HE once had two restaurants carrying his name in Christchurch, but last year Gary Rhodes left the town with neither of them, citing other commitments as the reason for his departure.

Six months later one of those commitments has come to fruition, with Gary back on our screens as part of a new BBC2 series called the Great British Food Revival, which started last Wednesday.

When he sizzled his way onto the scene back in the nineties, the chef transformed the face of television cookery with his accessible style of classic British food, a passion that has remained close to his heart ever since.

“I have this dream about opening a restaurant in Paris with only British cuisine,” gushes Gary, now 50.

“I’d like to get the food imported to show off our ingredients, the way we cook and show them we’re as good as they are.”

His enthusiasm for British fare made him an obvious choice for the series, which also stars Michel Roux Jr, the Hairy Bikers and Clarissa Dickson Wright. Every week the chefs will be taking viewers through their favourite native product, which in Rhodes’ case is the tomato.

“I wanted to show the strengths of this everyday ingredient. I don’t ever see someone in the supermarket without tomatoes. It’s actually a fruit, so I even put it in desserts,” he says.

Just before filming the programme, Rhodes spent a month in Italy where he nearly regretted his choice of produce.

“The tomatoes I ate were phenomenal and I thought ‘nothing in Britain will match that’. Then, while making the show, I met an Englishman growing 50 to 60 varieties on his farm and when you put them in your mouth they were equally explosive. Amazing,” he says.

“I also learned that in this country we pick our tomatoes far too young, when they’re still green, so by the time they get to the supermarket they’ve lost that great flavour.”

An ambassador for British produce, it’s no surprise that Rhodes is pushing for more of it in our supermarkets.

“I believe we have the finest ingredients in the world; the French buy our lobsters, Scottish raspberries are incredible, as is British beef and Welsh lamb,” he says.

“Then there’s scallops from Cornish waters and English asparagus... it goes on and on.”

The celebrity chef thinks more could be done to encourage people to buy local without forcing them to give up the convenient supermarket shop.

“What I’d love is for the mega supermarkets to create in-house markets on a Saturday,” he says.

“If people knew they could still get old Bob’s tomatoes, they’d be drawn to it.”

Rhodes also thinks there should be a place for irregular produce.

“The stuff that’s the ‘wrong’ shape. If I had a supermarket that did that, I’d be proud to go there.”

The Great British Food Revival started last week and Gary Rhodes’ episode will be aired on April 4. In the meantime, below is one of his favourite recipes using tomatoes.