Ep 292: Dermot O'Leary

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Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

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Welcome to the Off-Menu podcast, taking the bagel of conversation, popping it in the toaster of humor, spreading on the cream cheese of conversation, and adding the smoked salmon of friendship, James.

That's Ed Gamble.

My name is James Akers.

So together we own a dream restaurant and every single week we're inviting a guest to announce in their favourite ever star and main course dessert side dish and drink not in that order and this week the guest is Dermot O'Leary.

Why are you laughing so much Benito?

Benito says he's laughing because he can hear Ed breathing directly into the mic through his nose.

That's funny to him now.

Yeah.

That's what it's come to on this podcast is that that's the only thing that'll make Benito laugh is is head breathing through his nose into the mic it is making him laugh every time i do it yeah you're doing it now i haven't got headphones on so i i can't appreciate it until this goes out i'll have to listen to it

no that one was too much he didn't like that one yeah dermit o'leary legend in the game treasure hosted so many shows so many iconic shows always like he's He's everyone's favorite, Dermot.

Everyone wants to give him a big old cuddle, don't they?

Yes.

I mean, look, I've met Dermot a couple of times.

Such a great energy, such a nice man.

I believe he's a listener to the podcast.

I think he's excited to come on.

So, look, it's going to be great.

And he's got a new series, Son This is Golden, on you and Dave, weekly on Mondays that's coming out.

We'll ask him about that.

All episodes are now available to stream free on you.

Yes, absolutely.

But even though Dermot is a lovely man and excited to come on the podcast, if he puts a secret ingredient on his menu that we have pre-established, he will be booted off the pod.

Yes, sorry, Dermot.

And this week, the secret ingredient is Cheerios.

Do you want to talk us through your thought process with that one, James?

Cheerio's, O'Leary, Cheerio Leary.

Cheerio Learys.

Especially if he calls them Cheerio Leary's.

He's out.

Which is a shame because I'd love it if he did that.

Yeah, I would love it if he did that.

And I like Cheerios.

Yeah.

So, you know, but there you go.

Fingers crossed that he won't do that anymore.

I will try and get the own brand Cheerios from shops rather than give money to Nestle.

Right, okay.

Are they Nestle, are they?

Yeah, just so people know.

Yeah, yeah.

But then sometimes they taste the same.

Sometimes I'll admit, they do taste the same, actually.

But sometimes I'll admit, I've just got such a hangering for

the Cheerios, and I go there and there's no own brand stuff, and I just buckle.

Hey, no one's perfect.

I'm not going to make out like I'm a saint here.

This is the off-menu menu of Derbert O'Leary.

Oh, Cheerier Leary.

Cheerio Leary.

Welcome, Derbert, to the Dream Restaurant.

Oh, hi, lads.

Welcome, Derby Lady, to the Dream Restaurant.

Looks like you for some time.

You all look whiter outside.

I've got to build you up to it, you know.

You really don't.

It's nice to be here.

Yeah, well, he did go very big there.

Here's the thing, though.

Now, I'm quite self-conscious because I know there's been a preamble because you two do a preamble before

the preamble.

Have you done the preamble yet?

Yes.

When did you do the preamble?

We've been here all day, though.

Can I hear the preamble?

No, absolutely not.

Oh, man.

It's not the secret ingredient.

The secret ingredients.

So the preamble is the secret source.

Yeah, that's included in that.

What are you worried about with the preamble?

Is it the secret ingredient?

You're curious about the preamble.

You think we've been stagging you off?

Presented comedian dynamics are always quite strange.

Yeah.

Yeah, because you think we're like the hospital porters and you're like the heart surgeons.

You get this whole kind of like, oh, John, all I do is walk and talk and say things.

And we're like, yeah, you just come out with some funny things to say and you say it again and again and again on tour.

And then you go home and none of you are really happy.

And then you're like, come and try and do two and a half hours of live telling.

Yes.

You must be terrified of Joel Domit, though.

He's coming out with a double threat.

He's coming for you.

Yeah, yeah.

I think he's come.

He's come.

You gave.

We've had a lot of presenters on this show.

We respect the art of presenting.

I'm not scared of the preamble.

I'm just curious.

Yeah.

I've tried some presenting in the past.

It's very difficult.

Enjoy enjoy it yeah but it's difficult it is difficult depends what you do i think having an earpiece having an earpiece having an earpiece is yeah but it's interesting jimmy carr told me the other day that uh you get your body goes through the same process every time you get stressed about something so even though you think you've conquered that stress your body's still going through the same process and i remember when i first started t4 I used to literally, I'd be in the toilet throwing up before the show started because the idea of live television without an auto-cue, without like, you know,

really without sort of, you sort of learn the script, but you add living on the script.

So there's a lot that could go wrong.

And it was on for hours.

Like, you know, you link, some of the links are easy.

They're like, here's Hollyoaks.

But some of them were like, right, now you've got to interview the rock for like three minutes and then cross from that to some sort of like game.

But it's nuts, right?

In terms of what your body, if that is true, what your body gets used to and what you, what your mind, you know, how you play tricks and everything.

I think your job is interesting because...

Obviously, people are going to see you when they go and see you, but at the same time, you're always playing the away game.

So wherever you go,

you're you there's a new crowd a new set of people who want to want to see you but you've still got to but you've still

come you've come into our place yeah yeah yeah and no matter how much they like the comedian they're still worried that the comedian is going to be rubbish whereas i think with presenters i always feel like i'm in good hands it's funny if i do corporate work this presenter is going to be rubbish

it's really interesting because you come out and and and you sort of like, you know, I do a bit of writing and I've got a writer and we work together and, you know, not a comedian but you want to make it funny and you want to make it a laugh and you want to and sometimes you can come out and go it'll be a half decent script and you come out if the audience aren't up for it the audience aren't up for it is the same in comedy like presumably when people are coming to to watch comedy they're up for it you'd hope so you'd hope so you know sometimes not always they might walk into the venue and be like it's there's something about the venue that just makes them feel a bit yeah subdued and they sit down they might be enjoying it but not really laughing much because they feel like quite tired in their yeah in their big comfy seats or the the the the very dull venue and they're just like sitting there it's a very fragile art form is a shade that's wrong that it could skew the whole gig does it change at all on what day it is so if you know you're hitting a thursday

i don't think it does i think we always say it does but you could you could have a bad gig on any day of the week and there'll be someone on the venue staff will say to you uh friday innit oh that's tuesday that's that's what it is like it's always no matter what day it is that's why the gig went bad what and are there i i

I'm cursed at the roundhouse, which is yeah, I've never had a good, a good, a night go well at the roundhouse when I've presented there.

It's just every time I've been on the roundhouse, I've died on my ass.

Now, admittedly, I've done some quite like the London Football Awards, which lovely Bob Wilson, who's, you know, A, is a hero of mine at Arsenal and also just the loveliest man in the world.

And he's got these gorgeous puppy dog eyes.

And he asked me to host the London Football Awards.

I was like, you, of course I will.

And as soon as I walked down, I was like, oh man, this is a big mistake.

Was it a rowdy gig?

Just rowdy, but also disinterested, which is kind of

the worst combination, you know.

And I've also done disinterested and quiet at the roundhouse.

It's hard to know

which one are the worst out of those two.

I think you can get out of your head sometimes.

You've got to exercise a roundhouse.

Have you got a venue that you've that you've

never had a storm at the roundhouse?

And, you know, the times I've played there, it's been promoted by the man on my left.

So, like, you know, maybe it's his fault.

Sometimes you just, you, you feel it though you know sometimes it's gone pretty well but then that's in your head a lot

was it yeah you had a great time tonight but is there like when you look down at your tour date sometimes you're like oh god not yarmut again oh man i died in yarmuth i'll be i'll be honest a lot of the time if i have a really bad gig somewhere on tour I'll immediately text the person who's in charge of booking the tour and saying, remind me when we're booking the next tour, I'm not coming back.

Not going back.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Quiet audiences can be tricky.

And Sonus is Golden has come into UN Dave.

I mean, just pick that one out.

That was your left foot.

That was lovely.

How's that?

That's a very pretty good.

See?

Get the guy onto the bottom.

You get in town.

Called Joel Dummitt.

Joel, sorry.

Do you know it's a lovely show?

I sort of got pitched it by Richard Bacon, which is an experience.

And

Rich is amazing.

Damn it.

You've got to love the show.

Yeah, I'll tell you what.

25 years ago, i never thought we'd be sat around talking about richard bacon being a format king yeah and he really is yeah so good with a blank sheet of paper and there's a few people that worked on the show there's a guy called mark sidaway who's my exec on the x factor for years and mark's incredible i mean bear in mind mark what worked for salmon gow for like 12 years and then and then did stuff for the royal family so he's been in the court of you know, the madness for, you know, wherever he's gone.

And now he's working for Richard, which is, you know, there's a version of that as well.

But Rich is so brilliant with a blank sheet of paper.

So the idea is, I come out, I think there's 70 people in the audience and we shotted last year and I just come out and say, listen, congratulations, you've all won 250,000 pounds.

Big cheers.

Split between you.

All you have to do is not utter a sound for the next hour in when the shush button

goes on, when the shush light goes on in 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Get it all here.

It's a system.

Everyone makes noise and we stop.

And then it's a combination of comedians.

practical jokes, bribes, getting like old grannies from Poland on, you know, that kind of,

it's a little bit of everything to try and, our job is then to try and get that money off them.

So we can sort of mad variety.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Because everyone reacts to different things, right?

Completely.

And some stuff just you think is really funny and really good.

And people are just like stony faced.

Disgusting.

And some, and there's some great moments.

Also, what we sort of didn't really, because it isn't really a, it's not a reality show or anything, but we've mic'd them up and they've all got cameras on them.

And what we underestimated was how some people are just going, well, if I, if we do well here, we can all make a few grand each.

Let's work as a team.

And some people are just like, ah.

So if I just come on and go, who wants to do 200 quid for Lincoln to break?

There was one guy who just kept going, yeah.

And you can see everyone around him getting more and more under and more and more under it.

And then we have like time out.

So there's like a half time when people can make noise.

And as soon as that fits, as soon as we've got to half time, people are like, oh, you're absolute effing numpty.

I can't believe it.

And it's just like, I don't give a shit.

I've got 200 quid in my pocket.

Great.

Yeah.

So it was a lot of fun to do.

It was a lot of fun to work around comedians as well.

So Catherine Ryan's involved.

She's heading up the

team of Catherine.

Yeah, yeah.

Catherine's, I mean, just brilliant.

One of the best.

Yeah.

I mean, these are comedians who are putting themselves out there.

We've got Sean Walsh, we've got Fatih O'Ghori, and we've got Reuben Kaye, who I, do you know, Ruben?

Ruben's marvellous, isn't he?

He was just, and actually, it's really interesting to

watch the comedians because they come out and they've got their five or ten minutes that they know that they can rely on.

And then it's, I mean, it's hard enough to present a show.

You're presenting to silence for it's about sort of two-hour record.

But for comedians, this must be so difficult because they're getting nothing.

I know sort of vaguely where I'm going.

At least I've got that.

Whereas comedians, it's interesting to see some of them would come and just sort of have to change on the, like turn on a sixpence.

And, you know, you realize that some of them are so good at that kind of level of shit, that's not working.

Okay.

Oh, hang on a second.

That guy looks a bit odd.

I can turn around.

You know, I can kind of go with him.

Or Ruben was brilliant for that.

Amy Gledhill was brilliant.

But so, so many.

It's really interesting.

I can't going out in front of an an audience who are financially financially have to be silent

i would look because obviously you know that and doing stuff and that they're not reacting yeah there's still a chemical response in your body that would just be like this is the worst day of my life oh i don't know i i did it as a thing for it's actually it was um i think it was dave again but it was for online and uh we had to give these like TED talks kind of thing like these comedic ted talks that we'd written to an audience who were told to be silent and i find it very comforting knowing before I went on well they are gonna be silent and they have to be but that's different because you're not trying to make them laugh yeah yeah you know you're always trying to make someone laugh if that's your job isn't you no way

well we always start with still or sparkling water on the dream menu dermit do you have a preference of course if we're eating it's got to be sparkling water okay okay we are we're definitely eating one of you doesn't like sparkling i don't like it really i noticed on this podcast i changed my opinion on sparkling water weekly, and it's based on whatever the guest says.

You're more malleable.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't know.

I was thinking about this on the way in.

I was thinking, what would, because I always go sparkling, and I don't quite know why.

And I think, obviously, it's more fun.

But I only tend to have sparkling water when I'm eating.

Right.

And also, I'm a child of the 80s.

So when the 80s came along, Perrier came along.

Perrier was the first kind of like, not only can you, is it not just out of a tap, but you can buy it in a bowl.

It's a green green bowl.

It's French.

And every now and again, we'll add like a hint of lime or a hint of lemon.

And it became sort of in our house, like my, my dad never drunk.

And my mum found wine in the 80s and has never looked back.

And so there wasn't that, there wasn't an awful lot of fun stuff to drink.

We weren't really allowed fizzy drinks.

And we also did, we did, we did a thing.

I don't know why we did this, but my mum insisted we did a monthly shop.

But back in the day, a monthly shop was you went to the shops after school with your mum, Tesco's or Sainsbury's, and you stocked up for a month.

So I think largely because she didn't really enjoy food shopping.

So me and my sister would be bribed to go around and carry these trolleys around.

And then at the time, you had to pay by check.

So then my poor mum was like, had to write this check.

And then you can imagine how unpopular that would be because they were just like holding up people.

Yeah, huge kids.

Yeah.

And then you have to get the manager to come and triple sign the check.

And all because my mum just didn't want to go shopping every week so the trade-off was that we were allowed one thing each and i always used to either go for cocoa pops or uh corn flakes um squashed down into a cake that's covered in chocolate you know yeah like a flat one yeah yeah yeah fantastic and it could last but that was my first us when we started buying stuff that was my first kind of route into sparkling water so it was it was it was period also period was on i almost thought then you were going to say in that story that when you were allowed one thing you as a child chose period water And I'm like, if this is...

I was halfway through the thing.

But so peri water was like the one thing we bought.

And then it was kind of an indulgence, I suppose.

And we were, and also Miami Vice was on at the time.

And I just remember, I remember once, it was probably a young sexual awakening.

Some girlfriend of Don Johnson's was just sunbathing on a boat.

And then she opened a bottle of period and just poured it all over herself.

And I was like 11, going, oh my God, this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life.

So, yeah.

I want to be the water.

Right.

And then our first holiday away was France.

So

sort of Irish family, so every holiday was back to Ireland.

And then we're, and then we sort of like started camping a little bit in the UK.

But the first sort of glamour holiday was camping in France.

And then you go to France.

And obviously, like, if you're into food, even doesn't matter how old you are, it's the fries, it's the crepes, it, you know, it's the, it's the pane of chocolate in the morning.

It's all that great like stuff.

And Perrier was part of that.

The most comprehensive answer you've ever seen.

Yeah.

So it's Popper taking you back to the big shop.

Yeah.

To

trips to France.

It feels like an indulgent.

And I've always said it.

I agree with that.

And I love Spark Game Water.

And you.

Pop Nobs Hot Bread.

Pop Nobles Orbit, Jam, O'Leary.

Pop Nobs Or Bread.

This is the only problem I have with this podcast.

I love your podcast.

This is the fundamental flaw in the format.

Okay.

Get bacon on the phone.

It's like asking me, do you want an apple apple or an avocado and asking me to come up with the right like yeah they're so concept contextual aren't they yes so let me throw it back at you guys when you where did pop a dumbs or bread come from did you not go james did it on the first episode

or none or like like yeah it was me I think when we started the podcast, I was going through a phase of every time I was in an Indian restaurant, then they bought up the Popadoms, thinking, I love Poppadums so much.

Why is it we only have them in Indian restaurants?

I wish I was, I tell you what, I'd love to have it in this other thing.

And then like, so when we were coming up up with this format, I was like, this is important to me right now.

At the time, it was important to me that I made the guests consider.

What if you can have poppadoms at the beginning of the winter?

We were coming up with the format.

We did the first episode and he shouted Poppadoms or Brad.

He's just out there.

He's spitballing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You should work with Bacon.

You should work with Bacon.

I'd love to work with Bacon.

Yeah, I'd love.

I'd love to see.

I've only met Bacon once, and it was the same time I had my first ever

Bloody Mary.

I was

talking.

Bacon does go well with Bloody Mary.

A bit of an accoutrement.

Yeah,

I was supporting Milton Jones on tour in 2011.

We went into a bar after the final tour date.

He hadn't been at the show, but Bacon was just there randomly.

Happy to see Milton, sat down with us.

I'd ordered a Bloody Mary, took a sip.

I love him now, but I took a sip, absolutely hated it.

Had to sit there drinking this cold soup while listening to Bacon tell Milton about one-liners and break down one-liner comedy to Milton Jones.

I'm delighted to see that.

Well, it's a simple question.

I'm totally sold on Poppy Dom's or bread.

You know, when someone says, oh, it's an acquired taste, like Bloody Mary, right?

You didn't like it at the time.

What's the cutoff for indulging in that?

Because there is a point where you go, actually, I just don't like it.

So if I do it something enough, then I'll start to like it.

But like, food is the only kind of vessel or medium we have where that's okay, isn't it?

Otherwise, like, other than that, well, where someone will go, yeah, try it, just carry on doing it.

And after all, people like it.

People do it with people.

People are like, it's all right once you get to know me.

He's got a cat, and you're like, I don't know if I want to put the hours in with this guy.

He's the worst person.

Olives are

that guy.

And I love olive oil and I love everything Italian.

I'm a huge, like, a huge fan of Italy.

But I can't be doing with eating olives.

You guys?

I love olives, but I like olives.

I always respect people tapping out and going, why am I putting the.

But I think that's, it's fine.

Olives are the thing where you're like, oh, kids hate them.

And then a lot of the time they'll grow up and they'll love olives.

But I think, you know,

when you get older, if you eat something and you don't like it, there's no time to start trying to crack on with that thing.

Just eat the stuff you like.

Yeah.

For God's sake.

It's like TV shows as well.

If I don't like the first two episodes of something,

I'm not cracking on.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

There's a lot of stuff to watch, isn't there, I guess.

But I don't know.

I feel guilty if I kind of give up after two episodes what me and my wife tended to do recently is we've we did a whole thing and then we don't watch the last episode just I was just in the car the other day and it just struck me as well it wasn't like it's not a conscious thing I was like we still haven't finished something or another

but we want we've devoted a lot of time to that is it because you don't want it to end no you don't want to say goodbye

it's only only if it peters out yeah yeah yeah here's the thing as well I recently watched a show on Netflix that didn't do a came we were like really excited about the second series second series started didn't do a recap of the first series yeah yeah, and within, and we were like, Well, we're totally lost now because they're picking up a story, but we haven't seen this for 18 months.

I'm like that with each new series as this morning.

There's 52.

I'm like, do a recap for Christ's sake.

I don't know what's happening.

This, I can't keep up with all these parrots.

Tell me about yesterday morning, yeah.

Well, I can sum it up for you.

Some cookery, yeah,

some lols, yeah,

a bit of

semi-hard news at the start, yeah, a phone into some description, great, and then a demo.

I love it.

That's all you need to know.

Oh, okay.

So I go bread, but with a caveat that I do adore a pop-a-dom.

And I've started to buy poppadoms for the house

for that very reason.

Great.

Huge fan.

Don't like to mess around with a pop-a-dom.

Just like I like, I like it old school.

Yeah.

But largely just because whether it's soda bread or which I love, because the whole Irish thing, warm, good soda bread is good.

It should be, the listener should know.

We're speaking to you on St.

Patrick's Day.

We are.

Happy St.

Patrick's Day.

Thank you, lads.

And I love, love, we'll call it dirty white bread, but just regular white bread.

Yeah, I'm messing around too much with it.

I've still have a love-hate relationship with sourdough.

Like, I'm amazed.

And my mates have like things in the fridge.

And I'm like, what?

I don't understand.

Like, you add, and then you add to it, and it's just, it's been there forever.

I don't get it.

But I love a good, old-fashioned.

I do Glastonbury every year for the radio too, right?

And then there's a place on the court.

We stay in Wells.

And if you guys have ever been to Wells, lovely little...

Ben's from there, Prince.

You're not.

Oh, lovely, Ben.

we stay in a hotel it's called the swan I think and then on the and then on the corner there's a little yeah I know bakery I'll stay at the swan that does doorstep white bread sausage sandwiches and bacon sandwiches which are just manna from heaven and it's kind of thick cut white bread like a farmhouse loaf or something or a split tin or something and then it's and then it's just like just buttered straightforward sausage good yeah

great have you been to the flat jackery in wells yeah it's amazing it's right next to it yeah so i always get my presents, like for thanks for looking after our kid.

Sorry about a bit of a mess after the weekend.

Presents from the Flapjackery.

Yeah.

I love the Flapjackery.

Yeah, it's good stuff.

Good stuff.

They're very proud of it though.

There's good butchers in Wales as well.

Are you making notes about Flapjackeries?

Yeah, Ben has to write everything down and

put it on the website of all the recommendations.

All right, you have to clear them.

Flapjackery doesn't matter.

No, no, no, no, clearly.

He'll just put it on the little in.

There's a page on the website that is all the eateries.

Oh, I know.

I mean, that we mentioned.

Brilliant.

But I didn't know.

Do you have to call them and go listen guys no no no are you familiar with the podcast also ben ben runs a comedy festival in wells so now now we've mentioned the flap jackery there might be a few bees the great butchers around the corner mention them they're lovely yeah down the road i don't know the name of them but cathedral shout out the cathedral oh yeah lovely yeah they like to think they're a city it's funny is that they think they're a city isn't it

Really funny that they all go on about, well, this is the city.

Welcome to the city of Wells.

Really?

As I was walking down the street and an old lady i didn't know said hello to me that's not a city yeah that happens in a city someone's someone's getting beaten up you know say hello to strangers a couple of years ago a couple of years ago whenever it was i did the did the raw wedding i got asked to do the raw wedding for the bbc which is quite exciting so i did i went down to um windsor uh where it was happening and um we went down the night before and it's me um kirsty young and and there's quite a few sort of little reporters and and stuff like that you know so it was a really big deal like you know you get given this massive big like folder it's like being doing a A-levels again, you know, it's proper.

So it took a month to digest the whole thing.

And anyway, we're coming up, doing rehearsals.

We finished rehearsals, we're coming across the road, and this is in Windsor.

And I walked past this old lady, and she was talking to someone she knew, and she went, The thing is,

I really feel it's going to put Windsor on the map.

See the castle?

Yeah, yeah.

Isn't it that surname?

Your dream starter.

Let's get into your menu problem.

Lads, lads, lads.

How are you with fish?

What's the situation like that?

I don't know who likes fish and who doesn't like.

We're going to be pretty fish heavy today.

Right, nice.

Good to hear.

With a few caveats, but caveat is pronounced caveats.

Yeah!

Come on.

It's good humour.

So

have you guys ever geeked in Norway?

Yeah.

I have not.

I have been like,

yeah, I did like it.

I actually, I mean, now we're talking about the royal family.

I geeked in Oslo half an hour after the queen died.

So I was the British Queen.

Yes, our queen.

I was in the dressing room.

The audience were filing in.

Then I got the text.

And obviously all my friends who were doing shows back home, their gigs all got cancelled.

And I'm there going, oh, I still got to go on.

And also, I've got to go on.

I was doing a show at the time where the audience were allowed to do whatever they wanted.

That was part of the show.

They were allowed to heckle, do whatever they want.

And so you walk on stage and they all knew my beloved queen had passed.

so as soon as i walked on stage they're just screaming at me uh just dissing me for not having a queen anymore and uh

regions are quite reserved yeah i thought that was the vibe in scandinavia that they'd be quite reserved but then when the rules are you can do what you want they're like oh we should give him what he wants he wants us to do this yeah they were like we're being good a good audience yes by bringing up that that his queen is no longer around did you eat while you were there yeah yeah do you remember like did you have a nice dinner with him uh i did i can't remember what i had had because I was only there for one day for that.

So I've ordered a lesson.

I've always loved seafood, I always loved fish.

But my wife is Norwegian.

And when we started dating,

we went out to Waslow to see her meet her family.

And now we go like a couple of times a year.

But we got there.

And she said, the one thing you have to have while you're here are Norwegian prawns from the fjord.

And actually, sometimes they get them for like the west coast up to Greenland and all of that.

And now I can't have another prawn.

So if someone says to me, oh, do you want a tiger prawn?

I'm like, no, no, no.

Or if we're traveling or something and you like prawns anywhere else, I can't be doing it.

So the Norwegian prawns are just these it's so simple but you base it so I'd have a pint or half a pint of those and with some

Norwegians like quite dense rye bread which I can't be doing with so I would normally go with some lovely white bread um mayonnaise bit of lemon squeezed on top and that's maybe a little salad side salad but that was all you need as a starter and it's and they they largely are the they don't catch them in the fjord so much anymore but they still do them there's a little so there's a little guy that comes in you buy them off him we bought bought them off in the in the in the in the kind of quayside or you can get them from sort of further afield.

The Fjord prawns are kind of a little smaller and then the ones on the west coast are bigger, but they are cold.

They're just icy cold, juicy.

And the Norwegians adore beer.

Beer and coffee are like the two drinks.

They've also got a very strange thing.

They've got a wine monopoly in Norway.

So this is the most brilliantly Norwegian thing in that the government own all the basically off licenses.

You can get beer in supermarkets.

I'm not sure about spirits.

I think you can get spirits in supermarkets.

But you get beer in supermarkets, but you, but if you want wine, you go into a separate shop that's state-owned, I believe, but because they've got this massive, massive sovereign wealth fund and it didn't just

away like we did.

They can just basically afford to buy really good wine.

So they buy, so the state, I think, buys the wine.

And so all my brother-in-laws and stuff have got really high-end tastes when it comes to

whenever they come visit us, I'm like, like drinking at our house and home and like all the good stuff.

I'm like, no, no, no, you knock yourself out.

But so they've got basically some wine advisors on tap.

So they're really good on wine and it's kind of quite, I know.

So it's great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, but the prawns are just I love this.

Yeah.

Pint of prawns.

Nothing attracts me quicker on a menu than a pint of prawn.

Oh, yeah?

I didn't know that about you.

Well, I'll be honest, I'm just copying my wife, to be honest, because Charlie like loves prawns.

So and her birthday, I'll normally find somewhere to take her that does a pint of prawns.

But I do look at a pint of prawns sometimes.

I get a bit like a really old man in a pub and go, that's not a pint.

There's a head.

There's a head sticking up there.

That shouldn't count as part of the pint.

Shell them, peel them, and then film me a pint.

There was an old place down in Oldgate, I think, that we used to go to quite often called Tubby Isaacs.

I don't think it's there anymore.

But Tubby Isaacs is...

I think I would have, if Tubby Isaacs was there, I'd know if Tubby is.

Tubby Isaac's still there.

You're looking out now.

Someone told me to come back, but no, is he gone?

It's one in Clacton, Benito says.

That might be the same one.

Tubby might have moved out to Clacton.

A lot of people have moved out to Clapton.

But it was 24 hours and you can go and get Welks there and little cocktails and stuff like that.

It was amazing.

So if we were sort of that way in town and you'd had a few drinks and stuff, we'd always go via there and get like, and also a couple of my friends are proper East End, Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom.

And so they were literally sitting.

Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom.

Yeah, and they'd sit in their pants and happily eat a pint of Welks

or just in vinegar.

Yeah, yeah.

Today watching the football.

Did you come up with the name Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom or do they call themselves Cockney Dan?

Oh, no, we came up with it.

Definitely, yeah, yeah, yeah.

How did you meet Cockney Dan and Cockney Dom?

Cockney Dom is Cockney Dan's brother, and I met Cockney Dan through mates, really, just sort of TV mates and when we started.

And then

we just a nice bunch of friends we've had for, we do a supper club every

three months.

Someone has to pick where we eat.

Yeah.

Should be seasonal.

It's got an ironic title.

We're called Posh Boy Supper Club because none of us are posh.

And everyone has to wear a suit, but not in a kind of like far, for, far away.

We've got quite a loose dress code now.

And then, and we've been doing it for 20 years now, and it's so nice.

Oh, great.

I've got a supper club as well.

It's nice, isn't it?

Yeah, we're called working class lads.

Oh, love it.

Oh, we should be excellent.

He goes to McDonald's or we're going to get it.

But we do.

Sometimes the worst nights are when you get home hungry, you know?

And so whenever I do it, I just try and pick somewhere really, I know we're going to get a good, a good meal.

Where was the last place you went for the supper club?

The last place we went for the supper club was Christmas, and it was amazing.

it was i forget the name of the restaurant it was in clapham and they did goose and the whole thing was our mate just went look if anyone's not up and he was over from the states and he organized it and he said if anyone's not up for goose let me know until we had christmas dinner um with a goose it was delicious that was great yeah juicy juicy goosey yeah lovely goosey goosey loosey yeah yeah yeah i went to i started um one of the reasons why i love food so much i mean my mum was my mum was on her own admission doesn't enjoy cooking she's not a great cook but my mum went back to work when i was like 14 or something and to me my sister sort of started cooking she taught us how to cook and it was one thing i really liked at school and that i genuinely thought it was going to be my my route in my sort of route in life because i didn't really i failed all my gcses bar two first time around because i just don't concentrate and then my dad said look let's retake them but if you don't if you don't get them that's cool but let's have a think about what you want to do and i had done work experience in a restaurant fell in love with it because it's the same thing it's show business like rest working in a restaurant is basically the same as live television like whether you're in the kitchen or whether you're in front of the house, you're just, you're making sure that people have a great night and you only get one chance to do it.

And I adored it.

I loved every second of it.

And I thought, well, I'm going to be a chef.

And then weirdly, I sort of bucked up my ideas, passed my GCSEs.

And then I did my A-levels.

And a fan,

I sort of had a sweet spot of history in politics.

I studied politics and then that was the only subject I did really well at.

And then that kind of, so that sort of changed my trajectory.

But then when I was at university, I just, I worked all my way through university by either being a barman or a waiter or stuff.

and i i love absolutely love the industry and so it was always kind of second nature to me i've lost my train of thought but where what where are we hanging where are we now are we prawns well we can we can move on no no no no no no no not at all what were you what were we talking about i don't want to give me a good one i'm home great time what were we talking about two seconds before that we were on prawns we were supper club that's it goose that's it thank you god god bless the goose so i get to tv get a job as a runner for a documentary company called barriclough carry And I've got no real aspiration.

I wanted to be an actor when I was a kid.

It wasn't good enough.

Knew it wasn't good enough straight, largely during my GCSE practical.

You know, sometimes when I say you should never listen to little voices in your head, sometimes you should.

And I did.

And then, so I didn't sort of, I sort of wanted to be a Bontelli without will be a presenter, but I wanted to properly learn it as a craft, you know, but I didn't, there wasn't like, there was no ins.

It wasn't like, so I just thought, well, I want to work in the industry.

I want to be a producer.

I want to learn how to work behind the scenes.

So finished university, went away, studied politics and media studies, went away to travel for a little bit, came back, wrote loads of letters, got loads of like 250 rejection.

In fact, we're just clearing our house out at the moment.

I found them the other day and kept them.

Not in a kind of like, fuck you, man.

I don't know why I kept them.

And so I was just sort of transferring it from one shoebox to another.

And I got three, it's like mid-90s, I got three kind of replies that were half decent, one kind of work experience, one maybe, and one come up for a chat.

So I get this, I get this runner's job.

And then I heard about a screen test that um it was going across town i didn't that i did that i didn't get no i did get sorry i got the screen test but so um and i ended up doing a pilot for channel four so i had i had the show reel basically and it was like it was supposed to replace the word or something and it didn't it was like a kind of late night channel four show but i but i got callback after callback after callback and like and i'm a runner at the time i should no earthly right to get this job i get this job i go and do it and it gives me a showreel and it got me an agent same agent i've got now so i had to sort of foot on the ladder.

And then you're sort of tracked out into my world.

And so I was, I had a period where I was going for researcher jobs and going for presenting jobs at the same company.

So I'd go in and they'd go, were you not in two weeks ago doing a screen test?

And I'm like, yeah, but, you know, I'm also a researcher.

I go, oh, well, you're not going to get either.

Anyway, it's weird now.

But one of the jobs I got

was working on like lunch with melon soup.

And that's where.

I just fell in love with food because every day you'd get these great chefs coming in cooking for you.

I remember having goose for the first time, but also I was in, I was sort of audience researcher.

So this is sort of emails in its infancy.

So we're like, we're actually just sending out signed pictures or we're sending out recipe cards or we're sending out, so I was in charge of all of that, getting the audience in, getting the best audience members on television and all the sort of stuff.

So every single day we were fed by these great home ex and these great chefs that came in.

So I just, I just had this great food every day.

And that's where I fell in love with the sort of the diversity and the lovely variety of food.

Didn't the audience used to to bring in their own lunch as well on light?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I remember that.

Specific memory of an episode of Light Lunch where a lady in the audience, her lunch was sweetie kebabs.

She put loads of sweets on

a that would have been me.

I would have picked her.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did you meet them to start with?

Good.

I've never forgotten it.

Yeah, because you'd meet them all and they'd go, I can't make cookies in London too.

I'm like, yeah, we do that every day.

Anyone got anything else?

Sweetie kebabs.

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Your dream main course, Dermot.

Now, this is tough, lads, because I'm a fish guy and

a merman.

You're a merman, yeah.

And

so it'd definitely be, it's either going to be, it's one of two fish.

But then I sort of almost bottled it today on the way in.

I went, do I do rotisserie chicken?

Okay.

Because I genuinely think there's not much better in the world than getting a rotisserie chicken.

A good rotisserie chicken.

Hard to find.

I'm sure you'll agree.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, yeah, here.

Yeah.

Like in France, every village has got some guy that turns up in a van or something.

Yeah.

It's just opens.

And in Italy, I know some great places for rotisserie chicken.

But over here, yeah, tough.

Yeah.

I mean, in Paris, which is my sort of main memories of rotisserie chicken, because my wife used to live in Paris in the Marae and literally like the shop opposite her had a rotisserie chicken thing outside with the potatoes in the bottom

just like they're that's it's they're turning and just that's every night it's dripping onto the potatoes just incredible incredible Nando's doesn't count it's not it's not rotisserie it's not rotisserie chicken is it's periperi it has to be turning around on a rotisserie doesn't it it's just flat flat on i can't go past a place that does rotisserie chicken and not get a rotisserie chicken and i'm sort of i've i've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole of buying my own rotisserie oven it's quite hard well you could it's quite hard because they're big big.

Yeah.

And then you've got to justify it.

If we're going to put it.

But you can't use it for everything either.

No, you just use it for chicken.

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, surely you could do like lamb on it or you could do beef on it or something.

A watermelon.

You could do a watermelon on it.

It's difficult to justify in the house.

You can't be like.

Yeah, I mean, I've struggled with an air fryer.

I'm not a big fan of an air fryer.

I've got to be honest.

Correct.

Because

I got one.

And then I sort of cooked in it.

And I went, it's sort of just like a microwave that kind of browns food.

Yeah.

It's an oven.

It's a small oven.

It's not small either, though.

Yeah,

they're too bulky for a work surface.

I admire it.

I appreciate it.

But

it doesn't factor.

Same as a microwave.

It doesn't factor into my day-to-day.

Well, because you're aiming at the rotisserie.

You want the rotisserie oven.

An air fryer is not going to do anything for you.

You do the job, is it?

No.

And those potatoes that come with the...

Gee, you've got me turning now maybe

a little bit anymore.

So fish gun.

Some of my early memories

are going to Ireland and my early food memories.

I did a show last year about called Taste of Ireland.

It was this kind of travel log.

It's largely just sort of love letter to Ireland about food.

One of the reviewers said, it's like it's paid for by the Irish Tourist Board.

And then we looked at the credits and realised it's paid for.

But they were really hands-off.

They were lovely.

Tourism Ireland were brilliant.

And they just said, look, do what you want, but as long as you call it...

as long as you call it the island of Ireland, because that's because we work for the island, then knock yourself out.

So

I wanted to do one episode back in Wexford, which is where my family are from and my earliest memories are um us having a caravan when we went back there in the summer and my mum buying fresh mackerel and frying it in the caravan and stinking the whole caravan out and so it would either be fresh mackerel or uh john dory and john dory is probably my favorite adult fish like when you sort of grow up and you go to restaurants and you're out you're allowed to kind of have what you want but i can't go john dory um because i feel compelled to mackerel because also i love i i sort of i love to fish i haven't fished for a while but and I'm not a great fisherman.

I sort of do a little bit of sea fishing.

Mackerel are basically like, are basically like the kind of rock and roll fish because they like live fast, die young, and literally will

literally bite anything.

So they're so, so if you hit a shoal of mackerel, you're on to a winner.

And you feel like you're the best fisherman in the world, but they're not.

They're just idiots.

They're just like, what is it?

I want to eat it.

And they're so beautiful.

They're like little...

sort of torpedoes do you like mackerel guys love them yeah absolutely love them so they're like little torpedoes when you get them they're just sort of you know, and actually I've had, I've sort of done a little

sashimi while I've been out there.

So you take a soy sauce and an English mustard, just shake it up, and then you can, you know, you can do fill it the mackerel pretty quick and do it.

Yeah, it's unbelievable.

So I think it has to be mackerel.

It has to be barbecued mackerel.

And I sort of, I've sort of got this down pat.

I always find it quite hard to barbecue fish because it sticks.

So I've almost got this down pat where I sort of do up a precaution, smoke paprika butter with it and then and then just sort of slather it in that and then it gets really, really charred and it's either sticking a whole right on the cookie yeah and then either serve that with either jersey royals or i think i know one of you's not a massive ball potato fan and but but i love jersey royals or uh my father-in-law roger does this outstanding potato salad where he just puts white onion and garlic in the bottom and then builds up from there with parsley and and potatoes and that and and just a crispy green salad is just

well

i mean i like i love the sound of that potato salad with it roger's potato salad yeah with your barbecued mackerel with a lot of white pepper as well yeah i love white pepper mackerel sounds amazing can i ask what barbecue you're using well good question i've got two okay because i i i've got like a weber which i love well i i don't know what's happened but i'm off my game i've gone somehow i can't retain the heat and i don't know what i've done um i might just not be using enough charcoal but i think i am yeah we use it as much as you used to i think so i don't know i've got one of those kind of so i can get it done quick Yeah, I've got one of the big kind of chimney things and then you pour you pour it in so maybe I'm just not putting enough in there, but it's killing me.

Yeah, I'm like come on guys.

What do you mean we're down to one 150?

I'm a 200 guy.

Come on.

Is it your ventilation?

Do you need to

clean out your vents?

Maybe I need to clean up my vents.

And then for my 50th, my wife got me an egg.

What?

A big green egg.

A big green egg, yeah.

Which I love, but I'm still...

I'm still finding my way with.

I've got a Camodo Joe, which is a ceramic barbecue.

And this is going to blow your mind.

One of the attachments you can buy for it is a rotisserie attachment.

So you want to look into the big green egg situation to see if, because with the Camodo Joe, it's called the Joe Tisseri.

And you slot it in between the lid.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You slot it in between the lid and the main barbecue and put coals in half the barbecue.

And then

what I've done in the past is you then spike it on, put it there and plug it in, and it just...

turns it for you.

You can use this thing.

But you only need the coles in half the thing.

So I've done lamb and chicken before, actually, where I then wedge a foil tray of potatoes underneath so you can do that.

Yeah, I know you can do that with an egg.

I know you do, but I just haven't used it enough yet.

You've got to do it.

You've got to make your own rotisserie.

I know you like the sound of that rotisserie attachment, don't it?

Do I have that?

Why have you got one here?

And because you're our favourite guest.

That would be if Richard Bacon had collaborated with us on the format for this.

That would be in there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That we'd give each guest.

So how do you with that?

How are you guys with whole fish?

Are you good with wholefish?

I mean, mackerel, they're quite small, but quite small bones in mackerels.

Yeah, it's pretty good.

Pretty easy to fill it in mackerel.

Yeah.

And when it's cooked, it's quite because you just go straight down the spines.

You can go to either way.

I don't know if you know, I had a fish restaurant in Brighton for seven years.

I didn't know this.

And yeah, I saw a partner in one.

It was like the most stressful seven years of my life.

Literally, yeah,

but

I loved it.

Parts of it I absolutely loved.

And it was so exciting.

But I would literally wake up every day and check my phone for the weather in Brighton.

Like we had five unbelievable years, really good years.

And then we had two bad winters.

And the bad winters just

a big building.

I knew the game was up when I think we were snowing and the British ski team cancelled their reservation.

I was like, well, if then

we really fucked up.

But we were we sort of pride ourselves on being, and we won, we won a couple of awards, I think, down the years for being like, you know, sustainable.

And we, so we had a great supplier who we only ever bought um bycatch from so we never i think in the in the years we were going we did we did fish and chips was quite a good sort of restaurant fish and chips which was never i don't think we ever used cod i think yeah i think it was always and i love cod but i you know it was just i think it was always whatever they caught we'd put on it was a lot of fun like you know i look back at it sort of fondly mostly you know it's quite stressful the hospitality just seems so hard so i mean especially at the moment but it yeah it seems like it's such a difficult i'm talking about opening a food court, and these guys don't want to do it.

You should do it.

James wants to open a whole food court, though.

Yeah, but the three of us together.

Court of St.

John.

Off-menu,

food court.

The Court of St.

James is a great.

Court of St.

James.

Would you rent a space, basically, or how would it work?

He's not thought about this, Demeter.

Just wait for something to come on the market.

There's no logistics gone into this thing.

And then we get a bunch of places we like, and we set them all up in the food court, but they have like reduced...

Versions of it, of their menu and stuff.

Just the greatest hits, often stuff we've talked about on off-menu.

yeah love some iconic stuff and then we run that together have the best time how is it financially worth it for them slash us oh i mean

people come in spend the money i mean i don't know how i have to spell this out to you yeah but it's the deal you're working with pre-existing businesses it's you know people aren't really eating out anymore james it's a hard it's a hard life at the moment being

my eye money on this yeah

yeah yeah it's reopening the fish place

well actually i genuinely think if we'd have had a smaller place yeah if we had a little hole in the wall and just done it like there you go to white, we'd still be in business.

There you go.

You could call it the small place, spelt like a fish.

Yeah.

Your dream side dish.

No, you've got the, we're saying the potato salad and the green salad are part of the main.

So you've got an extra side here to play with.

You've got them banked.

Yeah.

Wow.

That's banked.

Okay, so what classify...

Can I have Roast Chestery Chicken as a side dish?

No.

Hang on.

Well, yeah,

in a smaller dish, I guess.

They're going to be straight up there in the food court.

He says no.

Actually, I bet we have let someone do something like that in the past, haven't we?

Yeah.

I mean, the thing is, it couldn't be.

I don't think it could be a whole Rochisserie chicken.

I think it would have to be

a leg or a wing.

Oh, I can do a wing.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Wings?

You're switching for legs?

Yeah.

Is that the what bit will you if you're having a roast chicken at home, everyone's got their favourite bit.

What are you going for first?

Well, a turkey wing is genuine favourite bit of Christmas Day now because they're massive.

No one else wants them.

And I'd take them away like a cocker spaniel in a corner.

I would literally, and I do most of the cooking at house.

So if I'm, by the time the turkey gets to the table, I've sort of, I'm pricking it full because I've just had a turkey wing and like turkey wings are unbelievable.

So I'd definitely say a wing.

I also like brown meat.

But I like, I don't like it when the skin's like flabby.

So I like to kind of like, it needs crisping up.

So either I'll turn it upside down.

Or I'm still trying to work it out.

Some days you do a roast chicken that's like, I've obviously nailed this.

And some days you're like, why is it a bit too sweaty on the bottom?

Do you know what I mean?

So because I love the brown meat, but I love a crispy skin.

You've got to have crispy skin.

Do you starch cock?

I do.

We don't usually ask guests such personal questions.

I'm glad you feel comfortable enough.

I normally, if I do, it's pre-bought.

Right, okay.

So I'm allowed chicken.

I can have something else.

Yeah, chicken.

You're allowed chicken if you want chicken, but if you want

a votissu chicken wing, you can have that as your side dish.

Okay.

I'll tell you what I love.

I spent a lot of time in Italy, right?

And I don't know how they do it, but like Parmesan, like aubergine parmesan i have no idea how they make that as good as it is i quite like aubergines like i'm i'd rarely cook with them or you know i've got nothing against them but but how they make that you're eating it going yeah are you sure there's no meat in this yeah it is i mean that dish is probably in my top 10 of absolute go-tos that is incredible yeah i think having watched videos of it being made a lot of it is just frying the fuck out of the aubergine i made it worse

but i just think i think i i didn't fry it hard enough i think it's just loads of olive oil and really frying it, from what I can work on.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it is so delicious.

I almost went with pasta as my main.

I almost went like a catcher de pepe or a vongole.

Vongoli, I love.

Yeah.

Hammy Hill chose that.

Did he?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Nice choice.

When a conversation starts off the next time you bump into it.

So the chicken wing, the rotested chicken or the aubergine parmigiano, what you go.

Let's go aubergine parmigiano.

We've talked enough about rotist with chicken.

I feel like you'll

it.

Well, also, I feel like, you know, you've let me have my cake.

I shouldn't eat it as well because

you've basically had me chicken and fish as a main.

So I feel good about this.

Thank you.

Dream drink.

Can I have stages?

Sure.

Yeah,

throughout the meal.

So let's go back to the first drink, prawns.

So prawns is a good pint of Guinness.

Because Guinness and Prawns for me is just a

marriage made in heaven.

And then you've got two pints next to each other.

Exactly, a pint and a pint.

Yeah, yeah.

And now, I like beer as well, but I love, I don't like anything, and I'm not must have had pints of beer.

So I've been going to going to Italy now for a long time, and

there's a beer they've got down there in Puglia called Drea.

D-R-E-H-E-R.

You can't get it here.

And it's 4.7, and it's peasants' beer, really.

It's like my mate, some of my mates down there are kind of like turned the nose up at it, but I just...

love it.

And it's just the most amazing, fresh, ice-cold beer with a, with, I love it with

chicken or with a vangule even or with pizza and stuff around there um but then if I'm going with the fish I'm going white wine and I really I've just finished doing the wine course in Berry Brothers and Rudd oh yeah which is a cracking wine course really good my wife got it for my birthday was it did you do the exam carry it on no that's the next stage I think I will so I just need to find time I really enjoyed it I'm doing I'm doing a course this

month yeah no end of the month I'm doing it

I'm doing Leiths it's three days yeah I'm looking forward forward to it though yeah yeah have you cleared it with yeah sorry i'm doing a wine he's got a lot of investor meetings with food pork yeah and then if you get i'm up to my well i'm going to be the manager at the food

you're going to be here or not he's got the da on his back he's having a hard time of it

exams if i want to come come on board at the food jolly

so yeah so and a lot of it was like stuff i thought i knew anyway and and and it's kind of a stage you're not going to learn kind of integers and you know it's not that detailed yeah but you but i got a lot in fact there was every time we we came in there's this berry brothers do this unbelievable cheese and kind of uh cured hams or sausage plate with uh bread and it's half past six about half past six i'm quite hungry normally and i sit down and bait and i just i just cane it straight away and then and then about 20 minutes in victoria we go now just have a little bit of cheese just to balance that oh no

every week this happens i'm sorry i'm sorry

and i know there's a kind of like people look down on on that kind of new zealand kind of quite punchy South Blanc, but I really quite like it.

I also love kind of wines that feel like they've been lashed from the sea.

So I love Muscaday.

I love Alberina.

I love that kind of west coast of Europe wine.

It's like Etna or something like that.

I really love that kind of...

Salinity?

Are we using the word salinity?

Yeah, you can even taste the salt in it.

Yeah.

I love Muscaday.

You know, sort of Loire wines I really like.

So yeah, one of those guys.

Right.

So yeah, that's something for each call.

Yeah, you got your start.

You got your is the is the beer going anywhere in particular that, or is that, was that just a shout out?

I've just handed it out to you guys so you can table it.

Just experience it.

Have a table bit.

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Dream dessert.

Well,

this is hard because

both of you are looking at me going, it shouldn't be that hard.

I love raspberries.

Who doesn't?

My son.

I love raspberries.

I grew up in Colchester.

One of my best mates, a strawberry farmer.

And he does gym.

He does a great line in raspberry as well.

And actually, where...

Cockney Gym?

Cockney Gym?

No, Suffolk Jim.

Suffolk gym.

And where we're from in Ireland,

if you say to people, where you say to Irish people, where do you get strawberries from, they'll go Wexford.

So

I love summer berries, but raspberry is definitely my favourite.

And when I was little, we used to go camping up in Norfolk, in a place called Wells Next to the Sea.

I don't know if you guys have ever been up there.

It's a beautiful part of the world, right?

Slept in a car there.

Are you gigging up there?

No, we weren't.

We just, we just wanted to go on holiday there with our friends camping, and we thought we'd stake it out first, but mistimed our journey.

It was a bit late.

We were like late teens.

We were like, I'm going to just sleep in the car.

So we did that, got moved on in the morning by a copper.

Love that.

Not many people stake out Norfolk because when you're going there, you are going there.

Yeah, yeah.

But we were at that age.

Matthew had just passed his driving test.

We were driving everywhere looking for any excuse to drive.

Yeah.

So we were like, great, let's drive there just to see if like we want to, you know, before we go there for this holiday.

So we just wanted an excuse to drive.

You're so right, aren't you?

I remember when I passed my test, my sister was studying in Sheffield and it'd be that end of term.

I'd be like, I'm going to pick her up.

Of course, I'm going to go, yeah, I'll drive to Sheffield.

Now you'd be like, what?

Yeah, I've got to drive to Sheffield.

And he'd be like, I'm going to stop a little chef.

I gave up sugar that day.

I remember I was going up to see my sister, pick her up and stop the little chef.

And someone said, how do you want your coffee?

And weirdly, I've had a coffee in my sugar in my coffee today because I feel a little bit.

But on the way up, I was like, I'm not going to have any sugar.

I'll take the pancake.

But I don't know.

That's a grown-up moment it is a grown-up moment I'm driving I'm driving I'm in Little Shaf oh man driving the first the first time when you're on your own is amazing isn't it yeah it's a spicy test just driving literally looking at other drivers going I'm doing it too

and you look we're on the same road it's amazing but Norfolk so we used to go up there we used to camp with me my mum and dad and my sister and there used to be a restaurant like that called fryer tucks And I can't remember too much about Fryatux other than the fact it did a Knickerbocker Glory.

And a Knickerbocker Glory, you get to a certain age and it is sort of frowned upon to order a knickerbocker glory as a man i think like you do order a knickerbocker glory and i think people's respect goes down around the table as in you kind of get this kind of indulged look where you go oh you're all right you're revisiting your youth or something but it's not a grown-up dessert yeah there's a place in um and you can't find a good knickerbocker glory

There's a place in, thanks, baby.

There's a place in

town in London called 54 German Street.

And it's the Fortnite and Masons restaurant.

It's very lovely restaurant.

I've only been a few times, but it's really nice.

But what they do have is this unbelievable old-school dessert menu.

There's another place in North London.

I'm someone that's been on the show must have talked about before called Oslo Court.

I don't know if you know, if you know.

No, I'm not sure.

Oslo Court was set up.

It's an apartment block.

And

I think I know the place you're talking about.

Right, it was around the corner from Lord's.

So quite often, if you go to the cricket, it's a nice place to go.

But it's a very huge neighborhood restaurant.

And they've also got this incredible dessert trolley with this guy who's in charge of the dessert trolley so i've been in there before with my mate stoxie and is it like super 70s looking oh yeah everything's peach yeah and it's been rubbing the same family forever and it's the in in this apartment block and you get you get melba toast when you go in straight away like the the tablecloths are peach the curtains are peach the carpet i think is peach-esque but the food is absolutely fantastic but it's quite it's quite old school food as well so it'd be like a croque saint jacques or something like that you know or a crab la Rochelle, and you know, so it's just marvelous, kind of, yeah, kind of quite rich foods, really good.

I was there last time I was there, I walked in, and there's a concierge thing before.

So, you so you go to the left, you go to all the apartments, you go to the right and you go to the restaurant, and there was this old, lovely, kind-looking lady who was at reception, who was just talking to the concierge.

I was walking in and she saw me went, Excuse me, are you

on television?

And I said, Yes, and she went, Oh,

awful show, Awful.

And I was like,

I'm sorry, what?

She went, oh, terrible, terrible program, awful.

And I was like, I didn't stop to ask which one.

No, I still went in.

Did you find yourself clarifying?

And I was like,

I was quite traumatised.

And my mates came in.

I went, did you meet that old woman outside?

And they went, yeah.

I said, what'd she say to you?

I said, she asked what we did.

And I said, what did you ask?

What did you say?

And they said, we work in television.

And she said to them, there's nothing on television.

It's all awful.

Awful.

And I i was like what she's so angry she hates all television yeah it's good to make sure she made me feel slightly better so she hates all your programs

at least she's consistent um but they do i've had a knickerbocker glory there so knickerbocker glory is this just this great fun dessert that i think if it's on it's you so rarely see yeah yeah if it's on the menu you've got to go for it and i was going to say eating mess and i love eating mess but you can get eaten mess all the time you can make it so easily it's like shit people are coming around have we got raspberries some meringue nests a bit of ice cream or cream or whatever and and some berries and some mint smash it all up it's damn funny it's quite easy yeah i'm a huge fan of a pavlova or a baked alaska as well anything that involves that kind of yeah right the baked alaska's on the menu is getting ordered 100 rule the rule 100 we went out for lunch it was my birthday last week and uh went out for lunch with my in-laws and my mum my wife and at the woolsey james we had lunch the day after james yeah we wasn't invited to the we had lunch the day after yeah i had a birthday lunch with him yeah but there was a banana split on the dessert menu, and my father-in-law got the banana split, and I don't think I've ever seen him happier because it was fucking massive.

Was it?

It was gigantic.

I was going to say, because if you're in a restaurant and you're serving a banana split, especially a restaurant like the Warsaw.

Yeah.

It's got to be the real deal, isn't it?

You can hide making a banana split.

It's like banana, ice cream, chocolate sauce.

So you know it's got to be, if it's going to be in a restaurant like that, it's got to be amazing.

It made an impact when it arrived at the table.

Did it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Did it?

Yeah, he was absolutely delighted.

What's your favourite dessert, guys?

I In two minds, I was like, every now and again, if you get a crepe Guzette, for example, I'm like, when do you ever have a crepe Guzette?

Sure, delicious.

I'm a chockey boy, but I had a fantastic apple tat tatan recently.

Yeah, really good.

But no, I'll normally go, if there's a chocolate thing on the menu, I'm going chocolate-based.

But tat-tatan.

I mean, now you've put baked Alaska in my head, there's a place in Leeds called Ox Club.

Oxclub do a different baked Alaska pretty much

or every time I've been or sent friends there, there's always a different flavour baked Alaska on there so it's there's always baked Alaska but it's always different each time different ice cream different and it's always 10 out of 10 so that's uh

you've put that in my head that's the dessert I would like right now good dessert menu is fantastic yeah my mum and dad live in in near wet where they're from Wexford right in Ireland and they live um about three or four kilometers from the coast and there's a restaurant down there called Mary Barry's Mary Barry's is just an institution in Wexford sort of anywhere in southern Ireland so it's around the corner from big fishing port so you've got great fish there.

But then they'll just like, their special will be like, oh, it's turkey and ham, roast.

Well, well, okay.

Well, I was going to go for the place, but yeah, I get another from turkey.

And then, but their dessert menu, like, they'll come up and go, the sort of like dessert menu is everything you need.

It's all the Knickerbocker Glories.

Yeah, and then every now and again, they'll come up and go, oh, the special today is a Rolo cheesecake.

And you're like, who makes a Rolo cheesecake?

This is incredible.

When's the last time you had Knickerbocker Glory?

Yeah, it'd be years ago.

Even the name is fun, isn't it?

Knickerbocker Glory.

I think probably when I was a kid, and like,

even then, I probably still read more stories that reference Knickerbocker Glories than I've actually had.

Yeah, you know.

I think that's universal truth.

I think also, I love the kind of thing, it takes an effort and it takes a long spoon.

It's like you're like an ante to the end of it, aren't you?

On the Knickerbocker Glory.

We just used to have one of those spoons in our house, and I don't know where it came from and what we had it.

So true, I've got one.

One long spoon.

Why don't we use this?

Yeah.

When did we find the spoon?

I need to stop making my son Nico.

He's four.

I think he'll really appreciate Nico Mercury Glory.

He loves Ice.

I met your son at radio too.

Yeah.

He was romping about.

Casper, yeah.

Like he owned the place.

It was brilliant.

I think Claudia was on air and he just went.

He just went into the studio.

He's a guest with Claudia.

It's largely it.

If Claudia's around, they've got this mutual love in.

She's bought like half his clothes are basically from Claudia Winkle.

Seriously, he's got a jacket.

He's wearing a jacket with his name on the back.

That's from Claudia.

Great.

I was going to to ask if you're having a wine with dessert or a or a cocktail to finish off the menu I like dessert wine but I never ever order it like whenever I have it I quite like it but it's always quite I always find it quite um

it's so sweet and I'm and I never like a little I like a digestive but I'm I'd probably just have coffee if I'm honest with you have a coffee yeah no sugar no sugar you got sugar with the with the knickerbocker glorious

sweet enough get out of here with that um but i do like a little something i did a show a couple of years ago with Gordon.

Well, about 10 years ago, now, Gordon Buchanan, who you should get on here.

Gordon's amazing, like wildlife cameraman, just the nicest guy you're ever going to meet.

We haven't had many wildlife cameramen on the podcast yet.

Almost none.

He's such a lovely guy.

And he's so sort of well-versed and well-travelled.

And he's eaten so much different food everywhere, you know.

Not the wildlife, though, right?

Oh, no, he doesn't get a bush meat.

So he supplements the cat.

And Gordon had a a show about 10 years ago called, I think it was called Wild Weekends or something.

And basically, it was in the UK.

And it was the year I did, I wasn't doing X Factor.

And he'd call me up and said, listen, you know,

is there any wildlife you'd want to see?

And I love the outdoors, you know, I love camping, I love all that.

Stuff you don't really get a chance to do that often.

And I said, well, I'd love to, you know, I'd love to do is swim.

I'd love to see basking sharks or whales somewhere within the UK.

And he went, great, leave it with me.

So we went up to Skye and for like three, four days.

And we just hit the sweet spot the weather was amazing we saw first day we saw like golden eagles and uh otters and seals and all of this and then we camped out on rum that was the great name we went kayaking and we caught mackerel and the mackerel are like tuna they were massive and then we camped out that night on rum and only 30 people or something live on rum so it's the next island along and um you know got bitten by midges and all this but me and gordon cameraman soundman of a night got the mackerel gordon cooked up this kind of couscous i'm now i'm not the world's beast couscus fan but it was kind of like you know a bit of of stock in it.

It was really lovely.

Fresh mackerel.

And then he opened up a bottle of Talisca whiskey.

And I really like whiskey, but I don't tend to drink an awful lot of it.

And I think we're all sort of kind of brought up with it being,

you know, terrible hangovers and all that sort of stuff.

And actually, he went, no, no, no, we don't, we have like, you drink it like coffee.

You have like two a night.

just like afterwards, you know, as a digestive, really, or just at the end of the food.

And then we just sort of send you on your way to bed.

And it totally changed how I looked at whiskey.

And so now I really enjoy it, but I'll have, I'll never have more than two.

And I'll just have one just to know, sometimes just, you know, the end of an evening or something, just to kind of mellow it all away.

It's really lovely.

And, you know, over the course of like three days, the four of us drank this bottle, but it was just, you know, it wasn't drunk once.

Yeah.

It was just really lovely.

We can give you a little whiskey at the end of the day.

Oh, thank you.

Send you to bed.

Yeah, send you to bed.

I'll read your menu back to you next.

Yes, please.

See how you feel about it.

You would like Perrier water.

Cool.

You would like.

I mean, I wasn't, sparkling's fine.

I don't mind where it's.

No, you got Perry on.

Come now, you got Perry on.

With some lime.

You would like soda bread and white bread.

Problems of bread.

You would like a pint of Norwegian prawns with white bread, mayo, lemon, side salad.

Main course barbecued mackerel with smoked paprika butter.

Don't forget the Guinness.

Good night, Guinness there.

Oh, yeah, there's a pint of Guinness with that starter, actually.

Thank you for picking me up on that.

Barbecued mackerel with smoked paprika butter, Rogers potato salad, crispy green salad, and wine.

What was the wine again?

Well, anything West Coast European kind of what's lav?

Well you said Laura

Aubergine Parmigiana for your side.

Drink.

Oh, yeah, that's where Benito's written all the drinks there.

Nice little table beer.

Gorgeous.

Oh, yeah.

I think the Dreyer beer is your dream drink, and those other drinks are with those courses.

And dessert, Knickerbocker Glory from Oslo Court, and a coffee, no sugar, and some whiskey.

Oh, yeah.

That's lovely.

That's pretty great.

Thanks, guys.

That sounds very tasty, Dermot.

I think I most want to try the prawns because I haven't had a pint of Norwegian prawns.

And if they're so good, it makes you not want another prawn again from anywhere else.

100%.

Yeah, I've got to try those prawns, baby.

Well, Dermot, thank you so much for coming on.

Is there any

X-Factor contestant you wish was sharing this meal with me?

Oh, that's a nice question.

One X-Factor contestant.

Can I have a judge or a contestant?

You seriously want one of the judges?

Yeah.

Shersey.

Shersey is the world.

Shersey's a world of fun.

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you If you want a good drinking buddy, Nicole is pretty much as great as a college.

So we did judges' houses once and we ended up in Nice and me and her got there the night before.

We were staying in this like massive house and we had the chef and so the chef had cooked this kind of, you know, there's that sort of kind of job, isn't it?

Traveling chef around Europe in the summer quite often.

He was this really sweet guy and, you know, I mean, I was kind of just tagging along, but they'd obviously said, what do you want to eat, Nicole?

And they'd pick this menu and blah, blah, blah.

And then towards the end of the night, she said, you don't have any port, do you?

And the guy, this color drained from this guy's face because he didn't have any pork he was like you know obviously you know serving Nicole Scherzing and he's stunning and beautiful funny and lovely and all this sort of stuff and he went oh god no uh let me see what I can get and he came back with this kind of bottle and he poured a glass of it and she stried it she went oh my god that's lovely and he left it and it was cooking sherry

so we then proceeded to get shit-faced on cooking sherry and then she was like we've got to find something else so by this time this guy's gone home so we are opening every cupboard in this house so it's like an airbnb massive airbnb so we're just like she's like i found some beer she's just an absolute animal yeah and then so you know we have this great night and there's like four or five of us staying there we all go to bed i wake up in the morning feeling oh god i'm gonna go down and have a swim and like in the sea and feel a lot better i've swim in the sea and i get up and i look out my window and she's literally just going on like a 10 mile run i'm like

i hate you how do you do that

yeah

she's there he's there for that and then if it's the contestant then uh i mean let's go with into Ireland.

I mean, you know, you know, that guy's going to ring the party.

Yeah.

No brain.

Wherever it goes.

Thank you so much for coming to the Dream Restaurant, Dermot.

There we are.

What a wonderful episode with Dermot.

That was a delicious menu.

Nice man.

A wonderful man, and he didn't choose Cheerios, so we didn't have to kick old Cheerio Leary out of the Dream Restaurant.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick, tick, tick.

Boom.

Silence is Golden is on you and Dave weekly on Mondays, and all episodes are available to stream for free on you now.

Yeah, watch all of that.

Watch all of that.

Watch all of that.

I am on tour in New Zealand and Australia in June.

Very exciting.

I'll miss you.

I'll miss you too, buddy.

Edgamble.co.uk for tickets.

Buy some tickets.

Come and see me in all the different places in New Zealand and Australia.

Yeah, 100%.

100%.

Benito, I just want you all to know that he thinks about you all the time.

Yeah, all of you listeners, and you all mean a a lot to him.

And you're always in his heart.

He holds you very close to his soul.

Yes.

Goodbye.

Goodbye.

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Hello, I'm Carrie Ad.

I'm Sarah, and we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September, the time is 7pm, and our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies, it's coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true, Saturday, the 13th of September.

At King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.