Big Chef Little Chef

Little Chef is a chain of roadside transport cafes in the UK much in the same vein as our Wimpys, especially the renowned Wimpy at Van Reenan's Pass where every South African has stopped at one time or another since the Great Trek. The food is ribsticking, inexpensive and requires copious quantities of sugary, milky, tea to assist it's passage through the system. It was never going to survive the onslaught of the American fast food phenomenon and in recent years it has been going downhill rapidly. About 6 months ago it was rumoured that Jamie Oliver was going to take over the ailing chain and he nearly had a fit of apoplexy denying the stories.
Then His Gordoness was approached to wave his magic wooden spoon as part of the Kitchen Nightmares series but decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and went off seeking out easier windmills to tilt at. But one very strange candidate has stepped up to the plate as it were, to transform Little Chef. Fresh from his Pursuit of Perfection, the Professor of Porridge, Heston Blumenthal is to bring his peculiar brand of kitchen chemistry to the Little Chef chain for a Channel 4 series this summer. The experiment will see Blumenthal take over one of the motorway cafes and re-invigorate its menu, interior and service standards. His ideas will then be implemented in all 193 outlets. Filming for the Little Chef project, a three-part series of one hour programmes with the working title Big Chef, Little Chef, will begin in May to coincide with the chain's 50th anniversary.The £7.25 Olympic breakfast, which consists of bacon, sausage, two griddled eggs, mushrooms, sauté potatoes, tomato, baked beans and toasted or fried extra thick bread, could become a mere memory as burly truckers and families dashing off to the coast to snatch a day's sunshine, are forced to tuck into snail porridge and sardines on toast ice cream. Why is he doing it ? Simple - it is believed that Blumenthal is being paid around £330,000 for the three, one-hour episodes.