WE SEEM to be addicted to gorging ourselves on cookery programmes these days and on Monday evening another one returns to our screens, Great British Menu, now in its sixth series.

But we will have more reason to watch than usual, because the North East region kicks off proceedings and featuring all week will be two of North Yorkshire’s top chefs: Stephanie Moon, from Rudding Park, and Andrew Pern, of The Star Inn, at Harome. This year’s theme is The Eden Project’s Big Lunch and the nation’s top chefs are being challenged to cook for the ultimate street party.

They will be asked to produce sharing platters that encourage people to eat like they do in Italy and France; a habit we’ve long forsaken for sarnies at the desk while we work through our lunch break. The organisers are trying to encourage a return to social dining.

I caught up with Steph, who is now back at her day job in the award-winning hotel near Harrogate, but she is sworn to secrecy about the outcome.

“They rang me up and said do you want to audition for the show,” says Steph. “I thought, ‘Wow, who wouldn’t jump at the chance?’ It was a massive thrill because for any chef this is the Holy Grail.”

Each week will feature a regional round, where three chefs will compete against each other and the winning chefs will have their dishes served at The People’s Banquet, a lavish street party to be held at London’s Leadenhall Market.

As ever the judges are Matthew Fort, Oliver Peyton and Prue Leith, who will be joined by a previous series winner to taste and score their dishes every day.

For Steph, the first hurdle was a screen test.

“The lady who interviewed me then tasted my food, well she ate the whole lot, which at 11.30 in the morning wasn’t bad at all. So I knew I was on to a good thing.”

Having passed the test, Steph entered a hectic whirl of filming and cooking with unfamiliar equipment under the unpredictable and searing heat of TV lights. It was a punishing schedule which often lasted well into the night.

Then there were the delays. In a kitchen, chef calls the shots; in the studio it’s the director. Steph says timing went out the window when he said cut, but she just had to cope and produce the goods.

The crew also filmed Steph at work in the kitchens at Rudding Park and went up to her parents’ farm in the Dales where she learned to cook.

The first episode concentrates on starters. Steph, also well known for her foraging exploits, brings some of Rudding Park’s free hedgerow fruit to the proceedings in her forager’s relish to accompany sticky pigeon breast. Former Great British Menu champion Nigel Haworth will decide whether or not it’s a winner.

The contestants were allowed to source their food from anywhere they fancied, but being last year’s deliciouslyorkshire’s champion chef, Steph says there was only ever going to be one choice.

She says the judges gave her a bit of feedback during filming, but she will be watching anxiously to find out what they said behind her back. “I’ve no idea what they are going to say and that’s quite scary because you’re hanging your heart out and up there to be shot down. I know some of my dishes will be better received than others, but that’s the beauty of this TV series; it’s got an edge.

“If they were to ask me, I’d jump at the chance to do it again.”

As for Andrew Pern, he says: “It was certainly an exhausting schedule. But I’ve still got a busy restaurant to run so the chances of putting my feet up are pretty slim. I’m sure I’ll be able to steal a few minutes though and see what the judges really thought.”

Only two chefs can make it through to cook for the Great British Menu judges at the end of the week and one of them will be going home on Thursday.

Who will it be? Even the contestants don’t know. You’ll just have to tune in and find out.

• Great British Menu Heat begins on BBC2 on Monday at 6.30pm.

• Great British Menu features top British chefs competing for the chance to cook a banquet. In the first series it was for the Queen on her 80th birthday. The second series was to cook for the British Ambassador in Paris. The third was a banquet in London, hosted by Heston Blumenthal and in the fourth series, for troops returning from Afghanistan. The fifth series was hosted by the Prince of Wales for outstanding local food suppliers.

• The lottery funded Big Lunch, which is partnered by The Great British Menu, will take place on June 5 and aims to get as many people as possible to have lunch with their neighbours once a year. Nearly one million people took part last summer.