Dinner

I’ve been lazy recently. Very lazy. It’s been an age since I’ve put something up on the blog. There are a few reasons for this: work, moving house, not having internet at home for a month, and just more laziness.

But I’m back.

And to kick things off I’m reviewing a restaurant that will be familiar to all of you. It’s probably one of the most written about restaurants in London and its name is Dinner. Heston’s latest venture at the Mandarin Oriental garnered a lot of praise when it opened, despite the pretty high prices, and a year on it doesn’t look like it’s losing steam. As readers will remember I had a great time at The Fat Duck but Dinner is a different beast, more of a bistro but sprinkled with the usual Heston magic. I still hadn’t been and it seemed the perfect place for a Mother’s day lunch.

The restaurant itself is rather wonderful, a huge glass kitchen full of chefs and huge pineapples on a spit being gently roasted in the oven. Huge windows give the place a lot of light and there was a lovely buzz and hum to the place. It’s full of lovely little touches; little bookmarks with little tidbits from the history of food or a bibliography at the back of the menu. The wine list, whilst impressively weighty (if you like that sort of thing), goes north of £40 pretty quickly, but I suppose that’s to be expected.

The food itself is wonderful. Really wonderful. It is expensive, but worth saving for and eating it was a joyful experience. The famous Meat Fruit, which has been hyped to kingdom come, stood up to the praise that has been lavished on it. Softer and smoother than you can imagine and beautifully presented, I wanted to bring a tub home with me. The other stand out was the roast marrowbone with snails that had lovely, earthy flavours. Hay smoked mackerel and buttered crab loaf were both good but not up to the high standards set by the other two. All of them, however, exemplify what Dinner is about: familiar, homey cooking which have been taken to another level.

Meat Fruit

Hay Smoked Mackerel

Roast Marrowbone

Buttered Crab Loaf

One of the techniques that Heston uses to take these dishes up a level is cooking almost everything sous vide. The results of this can sometimes be incredible; meat tastes more tender than ever, nothing is lost etc etc. And with most of our mains it worked a dream. The pork chop, for example, was like nothing I’ve ever tasted, it was just perfection. As was the powdered duck breast with its smokey, spicey flavours. The chicken on the other hand, while being cooked exactly how it should be, was just too tender and moist. It tasted and felt so unfamiliar that you kept thinking it was still raw, even though it was, all in all just too weird. Pigeon just about worked but was, again, almost too tender to be believed but lovely really.

Black Foot Pork Chop

Powdered Duck Breast

Puddings are again dominated by the now world famous Tipsy Cake. This is the pudding to end all puddings; spit roasted for a gazillion hours in its own juices and served with melt in your mouth sponge. There are no words to describe this, worth the trip alone and all the other puddings pale in comparison. Although the British cheese platter is lovely too.

Cheese Plate

Tipsy Cake

Whilst easily the one of the most expensive lunches you can have in London, I would put Dinner up there with other favourite treats like River Café, Ledbury and Roganic. Book, save, go.

Eating In The Dark

Taking photos of food is often discussed amongst food bloggers and journalists; some despise it, others love it. I’m firmly in the camp of the photographers but only if the photo does the food justice. I don’t see the point, (at least not any more!) of putting up crappy iPhone photos or ones where it was so dark that it was impossible to see. But whenever I go to a restaurant that is too dark to take photos I usually end up not writing about it just because I don’t have any photos to put up. It probably means my writing isn’t good enough to stand alone but for whatever reason those restaurants never get written about.

Well this time I’m going to break the trend and write about two restaurants I’ve been to recently that I would have liked to have photos for but due to tricky light conditions I was unable to. It’s a shame as the first restaurant in particular had some of the most wonderfully presented food I’ve had in a while. But fear not dear reader, help is at hand in the form of this blog post that amply demonstrates the beauty of the plating at Dabbous.

I suppose the other reason I have decided to write about Dabbous is that it’s the hottest ticket in town right now, and, for once, I managed to get their before the hoards descended. Apparently it’s booked up till May now, and Giles and Jay haven’t even had their reviews printed yet. I’d heard a bit of a buzz about Ollie Dabbous’ new venture thanks to my mild addiction to twitter and early reports were effusive in their praise. While some people hate the idea of Valentine’s day, for me its just another excuse to eat, so I booked us up for Tuesday the 14th.

Amazingly the place was half empty when we got there, and the bar was even emptier as we sipped on our expensive but delicious cocktails. This was quite nice, we were so ahead of the curve that there weren’t hundreds of tables for two and it could have been any night of the week really, although you couldn’t get a real read on what the atmosphere would be like when it was buzzing.

You don’t need a crowded restaurant to get a read of the food though, and all I can say is that the hype is real people. We weren’t in the mood for the full blown tasting but decided to do a bit of a mix and matching from the a la carte and just share everything. Highlights from the starters were the salad of fennel with lemon balm, which quite literally blew my mind with the dressing that was just amazingly pure and clear, and the beef tartar with cigar oil, which tasted new and familiar all at the same time. To be honest the you can’t really go wrong with anything on the menu at Dabbous but these were some of the best.

Mains were awesome too; roast goose with sweet clover kuzu and quince was such a startling array of textures it took a minute to work out if you actually liked it but then became incredibly addictive, braised veal cheek was more homely but equally seductive and the spelt that came with it was a revelation.

We only went for one pudding but the barley flour soaked in red tea almost stole the show, rich and light, all at the same time it was a sublime end to an amazingly impressive meal. Ollie’s time at Texture has obviously influenced him heavily, every dish isn’t just thought about in terms of taste but just as importantly the way it tastes. It was easily the best meal I’ve had this year and I’ll be back when the queues die down.

I wish the same could be same for my first visit to Ceviche. I can’t tell you how much I wanted to love this place and how long I’ve been waiting for it to open. Ceviche was my life in Buenos Aires, I had it at least twice a week and I never get bored of that sharp, salty flavour from the leche de tigre. It is one of my favourite foods in the world and I’d been pining for someone to set up a shop in London. I suppose this enthusiasm and expectation was unrealistic and I’m afraid Ceviche just didn’t live up to the weight of expectation.

And what frustrates me is that ceviche is so damn easy. The website states “not all ceviche is created equal” and I suppose I should have taken this as a warning. What I expected was something that looks like this:

What I got was about a tenth of this. Sure, the flavours reminded me of Buenos Aires but there should just be more of everything; more red onion, more fish, more leche de tigre, more chilli. We got a little tasting plate and ceviche should be something you can order a massive bowl of and just dig in. Just writing about it gets me angry. We tried a range of the different ceviches; the Don was the stand out and the one that most reminded me of Buenos Aires but the salmon lacked any real flavour, it needed more ginger, the sea bass was ok I suppose and the fish of the day was as well. But there just wasn’t enough of it.

It’s early days and these problems are quite fixable really, get rid of all these small plates and get some real portions in with some proper kick and you’re on to a winner. If Martin, (who seems like a lovely guy btw), ends up reading this then he should have a look at the plates at Solo Pescados or Chan Chan to set him on the right track. Then I can come back. Till then I’ll just make it myself.

The Sportsman

Many have called it a food pilgrimage, and it’s certainly the furthest I’ve driven for lunch in a long time but as I promised my grumbling girlfriend it was going to be totally worth the hour and a half drive down there. One glance at The Sportsman’s Urbanspoon page and you can see that any food blogger worth their salt had made the trip down to Sealsalter to check this place out, and I was quite happy to follow in their footsteps even if I was a little late to the party.

Many have waxed lyrical about the tasting menu that you can get there but sadly this is now too labour intensive to do with the weekend rush so I’m going to have to save that for another (warmer) day. The drive down was actually rather enjoyable, as we crossed over into Kent the snow was still on the ground and the sun was in the sky, the perfect weather for a day trip down to the sea.

We had planned to have a little wander round Whitstable but sadly we left the house a little late and didn’t get a chance but our friends who joined us for lunch said it was lovely and they’d actually walked from Whitstable to the restaurant which had taken them a little over an hour. Seasalter is bleak, even on such a beautiful winters day, but bleak in its own unique way. The restaurant is the complete antithesis: warm, light, and friendly, the perfect place for a spot of lunch.

As we couldn’t order the tasting menu we did our best to recreate it ourselves. Starters consisted of oysters (fresh and poached), crab risotto, terrines, and very softly poached salmon. All of it was excellent. The oysters were fresh and large, and while I enjoyed the poached variety I’m of the opinion that you can do very little to improve a fresh oyster except with a squeeze of lemon, a drop of tabasco and some red wine vinaigrette.

Fresh oyster

Poached oysters with caviar

The risotto was expertly crafted; a heap of fresh meat on top of some wonderfully fragrant and tasty rice, I would have liked to have stolen a bowl all to myself but had to make do with a few bites. The purity of the crab and the texture of the risottoe made this a brilliant dish.

Crab risotto

The salmon was another revelation; poached just a smidge to give it a bit of texture but still retaining the fresh flavour from the raw meat, it came with some dill cream that was just heavenly. Another I’d have happily taken for myself.

Poached salmon

We finished of with some gorgeously meaty terrine and the home baked bread that was as good as it looks. Oh and did I mention the moreish crackling that we got started with? Yes, that too.

Pork terrine

Crackling

Mains were beautifully presented and tasted fantastic. The ray wasn’t what I was expecting at all but all the better for it. I only had one bite, as I didn’t want to share my baked cod that came in a thick, rich and creamy crab bisque sauce that was so bloody good.

Ray

Baked cod

I was beginning to fill up at this point but the most delightful palatte cleanser I’ve ever had snapped me back in to life, literally. Shot glasses filled with apple sorbet and popping candy were as fun as they were delicious and gave us renewed strength for one more little pudding.

Apple sorbet with popping candy

A slice of lemon cake finished of the meal in style. Light and fruity, it was the only desert that we could have gone for and it was magnificent.

Lemon tart

As the sun was setting on a brilliant lunch we went for a wander down the sea front, the light was fantastic and the view was beautifully desolate. And right in the middle of it all is such a delightful little pub, serving up some amazing grub for those that make the effort to come. And it really is worth the effort, if you haven’t been, you need to go.

Bleak but beautiful

Quo Vadis

In recent weeks Quo Vadis has been the restaurant on the tip of everyone’s tongue. Jeremy Lee, of Blueprint Café and Great British Menu fame, has made the move across the river to bring his St John style of cooking to this classic Soho restaurant. In the world of food this has been greeted like a big money move would be in the Premiership; think Rooney to Man Utd, and I suppose that makes the Hart brothers Alex Ferguson. It’s certainly a shrewd bit of business, Quo Vadis was doing all right, it’s certainly a Soho institution, but wasn’t serving up anything particularly brilliant and Lee’s cooking at Blueprint had won him a lot of plaudits, he was always going to bring a new buzz to the place.

decisions, decisions

I’d never been to Blueprint, but I had been to Quo Vadis, which I had remembered as a nice, if rather formal affair, that didn’t leave me gasping for another visit. Mr Lee’s arrival seemed like the right time to give it another go and I’d already read a number of glowing reviews by the time I’d walked through the door, and I was looking forward to a fun meal. We got there a little early so decided to have a drink at the bar. When asking for a cocktail menu the bartender looked me straight in the eye, and without hesitation announced “I am the menu”. A little cheesy but we rolled with it and to his credit he produced a lovely gin martini for me and a few other delightful concoctions. A good way to get started to a what turned out to be a rather boozy evening.

And the food? First thing to be ordered was the eel sandwich, which everyone had been raving about. Smoky, fleshy eel, lathered in horseradish sauce in thick white bread, it packs a real punch and I could easily have it at least once a week. Oysters weren’t up to the same standard sadly, a little on the watery side and not very fleshy, but they were only downer on what was a fantastic meal. Baked salsify with parmesan was a delight; crunchy, salty and cheesy, real comfort food. Grilled squid was just the right mixture of texture and flavour with a lovely fennel salad, another win.

Baked salsify

Oysters

Squid and fennel salad

Eel and horseradish sandwich

Mains carried on in the same vein; first class, British, seasonal cooking. The mutton was one of the best things I’ve had this year. It was absolutely gorgeous; meaty and packed full of flavour, if it’s on the menu it’s a must. Game pie was another example of comfort food done to the highest standard. Delicate pastry, loads of meat, and a delectable sauce, lovely stuff. The chicken from the theatre menu was probably the least interesting of the three mains but could still pass muster, it’s just not something I’d order.

Chicken

Mutton

Game pie

By the time pudding came round my memory gets a little hazy, vanilla ice cream with some sort of chocolate pudding was tasty enough but the mains are what stick in the mind. By this point the man himself was doing a tour off the dining room, he seemed to know everyone in the restaurant, but he still found the time to come over and say hi, and a lovely man he is too; mad as a hatter but great fun and a great chef.

Pudding

Hazy memory

Quo Vadis is going to become a regular haunt of mine, if you’re in need of a place with delicious, affordable grub in a genial atmosphere and lots of booze then this is the place to go, you’ll probably find me at the bar.

Waiting Tables

Giles Coren is not a fan, but they seem to be popping up all over town. The hottest trend at the moment is the “no reservations” restaurant. Started by the perennial trendsetter Russel Norman with restaurants like Polpo and Spuntino (which doesn’t even have a phone), restaurants all over London have opened without a booking option. The main reason seems to be a more efficient business model. The owner of Goodman, who run Burger and Lobster, have said that they get through 170 covers without reservations and 120 with them. If that means they can charge £20 for a whole lobster and make a profit then I think everyone wins, no? The same can be said for Meat Liquor and Pitt Cue, these places just wouldn’t work as well with a reservation system. Ok, queuing at Meat Liquor can be a bit of a bore, and I wouldn’t turn up at 12:30 and wait for an hour but the turnover is high and if you time it right you’ll be in within 20 minutes. Pitt Cue and B&L have an even more civilized attitude; put your name down go and have a pint somewhere and you’ll be in within 40 minutes. The one thing all these places have in common is that they all come with recession busting price tags, bustling, buzzy atmospheres and amazing grub. If Giles prefers the starched, celeb filled Delauney then that’s fine, I’m not too grand to queue.

My favourite amongst these three has to be Pitt Cue; I’d salivated over the posts of all the bloggers that they cleverly invited to the soft opening the week before opening. I’d memorized the menu and had my sights set on the famous Pickle Back (more of that later). We headed down there two days after it had opened, and because I am a total food geek and had read so much about it, I assumed the rest of London had to and that there would be a queue out the door. Luckily there wasn’t. We put our names down, and settled down at the bar for some seriously awesome bourbon cocktails. And these cocktails are seriously awesome. I don’t drink a lot of bourbon but I’m going to start, it’s sweet and smooth and is a great cocktail base. We tried as many as we could, and they were all great. Special mention has to go to the infamous Pickle Back; a shot of bourbon followed by a shot of sickly sour pickle juice. It sounds disgusting, but it was probably one of the most moreish, crack like experiences of my life, I could have had 100.

Cocktails

Oh, and did I mention the food? The meat is like nothing I’ve ever tasted; tender and juicy, delicious and sweet. I could go on forever. I’ve never eaten food that puts a smile on my face like this. The mash is smoky and burnt (in a good way), the beans are huge, the slaw is crunchy and the pickled jar of veg is manna from heaven. Oh and the battered shitake are a stroke of genius. And it’s all cheap as chips, we nearly ordered the entire menu, got pleasantly pissed on cocktails and generally had one of the best restaurant experiences I’ve had in a long time for the princely sum of £25. I plan to spend a large proportion of my life here.

Ribs

Pulled pork

Sticky Toffee

A place like this just wouldn’t work with a reservation system; primarily because it’s tiny, I mean minuscule, but that only adds to the charm. It’s open all day so if you don’t fancy a wait, get down there late on a Sunday and I bet you won’t have to hang around too long.

Next up, Meat Liquor; a slightly different beast to Pitt Cue but a lot of fun as well. A garish, cavernous place, which you can find round the back of Debenhams, here there isn’t anything as civilized as a list so you’re just going to have to get in line and wait your turn. But because it’s so big and provided you don’t turn up at a peak time you’ll be in quicker than you think. We turned up in a group of 7 on a Saturday at 3pm and we were sat down with a cocktail in hand by 3:30. It is a weird place, it has to be said, lots of seedy red lighting and faux graffiti all over the walls, you feel like you’re in a low quality horror movie. But the food here is good. Some of it is really good. The wings are the best I’ve ever had; greasy, crispy and moreish with a mysterious blue cheese dip, we were elbowing each other to get through them. The battered pickles are genius; sweet , crispy and very tasty.

Wings, Battered Pickles and Chilli Fries

The burgers are also extremely good; rare and juicy with a variety of options from the “Dead Hippie” to the original cheese burger that made the Meat Wagon so famous.

Burger time

Perfectly cooked

All this washed down by a range of cocktails that come in all shapes and sizes to fit any palette. We spent a very happy couple of hours drinking, laughing and eating and again we emerged into the twilight £25 lighter than when we walked in. If you want some trashy food in a trashy atmosphere then this is a great spot.

Last but not least the most up market of the trio; Burger and Lobster. This is fast food Mayfair style. £20 gets you a burger, a lobster or a lobster roll. As many have already pointed out £20 is a lot for a burger, it must be one of the most expensive burgers in London. Some people were still ordering them but when you’ve got places like Meat Liquor dolling them out for £9.50 I would imagine most would go for a lobster option. Although L&B operate a “we’ll phone you when the tables ready” policy and we arrived before 7, albeit in a group of 7 (suicidal on Thursday), we weren’t seated till 9:30.

*Bib Requiered*

Two and half hours is a long time to wait for anything but wait we did and thankfully the lobster was as good as we’d been led to believe. They are a decent size, grilled or steamed, with lemony butter and crispy chips. The roll isn’t half bad either; toasted brioche with all the hard work done for you, it’s not as big as the lobster but there’s argument for quality vs quantity here. We even shared a burger between us as well, you know just to see what it was like. And it was a very good burger; juicy, succulent and meaty. But worth £20? I’m not so sure when there’s such strong competition all over London.

Lobster Roll

Lobster

As with all these places I imagine a healthy proportion of the profits come from the exotic cocktails on the menu, they’re all about £9 and are helpfully set out to accompany the burger or the lobster. This was the most pricey of the three, but that’s to be expected in Mayfair and with a long wait at the bar. Still if you like lobster you won’t find it cheaper in London than you will here, just don’t come in too big a group. In fact that goes for all of these places, especially Pitt Cue. I’d advise 4 or less really. That is unless you love to queue.

So that’s your round up. 3 meals for under £90. All delicious. Surely Coren can’t argue with that, can he? I know I probably fit into the “jobless foodie neophile alkies (aka bloggers)” but I’m more than happy to wait a bit when the end result is food as good and as cheap as these three. Go to them all and see for yourself.

Tom Aikens

When I last went to Tom Aikens flagship restaurant my lasting feeling was that although the food was pretty good, it wasn’t particularly memorable and I probably wouldn’t be back any time soon. Well two years on, and having heard that it had been completely re-furbished, had a brand new menu and there was a soft launch with 50% off, I thought it was time for a reappraisal.

The dining room couldn’t look more different; lots of space and light, a very Nordic feel, a lot of wood and a splattering of important looking quotes on the wall. I’m not sure what the quotes were meant to bring exactly; I liked “Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon or not at all” but thought that “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live” was a bit of a weird one to plaster all over an expensive restaurant, but each to their own.

The food itself follows on from the Nordic theme, it’s served on granite type “plates” and all of them came with rather a lot of foliage, a lot of it rather unnecessary in my opinion, some of it even unappetising, looking like it had been plucked from a Tesco’s value pack.

Another hat tip to current trends was the small plate zeitgeist; the menu offers a choice of 6, 8, or 10 course tasters or an a la carte 3 courser (which is only £5 cheaper than the six but has more sizeable portions). The food itself is rather hit and miss, a few dishes were very tasty but a few weren’t and the rest were just very dull. I stuck to a la carte, while my companions went for the six courser. I choose the pork and black pudding, the turbot and the white chocolate pudding, the rest of the dishes are from the tasting menu.

Things didn’t get off to a great start; I can see what the chef was going for with the raw turnip salad but I just didn’t enjoy it at all. I found the dish far too earthy and the texture was all wrong, one to avoid.

Raw Turnip Salad with chestnuts

The pork and black pudding was a lot better, probably one of my favourite dishes of the night, lots of delicious pork cooked in various different ways with a punchy celery butter underneath it made me glad that I didn’t go for the tasting menu and stuck to the a la carte.

Pork and Black Pudding, blanched celery branch, crisp skin, celery butter

The foie gras with smoked onion was a bit iffy, the foie gras didn’t really taste of much and the smoked onion tasted of too much and was far too over powering.

Roast Foie Gras, thyme sabayon, smoked onions

The venison tartar was again rather bland and didn’t really work with the hazelnut puree that came with it. All I could think of was the Raw Hereford Rib with oyster & wild watercress that I had at the Young Turks and how much better it was.

Venison Tartar, grated walnuts, wild sorrel, hazelnut puree

The John Dory was perfunctory, if again slightly dull, a nice piece of fish but not much more than that.

Roast John Dory, sweet cauliflower, cumin, cauliflower milk, brown butter

The turbot with chicken skin was an example of Aikens penchant for mixing up meat and fish and in this instance I didn’t really think it worked, the turbot was perfectly nice, meaty and well cooked but I didn’t find the chicken skin or meat particularly complimentary, if anything I found it jarring. This was a dish that had a ridiculous amount of “stuff” on the plate, and it was all too much.

Turbot, crisp chicken skin, land cress, sorrel

The final savoury course was one of the better ones; a lovely piece of lamb with breaded anchovies and ewe’s cheese, this was a mixture of flavours I can work with and they worked well although perhaps a little in danger of too much richesse.

Romney Lamb, ewe's cheese, anchovy, confit garlic

Puddings came in the form of a rather confused White Chocolate, done a gazillion ways, none of them particularly good and all a bit muddled. The beetroot sorbet on the other hand was superbly light and was a nice end to a rather disappointing meal.

White Chocolate Creme, black pepper, pepper caramel

Candied Beetroot, yoghurt parfait, sweetened beets, port syrup

Leaving Tom Aiken I had the feeling that he was trying so hard to mimic the simplicity and popularity of places like the The Ten Bells, Roganic or even Noma but that his cooking lacked their clarity and punchy flavours. A lot of this cooking was muddled, forgettable and badly thought through. There are places all over London and the UK that are doing this better and, you feel, believe in the ethos more. Sadly Tom Aikens is just a poor imitiation.

The Fat Duck

I’ve been in love with food for a long time. I think about it constantly. If I’ve got 2 minutes free you can usually find me researching the next restaurant I want to add to my never ending wish list. Well, for as long as this has been going on, nestled top of the list has been a small restaurant in the village of Bray that has a reputation for producing magical dishes that will both delight and astound you. I’d been dreaming about this restaurant for a long time and decided that by the day of my 26th birthday I’d waited long enough, and this would be a nice little birthday present to myself. Unfortunately, it is one thing to decide you’re going to go to the Fat Duck, it is quite another to get a reservation there. It requires perseverance, about an hour and half by the phone and a relentless desire to bloody well get through. So 84 redials and a long wait later I was finally greeted by the sweetest sound; a ringing phone. Another 10 minutes on hold and I even got to talk to a real human being who luckily told me that there was indeed a table free on the day I wanted and would 12:30 be alright?

Job done: we were going to the Fat Duck, now I just needed to figure out how to pay for it, well I had a couple of months to start saving….

3 months took an age to pass, but finally the day arrived, a chilly December morning and we jumped on a train to Maidenhead and a taxi to Bray and, yes, finally it was time for lunch at the Fat Duck.

You immediately feel at home at the Fat Duck; it’s small, intimate, warm and has some of the loveliest front of house in the country. Shown to your table, you are soon presented with a plate of olives, a menu (although there is only the tasting menu to choose) and an enormous tome which we were told was the wine list. You are then left for what seems like quite a long time to peruse both, decide on some wine and a glass of champagne and wait for the fireworks to start. This wait is slightly longer than you might like, we were told that the aperitif was about to arrive about 45 minutes after we sat down which is quite a bit but once things kick off service couldn’t be quicker or more attentive.

So after this fairly pointless pre-amble which most of you haven’t bothered to read anyway shall we move on to what we ate?

Well, things kick off in classic Fat Duck style with the famous Nitro Poached Aperitif. A trolley is brought over to your table and you are asked which of the aperitif’s you would like out of Vodka and Lime Sour, Gin and Tonic, or Campari Soda. I chose Gin and Tonic and watched as a the maitre’d slowly squeezed a smooth egg white on to a spoon and carefully placed it into a steaming bowl of liquid nitrogen, no big deal apparently although you wouldn’t want to get your hand anywhere near it. After around 30 seconds, the egg was removed and a twist of lemon and squirt of gin are added and you are invited to place the entire thing in your mouth. Nothing prepares you for the sensation of the frozen egg white bursting into nothing in your mouth followed by the clearest, purest gin and tonic you’ve ever tasted. It’s a great start to the meal, a bit of theatre and a lovely palate cleanser.

Nitro Poached Aperitif

The first course proper is another bit of Heston magic; Red cabbage gazpacho with mustard ice cream. To be honest, I don’t even like mustard that much but in this dish it just made so much sense that you couldn’t help but love it. It’s refreshing, it’s fun and it really gets your taste buds going.

Red Cabbage Gazpacho, Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream

Next up was probably one of my favourite dishes of the entire meal. The food is laid out in front of you along with a rather large patch of grass right in the middle of the table, you are invited to put a small piece of brown film on your tongue that tastes of moss and wood and then a mystical liquid is poured on to the grass and the whole table is engulfed in a forest mist, you are then invited to enjoy your food. Soft quail mousse, green pea puree, chicken liver parfait, truffle toast and a little bit of crayfish cream, this was a sense assault and one I thoroughly enjoyed, so many lovely flavours and more theatre, we were definitely settling into lunch.

Jelly of Quail, Crayfish Cream, Chicken Liver Parfait, Oak Moss and Truffle Toast

Third course was perhaps one of the first dishes to make Heston famous, It is invariably the first one people say when you mention him and I was looking forward to seeing what snail porridge really tastes like. In actual fact this dish is a lot straighter than some of the other things on the menu, but it is still absolutely delicious. Bright green parsley infused oats hiding four succulent snails with shavings of iberico ham and fennel it was just what was needed on a cold winters day, heart-warmingly good.

Snail Porridge, Iberico Bellota Ham, Shaved Fennel

One of the few obvious Michelin type things that Heston serves up is the roasted foie gras which comes with a fruity rhubarb jam; it was soft and creamy on the inside with a crispy finish. Nothing overly complex here, but still perfection itself.

Roast Foie Gras, Barberry, Braised Konbu and Crab Biscuit

And now we moved on to a dish that many would have already seen on TV; the Mock Turtle Soup. This course is packed with theatre, the waitress told us the story of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and the history of turtle soup, and you’re even given a little bookmark to remember the story. Then a bowl with a little egg, mushroom and the meaty turtle (really ox tongue) is placed in front of you and you are presented with a golden pocket watch which you dissolve into the bowl of concentrated stock. It disappears in front of your eyes and voila, you’ve got mock turtle soup! While I love the theatre of all of this, I wasn’t quite so sure about the dish itself, I found the soup quite stocky and meat a little tough. I’m not saying it was bad but certainly more fun than something with any real substance.

Mock Turtle Soup

The next dish was just as fun; with “Sounds of the Sea” you happily listen to seagulls squawking and waves crashing on the beach, as you work your way through 3 lovely pieces of sashimi with sand (in fact tapioca) and shellfish foam. I enjoyed this a lot, the whole dish was so evocative of the sea and the beach that I couldn’t help but love it although I did find the tapioca slightly over powering.

"Sounds of the Sea"

Liquorice poached salmon was a return to slightly more familiar territory and was an amazing array of different flavours; bitter grapefruit, smooth sweet vanilla mayonnaise, lovely pink salmon and asparagus, this was a master class in pulling together different flavours and creating something truly unique, easily one of my faves.

Salmon poached in Liquorice Gel, Artichokes, Vanilla Mayonnaise and Golden Trout Roe

At this point we were at the last of the savoury dishes, and we had a lovely bit of venison to finish things off. Cooked sous-vide, ridiculously tender and bursting with flavour it was served with some nutty, moreish umble and spelt risotto, and it left me with a warm fuzzy feeling.

Saddle of Venison, Beetroot Soubise, Risotto of Spelt and Umbles

A little glass of hot and cold tea, which gives the sensation that one half of it is hot the other cold, is a nice little palate cleanser with the Heston touch, it messes with your senses and leaves you smiling.

Hot and Iced Tea

First of the desserts is the Tafferty Tart, a ludicrously good looking dish that tastes wonderful, notes of rose and fennel mixed with apple and lemon with a lovely crunchy finish; in short it was heavenly.

Tafferty Tart, Caramelized Apple, Fennel, Rose and Candied Lemon

And then we had reached the final “proper” dessert, we were reaching the end of our trip with Heston and I didn’t want it to end. But end it would and placed in front of us was the Fat Duck’s take on the Black Forest Gateau; thick, delicious chocolate and fruity cherry accompanied by a dollop of Kirsch ice cream this was a lovely rich and homely way to finish off the food.

"The BFG", Kirsch Ice Cream and the smell of the Black Forest

But there were still a few little bits and bobs to go as we wound down from what must rank as one of the most surprising and enjoyable meals I’ve had. First we were treated to the “Whisky Wine Gums”, multi-flavoured sweets that tasted of all different types of whiskey; they even threw in a Jack Daniels, yummy.

Whisky Wine Gums

As you prepare to leave you are presented with a little gift bag filled with sweets that you’d only find at the Fat Duck; edible playing cards, apple caramel (with edible wrapper) and caramel tobacco.

"Like a Kid in a Sweet Shop"

And that was that, as I got in to the cab I reflected on what we’d just experienced: this was a meal I’d been thinking about for a long, long, time and I’d been looking forward to it for 3 months, how did it do? Well, as you can probably tell, it lived up to even my incredibly high expectations, even though I’d slavishly researched every course it still managed to delight and surprise me and it took me about half a year to save for I can honestly tell you it was worth every penny of that hard earned cash. You don’t go back to the Fat Duck though, you nurture this truly unique experience, hope it stays in your mind forever and then look for somewhere else to get excited about, and there’s a lot left on that list….