Andi Oliver's Fabulous Feasts review – so hope-inducing it could restore your faith in Britain

27/03/2024 23:00

This joyous show sees the TV chef overflowing with warmth and knowledge as she tours the UK to throw genuinely cool parties for deserving Brits. It's utterly heartwarming

If you had to choose a TV chef to throw you a huge party, who would it be? Let's face it, there's only one answer. (OK, two because it is a truth universally acknowledged that no one sets a table like Nigella.) I'm talking about a chef and restaurateur for whom everything is soul food. Someone whose background includes singing in a punk band and throwing legendary warehouse parties in the 1980s, neither of which can be said of Gregg Wallace or Marcus Wareing. A presenter who put the great into Great British Menu, a series that wasn't otherwise known for its big heart and high glamour. It is, of course … Andi Oliver!

As a premise, Andi Oliver's Fabulous Feasts is about as heartwarming as a Guyanese pepper pot cooked in a Cornish community cafe by a graduate of Jamie Oliver's Fifteen. All of which feature in episode one of this joyous six-part series in which Oliver travels the length and breadth of Britain, throwing genuinely cool parties for folk who deserve it. Not only is she as warm as a summer's day in St Ives, she really knows her onions. "You make your own cassareep?" she asks chef Ben Arthur, renowned in Cornwall for his Caribbean hot sauces. That's the thing about Oliver: she exudes warmth and expert knowledge, a rare combination in her field. I now know that cassareep is a molasses made from cassava root. Plus, I've got Oliver's recipe for green seasoning, for which Fabulous Feasts is worth watching alone.