The Fat Duck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Fat Duck is a restaurant run by chef Heston Blumenthal in Bray, Berkshire, England. In 2005 it was named as the best restaurant in the world by Restaurant magazine, and it came second in both 2004 and 2006. Unlike most of the top ranked restaurants, which are located in exclusive districts of major cities, The Fat Duck is to be found in a modest cottage style house in a country village. Bray is also home to Michel Roux's Waterside Inn, which was ranked as the sixth best restaurant in the UK and the nineteenth best in the world.

Blumenthal adheres to the principles of molecular gastronomy, according to which the quality of the diner's experience can be enhanced considerably when the physical and chemical processes that take place in cooking are understood. This approach to studying and designing food at The Fat Duck results in the discovery of unconventional and often bizarre-sounding dishes. For example, the restaurant's tasting menu, a tour of Blumenthal's signature creations, features "snail porridge", "sardine on toast sorbet", and "salmon poached with liquorice". These unusual juxtapositions are attributed to logical reasoning about physical and chemical properties of foods. While liquorice and asparagus is not traditionally an appealing combination, their flavors are chemically similar, and so the two ingredients should, theoretically, complement upon the palate.

Beyond applying the results of chemistry and physics to cuisine, at The Fat Duck, Blumenthal exploits psychology, experimenting with the diners' perception. Among the starters in the restaurant's tasting menu is a "jelly of orange and beetroot", a serving of two separate jellies, where the red has been made using blood oranges, and the orange from orange beetroots. More generally, dishes at The Fat Duck suggest the notion that expectation biases perception: call it frozen sardine soup, and it will taste one way; call it sardine on toast sorbet, and it tastes sweeter.

Blumenthal has a deep interest in the history of food, and the French culinary traditions in particular. The Fat Duck began as a bourgeois French restaurant, and many of dishes are variations on traditional French dishes, such as petit sale - a method of cooking poultry by steeping it in spicy salt water.