Dirk Wheelan

Yes, imagine someone now calling a restaurant 'Threesome', or 'Trio',... ... hang on a second, 'Trio', hmmm...

Indeed he did. Menage a Trois in Beauchamp Place was as much a groundbreaking restaurant in the early eighties, as the Fat Duck is to this decade.

Yes, I've read the papers too, all I was saying is that the word "discovery" implies, ... well, you know, "discovery". I know that Heston has revolutionized British cooking etc, but I wouldn't call pop-rocks, tobacco chocolate, and so on, 'discoveries', more like innovations. Anyway it doesn't matter really. Dirk.

So I needn't have got excited. It seems to have been 'discoveries' in the loosest rhetorical sense :0)

I came across this yesterday which seems like an interesting idea, but one thing I wasn't clear about was this reference: "The new courses are based on some of the discoveries I made a few years back which have affected our whole approach to cooking". The article is very short and Heston does not expand, but by the context it seems like he is referring to the world in general with 'our', rather than just his close associates, so what are these 'discoveries'? I know that Heston has been working with some scientists, but I wasn't aware of the wider importance of this relationship. Dirk.

It won't. The last thing on earth Michelin would do is award a 3rd star one year if they thought there was the remotest possibility that they might have to take it away the next. ← I'm sure you're right, I was joking really, but even so I wouldn't completely stunned if the either the Waterside or GR @ RHR went down to two. If I had to bet on one I'd say that GR must be a bit nervous, by all accounts standards at RHR have slipped of late.

Agree with all the above. However, my not inconsiderable gut has a feeling that Anthony's and l'Enclume will both get a star. Nevertheless, the Fat Duck's third star (undeserved i.m.o.) really threw a spanner in the works in terms of double-guessing Michelin, potentially anything could happen. In fact, I wonder if the Fat Duck might lose a star. I mean nothing much has happened there food wise since the refit (2000?), and although it's among the best in Britain, Pierre Gagnaire it ain't. Mind you both GR @ RHR and the Waterside Inn are in a similar position with the disadvantage of not cooking trendy food, and I hear the GR @ RHR is really not hitting the high notes of late. So, regardless of what might happen, perhaps what should happen is that all the three British three stars should be demoted to two stars, and that Anthony's and l'Enclume go straight in at two stars. Never happen though... or will it?

I don't know how my capon had been emasculated, and to be honest I don't really care. However, I am rather proud of my smashing new pair of tits.

Just to update, should anyone else be considering doing the same. I cooked my 4,850 gram capon for five hours at 110C. Far too much, unfortunately. I think this could be for couple of reasons: that my oven is poorly calibrated at lower temperatures; that my usual habit of roasting meat that has previously been allowed to reach room temperature exponentially influences cooking times as weight increases; or, most likely, a combination of the two things. Regarding the probe thermometer, I do have one and would have used it had I not been up a mountain. Nevertheless, a probe thermometer only tells you when something is cooked, not how long it will take, and when you're trying to plan a multi course meal for twelve people you need to decide on an approximate time at which to begin eating and work your cooking times around that. It's no good saying the turkey's ready at 12:00 if you're not sitting down to eat until 15:30. This is why approximate cooking times are so necessary, especially for larger pieces.

I have just become the proud owner of a five kilo free-range capon. According to my books cooking times are calculated on a 25 minutes per 450 grams at 190C basis. This means that I need to roast the bird for approximately 4 hours, which sounds like an awfully long time. The idea I have is to leave the bird in the oven on Christmas morning while I go and climb a mountain. Consequently, I won't be around to prod etc. and I am now living in fear of arriving home to find I must serve my family with desiccated capon. If I roast chicken, I generally leave to come up to room temperature, blanch it in boiling water and roast it at 130C, with a final blast at 200C for crispness and colour, followed by twenty minutes rest. Of course, I don't go by cooking time tables as I'm there to oversee the cooking and the whole process takes under an hour. The problem I have now is to confidently extend this process to a much bigger bird. Does anyone have any successful experience with this size of poultry?

Good point, but I made it back. Definitely with Master Coren on this one, l'Enclume is one of the best in Britain, and Simon Rogan is our Pierre Gagnaire. I think the only problem that Rogan has is that he really is in the middle of nowhere. I know that this doesn't matter in France, but seeing as a high percentage of those who would be attracted to his food must be based around London, then he's got his work cut out. Anyway, hopefully this review will send a few punters his way, more so since they can break the journey at Anthony's in Leeds.

I think that terms like 'world's greatest pioneering chef' do a disservice to Heston. In the end all he's trying to do is to bring his own vision of dining to the public, it's the obsession of the press to rate everyone's creative output. Despite the well publicized differences The Fat Duck is still very much in the typical mould of Michelin dining. The two meals I've had there (one 2* and one 3*) were amongst the best I've had in Britain (although well behind Anthony's, Leeds). Nevertheless, they did not live up to the overdone 'world's greatest pioneering chef' hype of the food press. Indeed, Heston's love of science seems more a personal hobby than something that affects his menu. If he had discovered a virgin culinary seem to mine as so many people seem to believe (I don't think he claims to), then surely he would be changing his menu with a frequency that reflected this hitherto untapped resource instead of leaving it as it has been for the last three or four years. Surely, comments like yours Marlyn are based on what you read about The FD not on what you have eaten there, because calling someone the 'world's greatest pioneering chef' on the basis of what they haven't done yet is not only unfair pressure on that person, but unfair on others who have achieved something.