Andy Lynes

Do people "believe" in NLP? I thought it was a technique rather than a faith.

That's a rather reductive way of describing NLP and puts Heston in rather a bad light in my opinion. If your interested, there's more info about the subject here.

It won't be appearing in print so when ever I get around to posting it here I suppose. Don't hold your breath!

Its just so nice not to have to travel for hours to get a half decent meal. I don't ever really get tired of restaurants at any level. I had a great lunch at St Albans the other day (a lovely quail dish which I can't remember the exact details of) and I visited upstairs at Sketch for the first time last week (the whole building was absolutely rammed by the way which came as a real surprise to me) and had a pretty fabulous meal there. Arbutus is always a joy and I'm looking forward to dinner at Theo Randall tomorrow. I was reading the menu at Alastair Little and it sounds really good. I've never been and as Juliette Preston is back in the kitchen I'm very tempted to make a trip there early next year. My favourite meal is always the next one.

The Elizabethian Tandoori, Old London Road, Brighton. A pretty generic sort of Indian but the service is fantastic, the onion bargees wonderful and I can have a couple of beers and walk home after an early Sunday evening dinner with the family. What more could a man ask? The Preston Park Tavern, Havelock Road, Brighton - gastropubs finally hit Brighton. A really quite smart, recently refurbished boozer with a decent kitchen. Braised rump of lamb was nearly good enough to excuse the grainy sauce (probably due to raw sugar - how the hell did that happoen?) that came with the sticky toffee puddings. The kids loved it and its a 5 minute drive from home. What more etc etc.

Sago Tarry Ooze - linger over your runny milk-based puding at this dessert only restaurant.

I think they should expand to a chain of 12 restaurants, all named after astrological signs: Score Pea Oh! - a veggie restaurant with a particularly fine pea-based signature dish Pie Sees - a self service pie and mash shop Can Sir - where all the food comes out of tins - for men only A Quare? Re:Us - odd ingredients cooked by strange chefs I'm sure between us we can come up with the other seven, then all we need is a business plan and an appearance on Kitchen Nightmares and we're away.

He does post and I know under what name. But I'm not telling!

Sometimes less is more.

"I'm not going to list everything else we ate dish by dish; the tasting menu has been comprehensively documented (with photos) by an eager brigade of food bloggers." Tracey MacLeod acknowledges that some things never change in her recent review of the Fat Duck in the Independent .

Gordon Ramsay at the London was reviewed on the BBC2 TV programme Newsnight Review in the UK on Friday evening. The arts show had relocated to New York and the panel included Joe Queenan, Bill Buford, Robin Green and Nancy Jo Sales . Its available to view online until Friday 8 December click here. Apart from the sheer incongruity of the restaurant being reviewed alongside the new David Hare play, this is worth watching to catch some kitchen footage where the eagle eyed can spot not only Ramsay and his head chef Neil Ferguson, but also Mark Sargeant, head chef of Gordon Ramsay at Claridges and Josh Emett, head chef of The Savoy Grill, another Ramsay restaurant. I'd be amazed if group executive chef Mark Askew wasn't also in the kitchen, although he didn't appear on screen. So if you got in early and have already eaten at the London, your meal was cooked by quite a stellar crew.

Like?

In the above link to Birmingham Plus website, the site user review says "We were then shown to a small table at the back of the restaurant. The front section is not bad but it then tapers into a narrow rear area with mucky grey walls, paint on the furniture, and blanked-out glass panels at the back. If you ever wondered what it would be like eating in a hospital corridor, this would be a good place to find out." Having seen the table (one of two in the same area of the room) I completely understand what they mean as, no doubt, does Jay Rayner who was given the same table when he recently visited (whoops!). However, they are by far the worst tables in the restaurant with the first floor dining room being the best place to eat. I had a table for one with a nice view of the impressive floodlit cathedral and the not so picturesque busy intersection below it. Shaun says he is trying to give the classic brasserie menu an English slant, so you'll find the likes of pheasent pudding with fried sage and bacon or cockles and mussels on toast with shallot and dry cider sabayon rather than pastas and risottos to start. Happily, there's also quite a few dishes that fans of the Merchant House will be familiar with. I chose calf's sweetbreads with potato and olive cake which looked and tasted precisely as it had done back in 1995 when I first had it in Ludlow. A main of roast middle white pork with black pudding and apple was a decent sized chop that was as much delicous fat as it was perfectly cooked, juicy meat. Only an oversized slice of the black pudding and a too-small portion of shredded cabbage cooked in reduced chicken stock (yum) threatened to over balance the dish. A exemplary caramel and apple tart with cinnamon ice cream (another of Hill's old stagers) finished of a highly enjoyable meal. Hill admits to a pretty rough couple of opening weeks. The brigade only got access to their completed kitchen on the first day of opening with 94 booked, and there have been a number of rather swift front of house staffing changes. However, on the basis of Tuesday's outing, things seemed to have settled down with charming and efficient service seeming to keep the 90 odd punters at the very least content and one of them very happy indeed. Other complaints made on Birmingham Plus including a front door that wouldn't shut and a cold dining room appear to have been sorted out. Prices are pretty decent with a glass of house champage at £6 and all wines available in 250ml carafes (a direct and shameless nick from Arbutus). I have no truck with such piddling amounts however and saw off a bottle of Gruner Veltliner 2005 Lorimer (£21) with astonishing ease. The maximum you can spend on three courses is £34 (side orders at £2.50 are available but definatley excess to requirements), the minimum £21.

..or he may want to keep an eye on things back home when he's in New York. The idea that he's never in his restaurant kitchens is as equally ludicrous as the idea that he's trying to appear as though he's always in them. I understand he's cooking in Dubai this weekend for example.

The arguement about whether chefs should or shouldn't be in their kitchens and whether or not it makes a difference to the food if they are or aren't has been rehearsed many times on these forums on different threads and at various times throughout eGullet's 5 year history. But Tim has made a specific point comparing the reputations of Heston and Ramsay and people's expectations and perceptions of who they are and what they do. I remain unconvinced that now Heston has had mainstream primetime exposure on a BBC show where he introduces himself as chef/proprietor of the three Michelin starred The Fat Duck restaurant in Bray and that includes numerous shots of him in chefs whites, The Fat Duck sign, Bray High Street, the lab in Bray/ the Hinds Head pub etc etc that he has somehow cleverly avoided presenting himself as a chef that cooks in a restaurant kitchen in Bray. Apart from the now aged and mostly forgotton Boiling Point, Ramsay on the other hand is filmed anywhere but his restaurant kitchens. He's at home, he's in a fake restaurant in LA or the East End for Hell's Kitchen, he's in other people's kitchens around the country, he's in the kitchen of The F Word restaurant (which doesn't actually exist as a permanent entity and which is in fact someone else's restaruant), he's sitting opposite Michael Parkinson on a chat show, he's on the This Morning sofa - anywhere but Royal Hospital Road, Petrus, The Savoy etc etc etc. If that doesn't give people the very firm idea not to expect him to cook your dinner for you then I don't know what would.

All very interesting but I still don't see why you think the average punter wouldn't expect Heston to be in the kitchen. I don't imagine many people would be able to get past the thought that he only has two restaurant which are about 500 yards away from each other and so why the fuck shouldn't he be in one of them. Especially if he wants £97.50 for his tasting menu, a couture rather than diffusion price to pay. Whereas Ramsay - Mr Channel 4, Threshers & BHS with nine London restaurants and other scattered around the globe can't possibly be expected to being peeling shallots in Royal Hospital Road, even by the thickest numpty who only vaguely understands what running a restaurant empire and media career like that entails (and who among us does?).

I don't really understand that point Tim. Heston is The Fat Duck. Very few people beyond these forums would know the name of the restaurant's head chef, or even that the restaurant had a head chef that wasn't called Blumenthal. I would imagine any viewers of Perfection tempted to blow a couple of hundred quid at the restaurant after watching the programme would be mighily upset to discover that Heston wasn't actually going to cook their surreal supper for them.

I haven't looked at the Fat Duck site for a bit so this may have happened a while ago, but I think, I think, there are a number of new main courses on the al a carte including roast turbot, violet sea urchin, mussels, chervil root, verjus Turbot and langoustine royale (supplement six pounds fifty) among a few others.

Could be around March 2007, but that's only a rumour.

I have cooked chips at home in the past using the blanch and fry method and had great success with it. I have eaten triple cooked chips done to Heston's recipe at both Chez Bruce and The Hand and Flowers in Marlow and completely understand the benefits for both the diner (tastes fantastic) and the restaurant (the chips can be cooked at the beginning of service and will "hold" i.e. remain crispy, for the whole evening).

Yes, he was consulting once a month at the Montague Arms in the New Forest. I think his official title was Director of Cooking. He did a one off gourmet night in January this year where he actually cooked so you're right, he hasn't been entirely absent from the kitchen since the closing of The Merchant House.

The opening of The Glasshouse in Worcester earlier this month saw Shaun Hill back behind the stoves for the first time since The Merchant House closed in Feb 2005. From the shots on the website, the sleek modern brasserie couldn't be more of a contrast to the cosy surroundings of Shaun's old restaurant. The two places do share some menu items however including calf’s sweetbreads with potato and olive cake (which I first ate back in 1995) and sauteed monkfish with mustard and cucumber sauce. Shaun's signature lentil and coriander sauce pops up served with mackeral rather than the usual scallops. Will post a full report after my visit early next week.

I would run a mile from anywhere that was heading a campaign for real gravy. Shame about the horrible font on the menu - it just screams naff and out dated.

I don't fry chips at home, too much like hard work, and then there's all that oil to deal with. I certainly can't see myself runnng back and forth to the fridge with trays. I'm more likely to do potato wedges in the oven as a far easier and slightly healthier alternative.

I was waiting for that ← So was I. Hook, line and sinker.