are all doing their bit:

• In Manningtree on the Suffolk/Essex borders chef Sanayor Miar is taking a bath in a curry to help raise money. Hot stuff!

• Caterersearch.com Web Award shortlisted hotel company, Townhouse Company has Pudsey fever and hopes to raise lots of cash with a silent online auction for a luxury stay in one of their hotels. 

• Chowdreys Restaurant in Bradford is holding a special charity buffet, as well as holding a raffle 

• And in Shropshire, Embrey's butchers is selling burgers in the shape of Pudsey bear

If you are doing something for Children in Need let us know! 

Relationships between the UK and Russia may be frosty but it appears the long-running Cold War between superstar-chefs Marco Pierre White and Gordon Ramsay may
have thawed.

A Kitchen Rat spy was on hand at JFK airport in New York earlier this year to witness Gordon Ramsay striding to the car rental desk pursued by Marco Pierre White.

However, rather than remonstrate and threaten legal proceedings against Ramsay for the theft of the reservations book from Aubergine (again) with a smattering of his own F-Words, Marco instead gave Ramsay a warm embrace.

Alas, our spy wasn't near enough to tell if Marco's actions made Ramsay cry, or whether the Cook Along star chose to cry (or, in fact, actually cried at all). But eithier way, Posh Spice can cook, so there!

Gordon Ramsay Holdings revenue to hit £100m by 2010>>

Gordon Ramsay to open restaurant at London's Hippodrome>>

Marco Pierre White set to launch Frankie's in USA>>

Men Behaving Badly and Waterloo Road star Neil Morrissey is in the Metro this morning extolling the virtues of beer.

Having run a couple of private clubs and a hotel in Wales over the last few years, he's just launched his own beer at his new pub in North Yorkshire. A brave move you might think, in these testing times for the pub industry but we reckon it's about time this classic British tipple got a makeover like cider's epiphany with ice last summer.

His journey is documented on Channel 4 at 10pm tonight entitled Risky Business.

There's something voyeuristic about TV chefs peddling fresh veg to burger-chomping council estates. It may start off as a worthy idea but it becomes condescending and didactic. And it makes awful viewing.

The solid formula is chef feeds nice-recipe veg to aesthetically-imperfect working-class family, family admits fresh food isn't a comparable evil to nuclear destruction or Sarah Palin as they once thought, family then thank said chef and once he's out the door likely bump up their veg quota by an iceberg a week.