Andy Lynes

The Ledbury opened for business a week or so ago according to the website holding page. Anyone been as yet?

I've realised as the series goes on that I don't like any of the contestants or the chefs (or should that be the chef's TV personas), which doesn't help much. We're not getting to see much cooking and the "dramas" such as closing the kitchens is all too familiar from the first series. Much to my surprise, the only person I have any sympathy for is Laura Aikens who is caught between the two chef's ridiculous grandstanding and has to face the hungry drunken hoards each night. I was immensly pleased to see the back of Aiken's arch nemesis and annoying cow Aby, although God help her real life work mates who can't vote her out of their lives.

I think you should be excited. I ate there a few weeks ago and had a lovely meal. I admit that I did get looked after a bit, but did pay the heart-stoppingly large bill at the end of the evening. Its a beautiful room (although quite masculine and more Autumn/Winter than Spring/Summer I suppose) and the service was very good apart from the Maitre'd who just rubbed me up the wrong way for some reason. Nothing technically wrong with what he did, but he annoyed me from the get-go by saying "This is my menu for this evening" as he handed over the a la carte. Your menu? Have you been in the kitchen cooking all day? No, I don't think so. So whose menu is it again, um? In general, his manner was just a little on the self important side. Not so the wonderful female French sommelier (didn't get her name unfortunately), whom I recognised from the Hotel du Vin in Brighton. Very knowledgeable and friendly and not at all sniffy. I didn't take away a menu with me which I now regret as I can't remember the details of the food we ate, but highlights included a fantastic foie gras terrine, a sweetbreads dish that came with a side of canneloni that was apparently amazing, monkfish with olives done in the manner of Michel Bra's Darkness and Light (i.e. the monkfish cooked in "black" olive oil made by blitzing the oli with dried black olives ) and a duck main course. A rhubarb and custard dessert was disappointing, needlessly complex and served with some rather stodgy doughnuts.

Heston Blumenthal will be cooking at Sandy Lane, Barbados at signature restaurant L’Acajou on May 29 and 30, 2005. See the calendar for details.

Pleased see this thread for the triple cooked chips debate.

I wonder if it appears in his book from that time? Would that pre-date Loiseau I wonder. Very interesting.

Maybe you have tried it too Andy? ← No, just the twice cooked method. Blumenthal's method sounds painfully complex for the home cook and its really not something I would want to do.

That's a very good question - I wonder if they already have someone lined up or if this happened suddenly and we'll see a few guest reviewers for an interim period. I'd like to read at least one review by Jon Ronson, but other than that, I can't imagine who it will be. Will Matthew Fort make a surprise come back, or will they go for a new, relatively unknown writer.

Here's Heston's recipe for chips . Strangely, this piece also includes Loiseau's fried egg recipe, but his claimed influence on Blumenthal's chip method is not mentioned.

Kitchen Arts and Letters in New York had a copy of Loiseau's cook book (in French) when I was there about a week ago, so if anyone happens to be passing...

I knew Robuchon was famous for his mash, but the chips are a new one on me! If you come across the recipe in the books you mention, please let us know, the only ones I have describe the two stage method - blanching in oil and then a final deep frying.

Heston has talked and written about the trial and error he went through to perfect the final process - boiling the potatoes until they almost fall apart, drying them out in a descicator, blanching them in fat and then a final deep frying - but you are saying that process was already established? Is it documented anywhere as I'd be very interested to read it.

Although I haven't eaten at Per Se, from what I understand, it doesn't really warrent comparison with WD50. Where Per Se appears to be upholding the traditions and ambience of fine dining, WD 50 with its funky interior and denim-clad front of house staff has stripped away all those trappings. In addition, Keller's food seem's to me to be a world away from that of Dufresne and Mason's. The Per Se remark was made in casual converation, but I thought it was worth passing on because the couple (at least the male half) seemed so excited about their food. When the main course arrived, the guy said to his partner "Isn't that the best pork dish you've ever seen" (or words to that effect), and he was very keen to know which dish I'd enjoyed the most.

Andy - I entirely apologise. I was being facetious, but ommitted the smiley. ← (A dull thud is heard as Lynes falls of his high horse. Flustered, he brushes himself off) "Right. Good. Well then, let this be a lesson to, ah, ....to us all! Carry on."

Blumenthal's methods are a mater of record, just search on the Guardian website for his archived cookery columns. There's also quite a lot of theory in his Family Food book. These notes, although a few years old, explain quite a lot about Heston's approach.

Let me be very clear here: I am not hostile to anyone because of their particular restaurant likes or dislikes. I have made comments on this thread which reflect my reaction to Mikael's style of reporting, I have not criticised his tastes.

There is no official line on the Fat Duck or any other restaurant. In addition, I don't see anything negative about Gastroville in Jonathan's post. My posts on this thread are my personal responses to Mikael's review. As for criticising the Fat Duck, I think the oyster and passion fruit dish is one of the nastiest things I have ever put in my mouth, I've never liked the pea, pigeon and crab amuse and I'm not too fussed about the pine dessert. The rest of it's pretty good though.

Matthew Fort, writing in the Guardian calls him "the most original and remarkable chef this country has ever produced" which when you think about it is quite a modest claim. It's certainly true that Blumenthal is written about a great deal in this country and that generally speaking a lot of his press is positive (although I have already linked to this negative piece on this thread), but I can't recall him ever having been compared to the "great masters". I'm making the assumption that you are referring to the likes of Escoffier and Careme but perhaps you have more modern figures in mind.

Degusto - your considered and measured response is appreciated, thanks for taking the time to compose such a lengthy and thoughtful reply. You raise a number of fundamental issues, most of which fall outside the remit of this thread. There are a number of threads on eGullet that address the subject of restaurant criticism both here in the UK and abroad, so I would ask that we don't rehearse those arguements here again. Would you be able to provide a link to the articles you mention that tout Heston Bluementhal as being on the level of the great masters, or if they are not online, which British papers or magazines they appeared in and who wrote them.

Resigned according to his column - quite unusal for a restaurant critic to last just seven months. Who will replace him I wonder.

Samantha - thanks for the clarification. I will certainly take time to look at more of Gastroville (I have already read a few more of the reports) but in terms of participation, I will keep my powder dry for eGullet.

In the introduction to the awards, the magazine says that it asked "chefs, restaurateurs, critics, writers and fun-loving gourmands to give us a list of their top five restaurants in the word" which is very ambiguous. It also says that they've more then doubled the size of last year's panel of 300 "with more members than ever before coming from abroad." Around 300 or the 600 or names are then listed, but with no indication of where they are from. There are certainly a lot of British names on that list, but it also includes the likes of Bocuse, Neil Perry and Thomas Keller. Getting a much more even geographical spread in the voting panel will help the credibility of these awards immensely, although as you point out, the media seem to be happy to take it at face value as it stands.

SamanthaF's assertion was that Mikael knows more about food than most 3 star chefs, not about the experience of dining. A quick look at the top 5's in the current edtion of Restauarnt magazine will tell you that chefs eat out a lot - Philip Howard (2 stars) picked Tetsuya's, Jean George River Cafe, Le Cinq and Per Se for example. Without exception, the head chefs I speak to all eat out on a regular basis. Stephen Jackson of The Weavers Shed has contributed reviews of Michel Bras and Veyrat among others to egullet.org and of course we know from reading Tough Cookies that Heston ate his way around France as a young man. Mikael and Vedat may well have eaten in more 3 stars more often, but I don't think that necessarily means they know more about food or even the experience of dining than most 3 star chefs.

I was there Friday 15 April, just last week in fact.

No, that's obviously not the case as every professional critic would be out of a job tomorrow if that were true. Mikael is free to offer advice to Blumethal or any other chef through the medium of his blog, just as I am free to pass comment on the advice and the manner in which it is offered.