Marianne Lumb is a chef best known in the UK for her TV appearances on Great British Menu, Masterchef – the Professionals and Saturday Kitchen Live.  The butcher’s daughter worked as a private chef and then opened Restaurant Marianne in London in 2013, which received great reviews, though it closed in 2018.  I came across Marianne Lumb’s makeaway box when I was looking at Finish & Feast’s website. Her menu looked simple, light and delicious, so I ordered a box for delivery on 29th January.

When the delivery arrived the contents of the box looked very ‘light’, with the elements of each of the three courses neatly packed in separate paper bags.  There wasn’t a video to link to, but the written instructions were very clear and simple, presented in a charming little booklet.

The first course was Vitello Tonnato, which required no cooking or heating on my part. I simply turned the lean pale veal onto plates (4 slices each), topped them with artichoke pieces and caper berries, and then drizzled over the tonnato sauce.  It made a very good, light and fresh starter. 8/10

Although neatly packaged, the stone bass fillets were a good size.  I liked it that Marianne was using this less common, more sustainable fish in this dish. Our native Atlantic Bass is under pressure and its landing in the UK is heavily restricted. It’s unusual to find a sea bass large enough to provide decent ‘steaks’, but as stone bass grow much larger, they are perfect for portioning out.

The fish only needed 15 minutes in the oven, the celeriac puree and beurre noisette a few minutes in a pan to warm up, and the broccoli only needed 30 seconds in boiling water.  The finished dish made a lovely meal: the fish was moist and tasty; the celeriac was a ‘tastier than potato’ carb element and everything was wonderfully brought together by the beurre noisette.  9/10

There wasn’t any cooking for me to do on the dessert either. We had a pistachio, cardamom and rhubarb cake and a Yorkshire rhubarb puree, plus a scattering of pistachios and freeze-dried raspberries.  I liked this dessert for being light, flavoursome and not too sweet.  7.5/10

This Marianne Lumb make-away cost me £90 + £6 delivery, which is comparable with other 3 course meal boxes from famous chefs. But this meal didn’t have fancy cheffy elements, it was a relatively simple meal which one might easily cook from scratch at home. But it was a very enjoyable meal. 8.5/10