When it comes to finding the best cuisine in Europe, many gourmets will head for
the hills of Tuscany or the boulevards of Paris. But, as of today, the correct
way is to go to Britain and seek out a 450-year-old former pub run by a chef
named after a motorway service station. Heston Blumenthal, the proprietor of the
Fat Duck restaurant in the Berkshire village of Bray, which has become
synonymous with such delights as bacon and egg ice-cream and cauliflower with
chocolate, is now the owner of the best eaterie on continent.
Stars and gastronomy
The restaurant, which is already the holder of the most rapidly achieved three
Michelin stars in British history, saw off competition from such temples to
gastronomy as El Bulli in Spain and L'Atelier de Joel Robu-chon in Paris to
collect the award at a ceremony in London last week. It was only beaten to the
title of the world's best restaurant by the American incumbent, French Laundry,
in California's Napa Valley.
The top 10 for the award, decided by an international panel of restaurateurs,
chefs, critics and journalists, contains two other UK restaurants -Gordon Ramsay
(8th) and Nobu (7th), both in London. These make Britain second only to France,
which has four listed. But the Fat Duck's second place also represents a
personal victory for Blumenthal, 37, who is credited with turning cooking into a
subject of interest as much to physicists as gastronomers by dint of his
trademark technique, known as "molecular gastronomy".
Bourgeois
The self-taught chef, who claims that he was named by his parents after the
service station near Heathrow airport, said: "We are part of a growing
group of chefs, scientists and psychologists which is looking at food and the
way that we eat from a different angle, the approach being more holistic and
with new controlled experimentation that does not automatically take historic
kitchen lore and tradition for granted."
Brain eating
The result is a list of dishes prepared in a tiny kitchen in the Thameside
village squeezed between Maidenhead and Slough which bore little relation to the
Fat Duck's original menu when it opened as a "bourgeois French
restaurant" offering steak and chips, rillettes of salmon and lemon tart.
Instead, diners are more likely to be swallowing basil blancmange, snail
porridge, sardine on toast sorbet, white chocolate and caviar buttons or salmon
and liquorice.
Blumenthal, who only began cooking for a living in 1995, bases his cuisine on
3,500 "essences", kept in garden sheds behind his restaurant, which
are chemical versions of the methods he uses to pair tastes in food. But the
food alchemist, who cooks some dishes for 60 hours, stops short of seeking to
combine the two. He explains his concoctions as a result of examining the way
"the brain can almost pre-determine the taste of something". He said:
"Eat sardine on toast sorbet for the first time and confusion will reign as
the brain will be trying to tell the palate to expect a dessert and you will
therefore be tasting more sweetness than actually exists."
Commentators in Britain were happy to take satisfaction from the progress of
this skilled cook, who has consciously turned down all offers to become a
"celebrity chef. Experts also pointed to the nation's growing strength.
Eleven of the top 50 restaurants are in Britain.
TOP TEN RESTAURANTS
1. French Laundry, Yountville, California
2. The Fat Duck, Bray, Berkshire, UK
3. El Bulli, Montjoi, Spain
4. L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon, Paris
5. Pierre Gagnaire, Paris
6. Guy Savoy, Paris
7. Nobu, London
8. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, London
9. Michel Bras, Laguiole, France
10. Louis XV, Monaco
The Independent
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