Comments on: Fat Duck (Bray, England) – Redux

By: Anders

Anders — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:37:26 +0000

@ Chuck,

what a nice review of Mr. Heston and his beautiful dishes. I visited Fat Duck myself in 2008, but wasnt fortunate enough to get nearly as good pictures as you, therefor I would like your permission to use the above on my blog: http://abemad.blogspot.com?

/A Heston Fan

By: More awesome-ness that I must have « It’s a Dichotomy, this Life

More awesome-ness that I must have « It’s a Dichotomy, this Life — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:54:22 +0000

[...] out chuckeats.com review of the place. Incredible. Molecular gastronomy <3 Despite the restaurant being closed [...]

By: craig

craig — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 03:12:49 +0000

the only thing i am not into is the lack of changing with the seasons. how can certain items be at peak quality throughout the year, i mean yeah you could use frozen peas in fall but why not just make menus that change seasonly instead of never changing your dishes but once every 2 years.

By: Annie

Annie — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 19:28:21 +0000

maybe the menu does not change because it takes so long to actually manage to secure a reservation? A friend and I are desperate to take our husbands for their birthdays and have been trying to book for months, 5 days to go and so far no joy. Not sure my husband will appreciate Heston’s cookbook and a promise of “I will take you one day” quite so much!

By: Roberto

Roberto — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 14:01:43 +0000

Chuck you know I follow the blog methodically but here I can’t agree with you. I’ve not been to the Fat Duck but I’ve been in el Bulli. The super photos you post here are incredible, I think this is an experimental gastronomic trip, not a meal and because of this the traditional, good-bad scale is not applicable. Tks for the post!!!!

By: paul

paul — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 23:06:31 +0000

It looks like there is about to be a blue moon because Heston Blumenthal is about to unvail a new dish SHOCK HORROR and it is called Mock Turtle Soup With Mad Hatter Tea and is apparantly inspired by Alice In Wonder Land.

As for the dish it self it includes ans egg made of turnip custard with saffron and swede gel in EnokI mushrooms sticking out of it which resemble the toad stools in the book and by the side of this there will be a pressed terrine of Ox tounge raddish and lardo pickled turnip and truffle, and also there will be a fob watch shapped stock cube which will be covered in gold leaf which will be in a cup and you pour a liquid onto the fob watch which then desolves into some sought of consomme type tee thing.

By: VGF

VGF — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 20:38:55 +0000

Great reviw, Chuck. Very happy to read it!
(Was the repeating photos really necessary?)

According to Mr Heston Blumenthal (I met him four months ago) it takes two years before a new dish is complete.Which I kinda understood was the reason for the rare change in the menu.

Still, I’m very surprised to see you had the exact same thing as I in Dec 07.

By: Yan

Yan — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 17:47:09 +0000

It really is unfortunate that the food gets lost in the intentionality but this is inevitable since what Blumenthal speaks of (memory, experience, place, etc.) occurs on such an intimate and personal level. At best, as Chuck mentioned, Blumenthal allows these seeds to germinate in his diners’ minds by overtly referring to them. At worst, he reduces these notions to gimmicky dinner theater. The optimist in me leans toward the former and, hey, the fact that we are discussing these concepts is a sign of success.

But I believe that true perfection can only be experienced in the moment; it’s indeed multi-modal but this can’t be evoked with iPods and smoke. Pointed to, perhaps, but that’s about it. Not to point out the obvious, but the taste of the food is the truest testament to a chef’s success.

Love your reviews, Chuck. Can’t wait to read about all the others!

By: chuckeats

chuckeats — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 11:17:45 +0000

steel – that ‘pursuit of perfection’, obviously a theme in his work, is seemingly at odds with the idea that eating food is multi-modal. how can anything be perfect when there are outside factors, including physical differences between people, influencing the taste? i don’t disagree w/ your assessment; but it does introduce a contradiction in his work; and makes it that much harder to ultimately understand.

By: steel

steel — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 08:34:21 +0000

yan – that sounds really great! i’ve read a couple of books from heston and he seems to be obsessed with the “pursuit of perfection”, ie. creating the super-exact balance of spices, exactly the right gramm percentage of fat/chuck/brisket/ribs that goes into a hamburger, to the point of laboratory analysis. translate that into his menu in bray and I guess he is constantly searching for perfection in those few dishes he comes up with. take for instance “Nitro green tea and lime mousse (2001)”, where a small blob of lime mousse gets nitroed and then doused with green tea powder. The date marks the first creation of this course. But the problem is, if the magic is in altering 10-15% of the consistency of this mousse every year, perhaps procuring a different type of lime…only he will realise the difference. if he’d apply the perfectionism to a broader array of dishes I’m sure we wouldn’t be having this discussion.