COLCHESTER couple Russell Clement and Michele English have reached the final of BBC’s The Restaurant.

They made it after a gruelling couple of days working with some of the best people in the restaurant business.

As viewers would have seen this week, while Russell got to spend an “amazing” day at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir doing a lunchtime service with Raymond and his chefs, Michele got to see what life was like serving at one of London’s top restaurant, Pied a Terre, run by Restaurant judge David Moore.

It was all part of this week’s task and challenge which was about continuous improvement.

And as part of it Raymond also sent back some customers that had previously had a bad time at Michelle and Russell’s restaurant, The Cheerful Soul.

Russell said: “The idea was that we spent some time with the experts and take back what we learned from them into our own restaurants.”

Michele added: “I suppose now we’re getting to the end of the competition, it was about seeing who could develop with Raymond’s help and who would listen and learn from what he has to say.”

Russell certainly did that.

impressive He said: “We started off in the garden trying the produce they grow there and basically testing our knowledge of food.

“That was great. Getting shown around the place by Raymond was just an incredible experience. Then we went to the restaurant where Raymond demonstrated three dishes.

“The most impressive was the dessert which took three hours to make.”

Michele had more of a difficult time at Pied a Terre looking after an exclusive room of diners.

She said: “We were supposed to have four tables of two but I ended up with a table of four, three, two and another four, and they all arrived at the same time. Also, we had no idea what some of the dishes were.

“Normally I would see Russell cooking them in the kitchen but all we had to go on was the menu descriptions and most of them looked like works of art, so you couldn’t identify which dish it was.”

And that was just the task.

For the challenge as well as trying to change the minds of their old customers, Raymond sent them some new ones as well: a group of coeliacs who have to eat a gluten-free diet and a team of rugby players.

Michele said: “You couldn’t get two more different sets of people but actually both were great.

“I think Raymond expected the rugby players to be a rowdy but they were lovely. We had a great time with them.

“I think we also catered pretty well for the coeliacs.

“The worst thing we did was send out some bread to their table but overall they were very happy.”

Russell added: “We were pretty confident about looking after the customers who had had a bad experience before.

“They were from our opening night when the service was slow and we knew we had completely upped our game since then.”

And getting to the final has proved it.

incredible Michele said: “It’s just like we’ve said before, every week we had no idea how we had done, so we were convinced that we were going.

“To get to the final was just so incredible and the experience of a lifetime.”

Russell added: “The whole programme has been incredible but the final was something else.

“Cooking on board the Orient Express was something beyond our wildest dreams and an experience we will remember for the rest of our lives.”

  • The final of the Restaurant is on BBC 2 on Wednesday so make sure you get next week’s papers for an exclusive final preview on the Wednesday and an interview with Russell and Michele on the Friday.