The Fat Duck review

Two months had passed since ‘A’ over at the Belfast Bap endured the arduous booking procedure and finally the day was upon us. Six of us converged from across the continent (ok, Belfast and Gdansk) to the small village of Bray for what promised to be the meal of a lifetime – but how would it measure up to these lofty expectations?

This Fat Duck classic is nearing its first decade on the menu, and with good reason. A trolley is wheeled to your table and a light lime spritz sprayed above you before the waiter explains the science behind the simple dish. A bowl of liquid nitrogen is revealed, in which a perfect ball of green tea meringue is summoned and plated for each diner in turn. There is no time to delay and each person is required to scarf down as soon as it hits the plate, resulting in an amusing blast of steam from each nostril.

The time pressure led to some amusement – one meringue disintegrating on the journey to the mouth, and L finding that it was quite a sizeable bite and fitting it in was a challenge on its own. The taste was light and subtle and there is no doubt that this was a perfect palate cleanser – and the science, showmanship and entertainment value cannot fail to build excitement for the dishes to come.

The first of the two strange sounding ice creams of the lunch arrived. Waiters deftly poured the red cabbage gazpacho around the little quinelle and told us that we shouldn’t wait for our missing guest to return from the toilet. My ice cream was melting so I was happy to be given permission to start! It all tasted a bit like coleslaw, which isn’t a bad thing: it was more cohesive than I thought it sounded. The only trouble was getting all the liquid out of the small bowl. Some of us tilted the bowl and others dipped the delicious bread in it.

A whole host of stimuli get delivered in the table for this ‘homage to Alain Chapel’, so lets start at the beginning with the ‘oak gel strip’. A few years ago Wrigleys and the like seemed to have made a breakthrough in breath freshening technology and brought out minty, plastic little strips that dissolve on the tongue in seconds.

To be honest I can’t recall seeing these recently – are they still made or were they a passing fad? I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Heston loves a good gimmick. Yes, he can reproduce the soluble strip and tuck it in neat little Fat Duck branded packaging… but should he bother when the results are a what feels like a mouthful Pritt Stick shavings and tastes like plastic with a hint of moss?

Sorry, but this ‘pre hit’ was wasted on me.

Accompanying our dishes to the table was a moss filled tray which was promptly doused in water to release a mild oak scent and unleash the AWESOME POWER of dry ice – hiding the table under a veil of smoke.

The star attraction of this course was a bowl containing a beautifully layered, almost dessert-like, dish. I wish I had read the menu card as I only now note the inclusion of langoustine, but the meaty quail and foie gras flavours were powerful and delicious – particularly when accompanied by a mouthful of the splendid toast morsel it was served with. This tiny crumb of toast left us looking around the table for any scraps going spare, but alas there were none.

This was one of the tastiest courses of the night. And it wasn’t just because it was such a surprise that it could taste nice it all. It was hands down superb. The porridge was perfectly seasoned and the oatmeal provided enough resistance so that it wasn’t gruel-like. The snails were the some of the tenderest meat I’ve ever had, and the fennel provided a texture contrast.

We are terrible people. As appalled as we are by what we learn of how fois gras is prepared, we couldn’t help ourselves and tucked straight into this huge serving of goose liver. I’ve never seen it served like this, only experiencing a few tiny slivers of the delicacy, rather than this creamy, buttery slab.

The sweetness of fois gras and other flavours melded into something of a rich savoury Bakewell Tart – a surprisingly pleasant experience. I am a big marzipan fan and I could have taken the ‘fluid gel’ as a pint of milkshake on the side – in fact stick a few of those cherries in the bottom and it would be my dream cocktail.

A very interesting and pleasing dish – so we will consider this a fond farewell to fois. Any time we see it on a tasting menu we shall tut loudly and ask for an alternative. Honest!

I was very sceptical about this dish and actually hoped it would be still substituted with something else since shell fish was removed following the noro virus scare. I’d watched Heston making sand a few times on his Feast programme and frankly got bored of the idea. And listening to the sea? Pphhh. Anyway, a shell was delivered with an iPod Shuffle in it along with a glass plate containing an edible seascape… sand, sea foam, fish and seaweed. We were asked to put on our headphones and tuck in.

That’s when the magic happened. For once we were all silent, listening to the sound of the sea in our own world, feasting our eyes on the presentation and wrapping our tongues around the textures and tastes.

It all worked together, even the sand which contains little crunchy fried eels. When I finished off someone else’s plate I found that I couldn’t eat it without the sound. My scepticism was banished.

This was probably the biggest disappointment of the meal, gaining unanimous disapproval around the table. My expectations were lowered by fellow bloggers Boots In The Oven’s description – but even that did not prepare me for how underwhelming (unpleasant even) I would find this.

The salmon itself was fine – poached well, although quite flavourless. The liquorice coating really added nothing to each bite – the only way to extract any flavour was to suck a sizeable piece of the rubbery skin. Quite how you are supposed to combine the sucking with eating the salmon, I don’t know.

On the other side of the plate sat a blob of vanilla mayonaise. I’m all for new flavour combinations, but for me this was far too close to a mix of Haagen-Dazs and Hellman’s Mayonnaise. Yuck.

So taken as a whole, how was the dish? Mushy. No crunch, just a soggy mouthful. The sharpness of the flecks of grapefruit scattered around the plate offered the only interest – and I wish I had tried the ‘Manni’ olive oil in isolation as it disappeared into the mulch without even a whimper.

This was probably the most traditional dish on the menu – but wow. Just wow. The flavours were so intensely rich and savoury, the meat cooked to perfection, the black pudding so smooth… there wasn’t a bad thing I could say about this dish. So I’ll leave it at wow.

This was a fun palate cleanser to prepare us for the dessert courses. The flavour is simply Earl Grey tea – but the surprise is that on drinking, both hot and cold sensations are delivered to distinct parts of your mouth at the same time.

Having completed the savoury leg of our culinary odyssey, our first dessert was preceded by little booklets on Mrs. Marshall and her cutting edge ice cream making in the 19th century. The brief history added to the course – a perfectly presented, bite sized cone with apple ice cream and a ginger filling. The ice cream was good, not wildly exciting and maybe a touch salty – but Mrs. Marshall clearly knew what she was doing.

The instructions were to dip the hollowed out vanilla stick into the sherbet, lift it out and suck on the end – but the course would have worked better if there were more than a few grains of sherbet to taste!

The little cubes were peppery and went well with the blackcurrant sorbet. I love that he can get so much flavour into these small jelly cubes – just like the amaretto ones in the foie gras course. The one component lacking in flavour was the bavarois of lychee and mango. But maybe it was there as a respite from the intensity of the rest of the plate.

For the next two courses we were transported to the breakfast table – announced by the waiters with a chirpy “Good morning, your breakfast is served”. Here we have another amuse bouche style course that arrives in some cute Fat Duck branded packaging. Inside the cardboard packet lies a small plastic wrap containing a few flakes of parsnip crisps that are then doused with sweet, creamy parsnip milk. A simple course with simple flavours – not particularly outstanding (reminiscent of Frosties) but with a good fun factor.

This is another ‘molecular gastronomy’ classic – I know Heston B. hates the moniker, but I remember this dish being a poster child for the experimental cuisine. Of course bacon, maple syrup, sweet waffles and cream is nothing quite so revolutionary Stateside, but this presents the flavours as the perfect dessert.

The ice cream is created table side from ‘ordinary eggs’ (you almost expect the waiter to show you he has nothing up his sleeves) that have been filled with a bacon infused cream – these are then instantly nitro’ed into a scramble of strong flavoured, sweet ice cream and dolloped on top of your Pain Perdu – some sort of French toast made with a sweet brioche. The bacon rasher is either purely a sugar replica or almost completely caramelised, leaving no room for anyone who doesn’t like their desserts super sweet.

That means that Ms. Young was less impressed, a little overpowered by the cloying sweetness. Bring it on, I say!

In spite of the previous fourteen courses and amuses, we were all still game for the after dinner treats – where we were served three rather than the traditional four ‘Petit Fours’. The mandarin aerated chocolate was the blandest of the bunch – imagine an Aero topped with the Jaffa Cake filling and you have the same flavours and complexity. Nice, but dull.

The caramel was the final quirky delight – the toffee encased in an edible wrapper that dissolved on the tongue, possibly from the same research lab that previously brought us the oak moss film. The toffee was tasty enough, but without the edible wrapper it would be rather underwhelming.

Ending on a high, the violet tartlet was crisp, buttery, wafer thin pie base filled to overflowing with sticky and sweet violet chocolate – a perfect and original final bite to close the meal.

The white and brown bread on offer was open textured, light and with a crispy crust. The choice of butter was unpasteurised salted and pasteurised unsalted. I had to try all combinations which equalled four slices – but the winner was unpasteurised salted with white, amazing! The waiters kindly topped up everyone’s bread, even when it got embarrassing with how much we all had.

Out of the three wine pairings (£95, £165 and £195) we chose the lower and middle priced ones so we could have double the tastings. However, we were disappointed to find that three of the eight pairings were the same for each course.

We are by no means experts on wine, but the pairings did seem rather expensive – a trip to El Cellar De Can Roca in 2007 yielded more interesting pairings at less than half the price.

That said, all the wines were superb and the fruity sake served with the “Sound of the Sea” course was a pleasant diversion.

So with many highs, some not-so-highs and a few not-so-sures, where does this leave The Fat Duck? Maybe the dishes weren’t always successful, maybe some of the amuses were a little gimmicky – but overall this is one of the best dining experiences of our lives. Exciting new food experiences and superb wines – and the wonderful company – made this a truly memorable meal.

Food
Service
Decor
Value

The Fat Duck
£130 for tasting menu
High Street
Bray
Berkshire
SL6 2AQ

Before we went to the Fat Duck, we did our own share of reading up on the topic – our favourites were from the lovable pair over at Boots In The Oven, and the even more snap happy Ulterior Epicure where you can find more enticing food photography.