Before we had even booked our flights to the UK, but knowing that we would be going, I quickly jumped online to book a table at Heston Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck, three months in advance. Because priorities! We had to prepay for the full meal with the booking which cost 325£ per person. A hefty price and the most expensive meal we’ve had to date, but it’s been a bucket list item for a while.
About a month prior to the reserved date, I receive an email from our ‘storyteller’ at The Fat Duck with a link to a survey asking questions like ‘What makes you most feel ‘like a kid in a sweet shop?’, and ‘What nostalgic memory transports you totally ‘into the moment’, and are there special sights, sounds, smells, flavours or objects that you associate with it?’. We filled it in excitedly and couldn’t wait for the day.
Following on from Eating in Bath, we drive to Bray for our 12 noon reservation at The Fat Duck. Parking is easy as the restaurant has its own car park across the road. There is no blatant signage so I didn’t know where the restaurant was actually located on the street until I noticed the webbed spatula hanging from above.
A sign next to the door is of the The Fat Duck coat of arms with ‘Question Everything’ written underneath.
We open the front door and greeted (very quickly that I’m guessing it’s someone’s duty to stand by the door to let people in) before walking down a long dark corridor to enter the restaurant. I’m grateful that our table is right by the window with lots of light. Placed on each table are napkins and a magnifying glass.
Our ‘storyteller’ wanders over to introduce himself. He asks if we want still or sparkling water in a thick and heavy accent. He then wheels over a cart and places some cards in front of us to make a selection for our welcome drink – a nitro-aperitif.
Once we give him our preferences, he pours a mixture onto a spoon and puts it into the liquid nitrogen (at 106 degrees) to freeze.
I tell him that I don’t drink alcohol, and could something non-alcoholic be made up instead. This is fine and I choose a faux Paloma while Mr FPJ orders the vodka, lime and soda. Out pops a small meringue-like ball and we’re told to pop it into our mouths quickly so that it doesn’t melt. Crispy exterior but soft inside, zesty and refreshing.
We’re also given the wine list which is heavily marked up. A bottle you could get at the shops can cost three times as much here!
A fold-out map with the culinary itinerary of our Fat Duck lunch is provided to the table. Some of the writing is tiny and we realise that’s the purpose of the magnifying glass. There are 7 chapters (courses) to the lunch.
Our waiter brings out a breakfast menu card where we tick the items we would like. This then comes out in Chapter 2. We tick our items and hand the cards back. In hindsight, this is just a bit of fun but it doesn’t actually matter what you tick as you get a set course anyway.
We each decide to start off with some juices (8.50£ each) while the wine list is slowly looked through.
Chapter 1: The Day Before We Go: Are we nearly there yet?
This dish is titled ‘Just the tonic we need‘, and consists of a tonic of botanicals that’s poured onto our plate served with Jerusalem artichoke ice cream.
Slightly herbaceous but balanced with the creamy smooth and subtle artichoke ice cream.
Chapter 2 – Morning: Rise and Shine, it’s breakfast time
We had a sneak peek of what was to come for this course when ticking our options on the menu card earlier. We each receive a board with a small cute loaf (a buttermilk fan tan) that had a lovely glaze over the top. Next to it are clotted cream and a tomato coffee jam jar.
I’m not sure about the tomato coffee jam, thinking it might be more like a chutney, but it tastes like a regular sweet jam with a subtle coffee kick.
The fan tan is super soft and fluffy, and I polish this off so quickly. I could have eaten another one to myself.
Part of this chapter is the ‘Why do I have to choose between a variety pack and a cooked breakfast?‘
A variety pack of 6 mini cereal boxes is placed on the table, and we’re asked to pick one box from one side, and a second box on the other side. Our storyteller tells us that the same thing is in each box so there’s no need to worry about missing out on anything.
On closer inspection of the boxes, I realise they are all custom-made by The Fat Duck and each one has a different inscription. We’re both impressed by the level of detail.
Along with the cereal boxes, we’re given a small bowl filled with truffle egg mousse and bacon cream. Again I love the little details, like the writing on the edge of the bowls.
The bowl contains layers of truffle egg mousse, jellied tomato consommé, bacon, and toasted bread cream. We’re told to pour our cereal over the top and eat it. Mixed together, it actually tastes like I’m eating an English breakfast. There’s egg, bacon, tomato and delicious savoury flavours. So strange yet so cool.
The second cereal box is filled with small wooden puzzle pieces and we’re told to assemble it to obtain a sweet treat later on.
This turns into a little coin box.
The ‘Excuse me, my team seems to be cold…and hot‘ arrives next. The tea is served in double walled glasses and we’re told to quickly take a sip. I don’t know how because it doesn’t make sense, but the tea is both hot and cold at the same time. My mind is blown. It’s marvelous! I’m guessing we had to drink it quickly before the two temperatures melded together to become lukewarm.
Chapter 3 – Mid-morning: First one to see the sea
The ‘Sound of the Sea‘ is the first dish to arrive for Chapter 3. We each have a large sea conch placed in front of us filled with headphones attached to an ipod mini. We’re asked to put these on while eating the meal that arrives next. I insert the earphones and can hear the sound of waves and seagulls.
The dish is placed on a glass box filled with Venezuelan sand consisting of kingfish sashimi, octopus, tapioca ‘sand’, caviar, sea succulents and more. It looks like the foam from the waves crashing in when it meets the shoreline. The foam uses the salty juices of seaweed, abalone, cockles and clams. Lots of flavours from the sea in this dish.
Next came some fish and chips. I love eating fish and chips on the beach, so I thought the sound of the sea worked better with this than the previous dish. Each cone of chips is a print out of The Fat Duck Times newspaper (printed in the month and year we dined) which has Heston’s recipe for triple cooked chips on it. In all honesty, I think the chips could have been fried a tad longer to make them crispier!
‘Can I have some money for an ice cream?‘ arrives next. This is another wooden tray filled with pebbles and sand, with two sticks of ice cream. The ‘rocket’ ice cream on the left has the flavours of a waldorf salad (celery, apple, walnuts, grapes) which I was not expecting! Yet it’s still sweet and juicy. The ice cream on the right is a salmon, avocado, and horseradish twister which I did not like (wasabi in ice cream does not give me pleasure).
After we finish off the ice creams, a third ice cream come outs. This small cone is called ‘crab and passionfruit 99s’ (paying homage to the Cadbury ice cream cone with a Cadbury flake inserted into it made in the Birmingham UK factory which became known as a 99). The crab bisque ice cream actually pairs nicely with the sweet and sour passionfruit. This is my favourite of the three ice creams.
The dishes are cleared and we have time to reflect on the course, when ‘Then we went rockpooling‘ arrives. A waitress pours a small jug of velouté of white chocolate and sea vegetables onto the dish of cornish crab, smoked caviar, and golden trout roe.
I don’t particularly like this dish as I’m not a fan of white chocolate and I thought it made everything too sweet (in what my brain thinks should be a simple savoury dish).
Chapter 4 – Afternoon: If you go down to the woods today…
The next part of the journey continues into the woods. A green miniature forest covered in moss encased in glass arrives at the table. Our waiter begins to pour liquid nitrogen into the side.
The plant is completely covered and the billows of smoke covers the table and our dish. The scent of the woodlands is in the air.
The ‘Damping through the boroughgroves‘ dish of mushroom, beet and blackberry, black truffle, fig leaf, oakmoss, meadowsweet and melilot (sweet clover) arrives at the table. We enjoy this while watching the liquid nitrogen slowly disappear and reveal the smell and sight of the plant. As per the theme, it’s quite an earthy dish and too strong for Mr FPJ (who doesn’t appreciate truffles). It’s not something I would choose to order again but I’m happy with the sweet blackberry gel that helps offset the earthier elements.
When we glance at other tables, we can see that all the plants are different. The one at the table to our left seemed to be covered in ‘snow’ while the one to the right of us seemed to be covered in red autumn leaves. We must have received the Spring plant.
Mr FPJ also orders a drink to accompany this course. He doesn’t remember what it was and all I can see on the receipt is that it’s called ‘A dash of Jerez’ for 20£ (that’s about AUD $40!). It’s the only alcoholic beverage ordered.
The journey takes us onto ‘…we discovered the mock turtle picnic‘ where we’re given bookmarks with a bit of history about the mock turtle story.
A timber box, glass tea pot and cup sets are placed in front of us. The box is opened to reveal a golden watch made from beef stock powder covered in gold leaf. In the cup, there is a gelatinous turnip ‘egg yolk’ with small beef cubes, pickled turnip and cucumbers.
We’re asked to lift up the watch by the attached string, and place it into the tea pot which had been filled with some hot water.
We’re asked to slowly swirl it around which lets the ‘watch’ melt into the hot water. The stock is aromatic and I breathe it in as it swirls around.
We then pour the mixture over the top of our cups to put the finishing touch on the mock turtle soup. There are rich flavours in the soup yet it’s a light consommé. The ‘egg yolk’ and ‘egg white’ is made from swede and turnip juices with gelatin.
A toast sandwich is also delivered to the table to accompany the soup. This is filled with layers of black truffle, egg mayonnaise, egg yolk mustard, tomato ketchup, cucumber, bone marrow salad, gastrique sauce and a sliver of toast between two pieces of white bread. So many elements to this one tiny sandwich which is delicious. It’s too bad that it only lasted a few bites.
Chapter 5 – Evening: Are you ready for dinner?
We are shown the 3-course dinner menu for Chapter 5. There are two mains to choose from, so we choose one of each (the fish and the lamb) to share.
Dinner includes an amuse bouche of aerated beetroot with a layer of horseradish cream. Not too spicy and reminded me of a crispier odd macaron.
A side of house made bread and butter arrives.
The dish I’m most excited about is The Fat Duck’s iconic snail porridge which comes as the starter. This lived up to the hype and I’m glad I got to dig into a bigger serving than expected. An entire whole bowl to myself! Snail butter, snail and chicken stock, ham, fennel, sherry vinegar, oats, mushrooms, shallots and so much more are in this snail porridge. Heston states it is best as a starter but I could seriously eat this as a main meal. Wonderfully sumptuous comfort food, a nice hit of garlic and parsley butteriness, salt from the ham, well seasoned and overall delicious flavour. The snails aren’t rubbery but have a nice chewy texture.
The lamb come with caviar, cucumber, onion, dill and gravy. The meat is succulent with crispy crackling on top. The blackberry gel gives a bit of sweet fruitiness to the otherwise savoury dish.
The fish of the day is turbot which comes with walnut, artichoke, truffle and madeira. It’s such a big piece and cooked to perfection with similar soft textures and flavours so that the fish really stands out.
A tea menu arrives and I can’t help but smile at the quirky artwork.
I order the Kyoto Oolong 2017 while Mr FPJ orders a La Joya Oscura espresso with milk. The coffee has notes of bourbon in it.
Dessert titled ‘Botrytis Cinerea‘ is next (which is basically grey mould when I google what it means). The plate looks magnificent with some dominant tones of gold. There are so many different elements here – aerated saffron grape juice, vanilla and fenugreek infused pear balls, citrus sorbet and reduction, grape gel, peach wine gum, churros stalks, crystalised chocolate, grape ‘leaves’, chocolate balls, a grape sugar bubble and spiral and so much more. I read that there are 80 ingredients, over 20 different elements and 55 stages of preparation. Wow!
A stand of whiskey gums arrives next with whiskeys from around the UK and USA as the dinner digestif. I have a little taste of the Laphroag which is super smokey (like kissing a campfire) and unpleasant for me.
Mr FPJ spots another table with gums in different colours and asks a waitress whether there is a non-alcoholic version of the gums (since I don’t drink alcohol). She says no it’s just the whiskey gums, but another table clearly has coloured gums. When our storyteller comes back to check on us, we ask him the same question, and yes there are tea gums available and he’ll bring it right out. (In hindsight, I should have stipulated that in the dietary requirements.) Tea gums from the UK, China, Japan and India are much more palatable. I got to try Russian Caravan, Jasmine pearls, Hojicha, Matcha and Earl Grey tea flavours.
Chapter 6 – Bedtime: Off to the Land of Nod
The journey takes us to bedtime, and the most amazing and magical thing happens with the ‘Counting Sheep‘ course.
A pillow hovers and spins magically in the air with two delicate looking meringues on top.
After taking several photos of this, we thought we’d better eat the malt milk meringues. Light and airy, just like a cloud, and fitting for the presentation.
Chapter 7 – And then to dream…
The final course is titled ‘Like a kid in a sweetshop‘ and I very much like the sound of that! A cart with a toy house on top is wheeled around the restaurant, and it’s finally wheeled towards our table.
We’re told to hand over our coins from our coin box to pay for the sweets in the sweet shop.
I love the detail like the individual miniature lolly jars through the window.
Our storyteller then turns a wheel on the side of the cart to open the sweet shop up.
Once fully open, he inserts the coin and all the drawers start to move until one is left open. See my insta video below.
The contents in that draw are poured into a sweet shop paper bag for us to take home.
The four sweets include an ox choc (layers of nougat, shortbread and caramel encased in chocolate), caramel in edible wrapper, mandarin scented aerated chocolate (the construction process involves a cream charger, nitrogen gas and a vacuum oven), and a Queen of Hearts jam tart.
The Fat Duck seal on the back of the envelope is also made from chocolate! No I didn’t lick it randomly, but I noticed it melted quickly on my fingers.
Inside the envelope, lay the Queen of Hearts jam tart made with white chocolate.
By now, it’s 4.00pm and we’ve spent 4 hours at The Fat Duck. The bill arrives for payment of our juices, alcoholic beverage and an optional 12.5% service charge.
What do I think about the experience?
Pros
I don’t think I will ever experience something quite as fun as The Fat Duck. It does a great job of taking you through a fun journey, offering a multi-sensory dining experience, throwing in some surprise quirks along the way, and having beautiful presentation to each course. The technique, flavours and textures are well executed. Some foods are made to look like other things to mess with your mind. The little details are extraordinary. There is wow factor, there is liquid nitrogen, there is joyfulness.
Cons
The wine list at The Fat Duck is super expensive. One glass alone is about 2-3 times the cost of buying an entire bottle at the shops. I’m not sure how that can be justified.
Our storyteller, although very pleasant, had a thick European accent. We actually couldn’t understand the majority of what he was saying, which took away from the whole ‘story’ being told. The table next to us started about 15 minutes after us so we were hopeful to eavesdrop on what their storyteller was saying, but she also had a thick European accent! I think this definitely took away from the whole experience.
I don’t understand the purpose of the survey we filled in a month prior to the reservation date. It didn’t make any difference to the meal or experience. A friend tells me she received a momento about her memories which was filled into her survey. Other blogs also mention something special during their experiences at The Fat Duck, but we got nothing. Our storyteller did mention one of my favourite experiences being the beach, but I guess the Sound of the Sea component was meant to cover that off? I still can’t help feeling disappointed.
There is an optional 12.5% service charge that you pay on the day, after you’ve paid for the full cost of the meal. It is optional so you could choose not to pay it, but we felt guilty.
The Fat Duck
High St, Bray SL6 2AQ, United Kingdom
Next, we continue onto London.
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