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Above: Heston Blumenthal tries insects in the current Channel 4 series of Heston’s Feasts, Tuesdays |
Happy to suffer for Heston’s high art
As the Michelinstarred restaurant where hundreds of diners claimed to have been made ill reopens its doors today, Simon Wroe recalls his recent visit to the Fat Duck
FIRST, let me introduce myself. I am a Fat Duck survivor. I have eaten every Douglas Fir purée and bacon ice cream that Heston Blumenthal has thrown at me, and I am still standing, legs akimbo. I have seen the true face of haute cuisine, and I have licked it. The men in white coats from the Health Protection Agency would like to have a word. I could hold the cure for MRSA, or cancer. Superbugs are so passé, and hospital food is simply dreadful.
On February 8 of this year, I was stranded for four-and-a-half hours in Mr Blumenthal’s three-Michelin-starred restaurant in Bray with nothing to eat but foie gras parfait, langoustine cream, jelly of quail and truffle toast – and 17 other courses it would cause me too much emotional trauma to recollect.
But in the interests of national security, I shall try.
Since we had already drawn up our wills and completed organ donor cards, our lunch began with a minus 196-degree Celsius amuse-bouche of green tea and lime mousse poached in liquid nitrogen (2001). (I wondered aloud whether eight years was not rather a long time to keep a mousse, for which the waiter would have been quite entitled to slap me. Men have lost their lives in the greatest restaurants for less.)
We were then united with our next course of oysters with passion fruit jelly and lavender, followed by snail porridge, roast foie gras “benzaldehyde” with almond fluid gel and salmon poached in liquorice. The arrival of the iPods in conch shells elicited concern: I had neglected to inform them of my extreme Michael Bolton allergies.
When the body finds itself in situations of extreme peril, the survival mechanism kicks in. So it was that we somehow made it through ballotine of Anjou pigeon, hot and simultaneously iced tea and parsnip cereal.
Then the bill arrived. Tears, it seems, dry quicker on the finest linen.
Four of us went out that day; only one came back with their bowels intact. My dining companions all reported frequent and merciless toilet trips throughout the following 24 hours. They pointed the finger at Chinese takeaways, pets and loved ones before the blame finally fell on the Duck.
Apparently, Mr Blumenthal is now compensating sick diners with a free meal, at the same restaurant that made them sick, when it reopens. Some would say that once you’ve bitten a contaminated hors d’oeuvre at the Fat Duck, you should be twice shy.
Those people have obviously never been.
What’s a little diarrhoea in pursuit of perfection? |
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