The Fat Duck is run by chef Heston Blumenthal who is known for his scientific approach to cooking which has resulted in a menu that is a little quirky and very innovative. The restaurant is a three Michelin starred restaurant and was once named the best restaurant in the world but for the last four years running has come second to the Spanish El Bulli (which also employs the molecular gastronomy style of cooking.) For those without a bottomless pocket The Fat Duck is a restaurant you are likely to visit only once in your lifetime, or even twice if you have a generous benefactor, so a visit to The Fat Duck should be savoured.

Getting There

Thankfully, getting to The Fat Duck is relatively simple even for those without a car. It’s an easy train from Paddington to Maidenhead and then a short taxi ride to the restaurant All the taxi drivers have done it before so when we arrived without even a map or an address we had no issues finding the place. If you take the train down to Maidenhead you’re likely to come across your fellow diners as not many people seem to head to Maidenhead around lunch time for any other reason. If you’re trying to save some pennies, which is likely if you don’t have a sizable bank balance to cover the cost of your meal, you could even try to do a cab share!

The entryway in to the Fat Duck is rather subtle. We stood looking around wondering where it was only to realise that above our heads was the trademark Spoon-palette-thingy, Knife and Fork Trifecta and the basic wooden door leading the way to the inside. We were a little early actually for our booking so we took a bit of a stroll around Bray. It’s a very pretty village and I said to my brother that I could easily live in a place like this. If only I could get over my need to actually be doing something for most of the time! Ha. The buildings are very charming right down to the doors for which even I am too tall to walk under without ducking. I like the sign on the pub located near to the Fat Duck – “Duck or Grouse”. LOL

First Thoughts

At just before noon we entered The Fat Duck. Straight away I was struck by just how small the restaurant is but also how homey it was. I would guess that The Fat Duck would probably do about 50-60 (and not much more) covers in each sitting with one sitting at lunch and another at dinner so its not a lot and you can understand why bookings are filled within the first 15 minutes of the day. Speaking of which it took me about five attempts to get the booking for our lunch today – it helps if you go for a lunch on a weekday. Lunch and especially dinner on a weekend is darn near impossible to get. Bookings are taken exactly two calendar months in advance with maximum group sizes being six.

The room was very comfortable and we were happy to see that generally there was good space between the tables. We were directed to a table right near the windows which we thought was one of the best, if not the best, seats in the house. Happily they didn’t blink twice when I asked for tap water (we said no to wine and champagne) and hallelujah they didn’t try to place the serviette in my lap! I know that restaurants think that this is additional service they are providing but seriously its not necessary. Interestingly they also allow you to take all the photos you want – something that is really quite surprising considering I’ve been to quite a few places of slightly less stature that won’t let you do so. I guess they figure no one else is doing what they’re doing so it doesn’t matter if everyone can see what they are producing. So, my first impressions were good ones based on the service alone.

What’s on Offer

Although we knew we were definitely going the £125 tasting menu we still had a bit of a flick through the offerings including the a la carte menu. They were interestingly presented in a leather bound volume which allowed you to open it in any direction. Hard to describe but took a while for me to work out what I was looking at and how I was looking at it! The other choice was a £95 three-course “a la carte” menu but, if the table behind us was anything to go by, its not limited to just the three courses but also a couple of extra dishes to start off the meal with these dishes coming from the tasting menu. Some olives were provided whilst we perused the menu followed by offerings of white and brown bread (which keep coming throughout the meal if you should ever finish it off) and their own home-made un-pasteurised butter in both salt and no-salt options.

So, on to the food!

Palette Cleanser

The Tasting Menu gets off to a flying start with the impressive nitro-poached green tea and lime mousse which is in short a palette cleanser. The waiter sprays some mousse (egg white mouse infused with green tea and lime) on to a tablespoon which he then dunks into some liquid nitrogen (-196 degrees celcius) turning and flipping it until it becomes a cute little puff of mousse. He then shakes some more green tea powder on to it before presenting it to you and instructing you to immediately place the whole thing in your mouth and let it dissolve. At the same time he spritzes the area above your head with a lime grove fragrance.

Committing to putting the whole thing in your mouth at the beginning was a bit daunting – after all it had just come out of a freezing freezing cold liquid nitrogen! Still, it was the correct temperature by the time you put it into your mouth and I must admit is quite a different way of presenting a palette cleanser. Beats the good old-fashioned lemon sorbet that’s for sure!

“Starters”

This was shortly followed by the Orange and Beetroot Jelly which were very tiny small squares of jelly. Don’t let the small size fool you though as the flavours were extremely intense with the beetroot jelly standing out in particular. The instructions of “we recommend you start with the orange” is meant to start you on this journey of trickery. I won’t describe exactly what the trickery is or it would ruin the surprise.

In short order we received the next dish – Oyster with Passion Fruit Jelly and Lavender flower and shards of sugar. Can’t say I’m a fan of oysters so this dish didn’t really excite me but the dish again shows the science that has gone into the dish with the acidity of the fruit/flower cutting through the rawness of the oyster. In contrast the next dish of Pommery Grain Mustard Ice Cream with a Red Cabbage Gazpacho I was expecting to dislike but actually more fully appreciated. The serving, like all dishes so far, wasn’t gigantic but once again the impact of the flavour was intense. This was the first of Heston’s savoury ice creams and had me re-thinking my dislike of Oscar The Grouch’s spaghetti ice-cream …

Next up was the complicated and elaborate “Jelly of Quail, Langoustine Cream, Parfait of Foie Gras and Pea Puree served with a side of Oak Moss and Truffle Toast.” Try and remember that combination! This was kind of the finish to the “starter” dishes (if you could lump the dishes into any sort of order) so this explains the theatre that went into presenting the dish to us.

The first step was get us to take a little strip flavoured of moss out of a little container which was sitting on a bed of moss – think of those Mint Breath Strips you can get where you place the strip on your tongue and let it melt in your mouth only this time its flavoured of moss. As you let it melt in your mouth more liquid nitrogen is employed and poured over the moss in front of you until it is flowing all over the table. The visual effect was stunning – the flavour of the strip a little less stunning but interesting nevertheless. The next step was to tackle your other two dishes: the truffle toast and the jelly/parfait. The waitress advised us to eat the two dishes alternately but also to try and get all layers when eating the jelly/parfait. This was a lot harder than it sounded! The Jelly of Quail had a super strong flavour and over-powered the Langoustine Cream, Parfait of Foie Gras and Pea Puree to some extent however the richness of the Foie Gras still shone through. I was glad to have the Truffle Toast there to balance the gooeyness of the dish otherwise I think I might have felt a bit nauseas! Pat thought that eating the two alternately didn’t allow him to enjoy the Truffle in the Truffle Toast though I didn’t have too much issues on that point.

“Mains”

After a bit of a pause we moved on to the next section of the menu – the “main” courses. First up was Snail Porridge. One of the most famous of the Fat Duck’s dishes this was very deserving of its reputation. If only the serving was a bit larger!

The porridge bit of the dish was kind of like a risotto. The bright green colour I believe was attributed to the parsley in the dish. It tasted fantastic and for once was not over-salted. Served on top of this were very slender noodle-shaped strips of Jabugo Ham, then the three very large fat snails and on top of this shaved fennel. The whole dish worked perfectly and was our first hot course. All others coming before were cold-ish dishes so the change up was nice.

Our next dish was kind of warm. It was a Roast Foie Gras “Benzaldehyde” whatever the B word means. Served with Almond Fluid Gel (if these were the little jelly squares they had a very intense flavour, if this was the foam then it was a very subtle flavour), Cherry (great flavour – very sweet) and Chamomile (not sure where the Chamomile featured – maybe the smear of sauce on the side.) The Foie Gras was not as rich-tasting as I expected it to be and I like how it was served roasted which gave it, if not a crunchy outer coating, some texture other than smooth. The toppings on it were good too. I’m not the biggest Foie Gras fan and though I’m not saying the toppings hid the flavour of the Foie Gras or even masked it I was glad to have them there to compliment the flavour.

So we go from land to the sea in the “Sound of the Sea”. This was a total sensory experience. They first brought out these giant seashells complete with Ipod Shuffle and ear phones. The mp3 playing was a cycling seagull and ocean sound. With the “sound of the sea” in your ears you are to eat the food before you, even before they describe what you’re eating.

The food was served on kind of glass covered container. Below the glass was sand. Above was what appeared to be sand, seaweed and seafood. Everything on top was supposed to be edible (except the mussel case.) You can see from the picture what we were looking at – it was like we were eating straight off the beach! Turns out we were eating oyster (so big and briny that I nearly actually threw up – so good for those who really like oysters!), razor clams and mussel on a bed of tapioca, fried breadcrumbs, crushed fried baby eels (the sand), seaweed and some sort of foam (can’t remember the flavour now but at the time of eating I thought it had quite a strong flavour – probably some sort of juice of seafood.) Favourite flavour was the sand – just right amount of salt in it. Mmm tasty! It was certainly a novelty to hear the sea whilst eating the very beach-type meal.

This seafood delight was followed by another bit of seafood in the form of the “Salmon Poached in Liquorice Gel” served with artichoke, vanilla mayonnaise, and olive oil. The plate was also dotted with lots of individualised pink grapefruit bulbs and spots of, I think, thick balsamic vinegar. The olive oil is dashed on after the dish is served to you followed by gratings of liquorice.

This dish was very pretty looking but not that pretty tasting. The liquorice didn’t really come through and the salmon, though I’m sure cooked perfectly as it was, just wasn’t done enough for me and combined with the gel served to be too soft and mushy without any real standout flavour. However, dunked in the vanilla mayonnaise the salmon tasted a whole lot better than eating it on its own. The vanilla really popped through and was a surprisingly good combo with the salmon.

Game was the next order of the day and our final “main” meal dish with the “Ballotine of Anjou Pigeon” with black pudding, Pickling Brine and Spiced Juices. I liked the crunchy thing (which had a surprisingly strong flavour of something which I can’t pin point.) The pigeon was rare which for me is not how I like my meat (I’m more a medium kind of girl) but it had nice edgings on it. I could pass on the black pudding (and I did) which was too black pudding for my taste. The only way I could stomach the velvetiness of it was in combo with the crunchy thing, of which there was too little!

Desserts

As a section the desserts for me stood out as the highlight of our meal. With a few exceptions from the other sections (including the Green Tea and Lime Mousse, Snail Porridge, and the “Sound of the Sea” without the oyster) if I had to repeat anything it would be the desserts.

Our introduction was a Hot and Iced Tea (Earl Grey.) What could on earth could this intriguing dish be? Well, we were served a little glass filled with a honey golden coloured thick liquid and advised by our waitress to not leave it too long before drinking. Heeding her advice we quickly hoisted it to our lips (not without taking a photo of course) and it was sublime. Drinking a liquid which is both hot and ice-cold was certainly something to experience. And the fact it cleansed my palette at the same time was a bonus. I am making a bigger deal of it than is probably warranted but the science behind this dish had us puzzling. Pat proposed the theory of it working due to the thickness of the liquids not allowing it to merge too quickly.

After our empty tea cups were taken away we were presented with a little booklet on Mrs Marshall. Apparently this lady is responsible for the creation of ice-cream (though history books will credit many others with its creation) and hence the little storybook on her (which you also get to keep.) Nevertheless this lady is responsible for some of the finest ice-cream recipes out there apparently including the “Margaret Cornet” we were served next. This was the tiniest of tiny cones (strangely salted) filled with an orange and ginger granita and topped with apple ice-cream. It was delicious.

A pre-hit was next in the form of a Pine Sherbet Fountain. This dish reminded me of those sweets I used to have as a kid where you’d dip a hard stick of candy into what is basically sugar. In this case we had a vanilla stick stuck into pine sherbet. Interesting but we weren’t sure whether we were supposed to re-dip or suck the sherbet through the whole in the vanilla stick or what so it was a bit of a confusing dish.

A trio of delights was next to be served up with a Bavarois of Lychee and Mango topped with Douglas Fir and Pine Nuts and Jelly, Blackcurrent Sorbet and a Mango and Douglas Fir Puree.

All three dishes were intensely flavoured. But this dish must have been the most standard thing on the menu. Nothing too outrageous though I admit the Douglas Fir is probably not a flavour you see too frequently around.

There was a significant pause in the proceedings at this point so we weren’t sure what to expect. From our supplied copies of the menu (which comes in a rich envelope complete with wax seal) we saw that parsnip cereal and egg and bacon ice-cream was supposed to be coming and come they did when our waiter announced it was time for Breakfast with a capital B!

We both received a box of “Fat Duck Cereals” (which turned out to be the parsnip flakes) and a small jug of parsnip milk. The box was rather sizable but bearing in mind the size of all the dishes that had come before it when we opened it to reveal about twenty flakes we really shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything up to this point had been about quality rather than quantity after all. The cereal wasn’t any different. Strong parsnip flavour in both the flakes and milk.

Then came the killer end to the dessert section – the “Nitro-Scrambled Eggs and Bacon Ice Cream” show. Our friend the liquid nitrogen chef turned up with his pots and pans and stirrers and, of course, bottle of liquid nitrogen. He also came out with a tray of eggs from which he pulled out the Fat Deck eggs “farm-fresh.” Cracking this into the pot he then proceeded to “scramble” the eggs with liquid nitrogen. I must admit that even though I knew this was ice-cream by the time he finished whipping it around the pot (only seconds) the darn thing looked like scrambled eggs! He then placed it on top of a French Toast, Tomato Jam and Bacon Strip. No lie – if the whole thing wasn’t cold I would have been convinced I was eating proper Bacon and Eggs!

Let’s start with the ice-cream: I don’t know how they managed but it really did taste like Scrambled Eggs and Bacon. That it was cold and in ice-cream form didn’t detract from it at all. The French Toast was delicate and seemed to be coated in a think crispy toffee layer which provided the perfect balance to the smooth ice-cream. And in between was the “strip” of bacon. It was like the essence of bacon had been caught in sugar. A very strong essence of bacon. To me that was the perfect combination as everyone knows I eat my bacon with sugar. Don’t ask me why but it works!

Alongside this main dish was a Cold Tea Jelly served in a half egg cup which looked just like egg white – very refreshing. This breakfast set-up was for me the star of the day!

At this stage we had come to the nearly end of our Tasting Menu. In due course we were offered cheese (no thanks) and coffee/tea. We both decided to have some tea to go with our Petits Fours. At £4.50 per “pot” of tea (I use the term “pot” lightly at the pots were about 10 cm in diameter if you can imagine – though they were refillable.) The serving of the tea was actually quite entertaining. On a faux pine box you are provided with a tea cup, an empty tea pot and the tea pot proper. At the start the tea pot proper has had the tea brewing in boiling hot water. Your tea cup comes filled with boiling hot water which the waitress proceeds to pour into the empty tea pot and then back into your tea cup which she then proceeds to pour over the top of the tea pot proper not caring that water is going everywhere (hence the box with the slats in the top and a catch all at the bottom.) Then she pours the tea into the empty tea pot and then pours from this tea pot into your cup. Vastly entertaining and she made a gigantic mess! Ha ha

Our Petit Fours were a Carrot and Orange Lolly (nothing special,) Mandarin Aerated Chocolate (bitterly dark chocolate and fragrant mandarin), Apple Pie Caramel with Edible Wrapper (not sure how they captured the apple pie flavour into the caramel but it worked), and the Violet Tartlet (extremely sweet gooey sticky concoction on a shortbread base which was in contrast quite salty.)

And that, after more than 3.5 hours, was our meal at the Fat Duck.

Final Thoughts

A small comment on the service though it probably deserves more. It was at all times friendly, casual (you never felt out of place) and funny (in a ha ha way not a that’s weird way). Though at times I had some small difficulty understanding the foreign accents of the waiters/waitresses (I think only the maitre d’ was English and then even then I wasn’t too sure) a second re-phrasing meant all was clear. All of our servers seemed to know the menu really well and there were more than enough of them to make sure every attention to detail was paid and we were never really left wanting. For example, one of the guys accidentally dropped Pat’s serviette when he was placing it back on the table and he came back with a replacement served with a set of tongs! I do like the fact it didn’t feel at all affected.

The perception may be that The Fat Duck is pretentious rubbish that shouldn’t be considered real food and is just a way to charge ridiculous prices. I would be first in line to say this perception is wrong. The charm in The Fat Duck is that it tries to making eating a joy from the start to the end – not only engaging your tastes buds but also your sense of smell and hearing and touch and visual senses. Its about the whole package. Though individually some courses didn’t always quite work for me (more about my personal preferences than the dish itself) I could appreciate the thought that went into the dishes but also the care and precision that went into every dish – including the plating and even the subsequent presentation by the waiters/waitresses. The menu has changed little in the last few years so I’m impressed that the quality appears to have been consistent year in year out (based on other reviews.) Some would argue that doing the same thing every day for five years in a row how could they get it wrong but I would argue that in such circumstances its easier to let the smaller things slip. Its kind of like proof-reading – the more you proof-read your own work the less errors you pick up. Glad to see there has been no such drop in the quality at the Fat Duck.

This is one experience I would definitely recommend for those gastronomers amongst us or even those who are just a little adventurous with their food. Having an open mind really helps. But it does come at a pocket-busting price. Including service (deservedly earned by the waiters and waitresses in this case), one juice each (about £4 for freshly pressed juice) and tea the total price of the meal? £302 for two. A wine-tasting menu can also be had alongside at an additional £90 or £165 per person before service. You know, if you’ve cash to spare. 🙂