The Fat Duck

We used to live in Maidenhead, Berkshire. It was a great place to stay because the house was virtually on the river Thames and the banks were a great place to have long Sunday lunches and summer barbeques but Maidenhead was a real pain in other ways. The transport into central London, about 25 miles away, was very poor and the town centre was an appalling mixture of 60s and 70s concrete blocks unlike other Berkshire towns which had tried to keep their medieval heritage.

But exactly one mile away from the house was the village of Bray. Almost untouched from the middle-ages, the houses were higglety-pigglety and criss-crossed in those black and white squares so often seen in old villages along the Thames. The single road through the village, originally designed for a single horse and cart had never been widened for motorised vehicles and drivers had to observe a sense of politeness to allow one car at a time to pass through. It was a ‘chocolate box’ image village with pink and white washed cottages surrounding the ancient church and the village cricket square.

It was also populated by the great and the good, ranging from pop stars to TV magicians, chat show hosts and lesser known celebrities. It was THE place to live and despite the fact that I tried to get my post code changed to Bray, it stubbornly remained Maidenhead. It was only a few fields away but those fields made all the difference to the post code!

In those days (the early to mid 90s), I was into pub lunches both on a Saturday, after the weekly shopping trip (to get over the trauma) and if nobody was coming to lunch, on a Sunday as well. There was nothing better than getting a huge pile of Sunday papers and having a long lunch generally comprising roast beef and all the trimmings,  accompanied by a pint of lager followed by a couple of G&Ts.

Given it was within walking distance, the Bell Pub in the centre of Bray was our preferred ‘watering hole’ It served great roasts and had a huge log fire in the winter, making it feel as if you were eating in your own dining room. And then, in 1994, it closed. Tragedy!

For a few months there was frantic activity in the shell of the old Bell as they turned it into yet another Thameside restaurant of which there are hundreds in the county of Berkshire and then they hung the name over the front door – The Fat Duck.

A quick look at the menu most certainly put me off. Both the price, at around £100 per person for dinner, and the menu, multiple courses and including such delicacies as Snail Porridge and Bacon and Egg Ice Cream, were just too much for my wallet and my stomach to handle.

Although ‘just another’ fancy restaurant to me, The Fat Duck started to get the attention of the food critics and the general press. Heston Blumenthal was a professed ‘food alchemist’ rather than a chef, indeed he had never had any culinary training. Some of his cooking processes were out of the chemist’s lab rather than the kitchen. For example, he would put his joints of pork under running water for 48 hours to improve the texture of the meat. He would use liquid nitrogen to ‘cook’ his ice cream and would use flavours most chefs had never even considered.

Once word spread, The Fat Duck became very popular and it was extremely difficult to get a table either for lunch or dinner. It became even more difficult in 1998 when it got its first Michelin Star. In 2001, it got its 2^nd Michelin Star and was awarded the title of ‘Restaurant of the Year’. Three years later it reached the pinnacle with a 3^rd Michelin Star and finally in 2005, it was voted The Best Restaurant in The World.

Not bad for my old boozer – eh?

If you get a chance to watch any of Heston Blumenthal’s ‘cooking’ programmes, I would urge you to watch them – they are utterly fascinating.

The following is the link for The Fat Duck….just in case you wish to make a booking for 2011! And just in case you're wondering why the price is so high, the retaurant only serves a maximum of 40 covers a night and to look after those 40 guests, there are ........  40 chefs!

http://www.fatduck.co.uk/