Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection

[Tim Hayward]

Tim,

have you forgotten the other place in Bray, which does just nicely without food tourists and has quite a following of regulars? 

after all berkshire is not exactly a destitute locale.

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If you mean Monkey Island then I'd say that its more traditional menu means that it can guarantee bums on seats from the wealthy of Berkshire and its hotel means that the dirty weekend (sorry, Mr & Mrs Jones/Hip Hotel/City Break) brigade can make an impressive destination of it.

With neither an accessible menu nor a hotel, Blumenthal has to draw from a wider and more complicated universe of potential customers.

I still maintain that the best way to do that is to keep the favourites on the menu as long as possible.

[Bapi]

If you mean Monkey Island then I'd say that its more traditional menu means that it can guarantee bums on seats from the wealthy of Berkshire and its hotel means that the dirty weekend (sorry, Mr & Mrs Jones/Hip Hotel/City Break) brigade can make an impressive destination of it.

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Or perhaps Scott meant the Waterside Inn?

[TheBacchus]

Tim,

I still maintain that the best way to do that is to keep the favourites on the menu as long as possible.

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I agree with Tim. The FD still gets much of its press from snail porridge and egg/bacon ice cream because that's its USP for the global audience.

Sure, those in the know appreciate that HB is a superb chef whose talents run far deeper than the sum of his menu but at the end of the day its a business run to a specific model and if this were to change then you can bet your bottom dollar that it would have an impact on the custom base and subsequently turnover.

Until FD has an empty table for dinner i dont think it will ever really change. Fair enough too. IMO there's more chance of HB opening up a new place like he did with Hinds Head that will enable him to diversify than try to mess with the FD model

On a personal level the two most recent times i've been there have been little extras here and there - everyone gets that - its a thinly veiled attempt to make you feel special and to keep your interest from waning because the truth is once you've seen the spectacle its never the same again.

FD fact: over 80% of the diners at FD have the tasting menu. Anyone who has had it will tell you. It's not something you'd keep going back for time and time again which makes a nod towards Tims culinary tourists theory

Edited November 14, 2006 by TheBacchus (log)

[Tim Hayward]

Or perhaps Scott meant the Waterside Inn?

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Ooops.

Engage brain.

Same applies though.

[ajnicholls]

I loved the meal I had at the Fat Duck and would eat there again. The theatre of the Nitro mousse would make it worthwile

Having said that, I'd want anything other than the sardine on toast sorbet. It was fucking disgusting.....

Edited November 14, 2006 by ajnicholls (log)

[nimzo]

Lets not ignore the fact that a fair number of locals must be regulars at the FD and that the menu still offers enough combinations to keep a frequent visitor interested.

For those of you fed up with the tasting menu why not ask them to change it to some of the dishes you would prefer, you are the customer after all.

Whilst the menu titles rarely change i would imagine that the dishes have evolved a fair bit over the years albeit in only minor ways.Surely this is the point, take a good dish and then refine, refine, refine until you are happy with it.

Monkey island??Surely nobody goes to Bray with 2 pubs and 3 other restaurants to eat at a South African corporate kitchen.Surely has a nice view but then so do several Berni Inns.

[Pweaver1984]

I can't remember the last time I saw a photo of an a la carte dish from the Fat Duck?

Anybody got a link to some?

[offcentre]

hadn't watched the first two episodes of this program but saw last nights and really you lot, what a bunch of nit-picking moany old gits.

I thought Heston presented very well, didn't notice any continuity errors and was pretty interesting the whole way through.

Fair enough the interview bit is crap and the diddle-de-doo bit is rather annoying, but really!

[grahamR]

I didn’t “get” the steak method: burn the outside with a blowtorch (for our lovely Maillard reaction), cook on low for ages (don’t want to denature those proteins), cut off the outside of the steak, fry it again.

The Maillard reaction as induced by a blowtorch is a surface reaction. Why brown the surface of the meat, cut it off, then brown it again?

[Corinna Dunne]

Yes, the show last night was really enjoyable and he seemed to be much more comfortable in front of the camera.

The only thing is… after discovering the best steak in the world and seeing the cooking method - a bit of salt, cook for a short time on a scorching rack under a scorching salamander - how did he come up with the idea that once back on this side of the ocean, the only way to replicate this would be to use a double rib, sear it, cook it at a low temperature for about 20 hours and sear it again? Yes, grahamR, I didn't get it either, but it was great TV.

Top marks too for being able to utter the word umami without sounding pretentious.

[offcentre]

wasn't he doing that to seal in the moisture. He showed how much was lost by doing it in the pan. I was amazed by the amount of weight that was lost due to cooking, but then I am as far away from understanding the science of cooking as you can get.

[Corinna Dunne]

Yes, it was interesting to see how much moisture had been lost. But the moisture loss didn't seem to adversely affect the taste of the perfect steak in the US... so a different method entirely. I'd love to have tried it, but I'm not sure I'm going to give it a go.

[Scott]

If you mean Monkey Island then I'd say that its more traditional menu means that it can guarantee bums on seats from the wealthy of Berkshire and its hotel means that the dirty weekend (sorry, Mr & Mrs Jones/Hip Hotel/City Break) brigade can make an impressive destination of it.

←

Or perhaps Scott meant the Waterside Inn?

←

Perhaps

[Scott]

Tim,

have you forgotten the other place in Bray, which does just nicely without food tourists and has quite a following of regulars? 

after all berkshire is not exactly a destitute locale.

←

If you mean Monkey Island then I'd say that its more traditional menu means that it can guarantee bums on seats from the wealthy of Berkshire and its hotel means that the dirty weekend (sorry, Mr & Mrs Jones/Hip Hotel/City Break) brigade can make an impressive destination of it.

With neither an accessible menu nor a hotel, Blumenthal has to draw from a wider and more complicated universe of potential customers.

I still maintain that the best way to do that is to keep the favourites on the menu as long as possible.

←

Tim,

you're not surely suggesting that an innovative restaurant, not innovate as a strategic approach?

I appreciate it was an oversight only to not think of the waterside, but aren't you really falling into an increasingly common trap of thinking that the Fat Duck operates in a vacuum? It doesn't, and the food tourist idea doesn't hold because of this. there are regulars, there are people who know food, and there is precious little reason for a regular to return.

Is there another rational reason for a stunting of innovation or development other than a lack of ideas and perhaps he just doesn't know how?

could it be he is the culinary Tarantino who only knows how to make one movie

[Scott]

Tim,

I still maintain that the best way to do that is to keep the favourites on the menu as long as possible.

←

I agree with Tim. The FD still gets much of its press from snail porridge and egg/bacon ice cream because that's its USP for the global audience.

Sure, those in the know appreciate that HB is a superb chef whose talents run far deeper than the sum of his menu but at the end of the day its a business run to a specific model and if this were to change then you can bet your bottom dollar that it would have an impact on the custom base and subsequently turnover.

Until FD has an empty table for dinner i dont think it will ever really change. Fair enough too. IMO there's more chance of HB opening up a new place like he did with Hinds Head that will enable him to diversify than try to mess with the FD model

On a personal level the two most recent times i've been there have been little extras here and there - everyone gets that - its a thinly veiled attempt to make you feel special and to keep your interest from waning because the truth is once you've seen the spectacle its never the same again.

FD fact: over 80% of the diners at FD have the tasting menu. Anyone who has had it will tell you. It's not something you'd keep going back for time and time again which makes a nod towards Tims culinary tourists theory

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Phillip again, your getting caught up in the FD is not like anywhere else idea - it's a nonsence. it is EXACTLY like a number of other places - and whilst I tend to agree with the food tourist idea as far as I think that's what happens - then it should grouped with the others like Veyrat & Adria, just as a food tourist would.

one of the things that keeps Adria so busy, so in demand, is that the menu does change every year and people want to see what happens this season.

you'll note I don't quibble over the interest and quality of his existing dishes, I think they're very good - but it is plain crazy to suggest that he needs to stay the same, when this is not the normative approach how ever you choose to group his customers - food tourists, or affluent locals.

His snail porridge et al is easy copy for lazy journalists, surely someone as exalted shouldn't be resting his laurels?

His business model has nothing to do with a single menu that never changes.

[Zoticus]

Heston doesn't need to change his menu because it's perfect. He's proved it's perfect with science. If he changed his menu he would be conceding that it wasn't perfect since something that is perfect doesn't need to be changed, ever.

I just think you don't get it.

[ravelda]

"If he changed his menu he would be conceding that it wasn't perfect since something that is perfect doesn't need to be changed"

Zoticus, I hate to say it, but what absolut rubbish! Taking a dish of the menu is not to say there is something wrong with it at all. There are many restaurants who have incredible (to some even "perfect") dishes which are over time phased out, maybe to be brought back again later in the same or an evolved form, or maybe never to return to the menu. By changing his menu, all heston would be saying is that he wants to move the restaurant on and show us some new dishes, or that he wants to reflect prticulare seasonal flavours.

[Matthew Grant]

I think (hope) Zoticus was joking

[Tim Hayward]

Phillip again, your getting caught up in the FD is not like anywhere else idea - it's a nonsence.  it is EXACTLY like a number of other places - and whilst I tend to agree with the food tourist idea as far as I think that's what happens - then it should grouped with the others like Veyrat & Adria, just as a food tourist would. 

one of the things that keeps Adria so busy, so in demand, is that the menu does change every year and people want to see what happens this season. 

you'll note I don't quibble over the interest and quality of his existing dishes, I think they're very good - but it is plain crazy to suggest that he needs to stay the same, when this is not the normative approach how ever you choose to group his customers - food tourists, or affluent locals. 

His snail porridge et al is easy copy for lazy journalists, surely someone as exalted shouldn't be resting his laurels?

His business model has nothing to do with a single menu that never changes. 

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Do you know, I don't think I have an intelligent answer to this

But here's a summing up of why the whole thing is bugging me....

1. I don't know if he is comparable to Veyrat or Adria

2. If he isn't getting the same audience, then why? Something to do with the quality of his food, the weird location or a general global inability to accept that innovation could come out of the UK?

3. The UK is uniquely sleb obsessed. HB has the choice of getting a lot richer, a lot faster than Adria or Veyrat by being a kind of performing MG muppet or sticking to his principles and staying an out of town chef proprietor, albeit with three stars, who may well go down in flames when MG inevitably hits the skids.

Under those circumstances, a strategy based around "If it ain't broke, don't fix it - at least until we've leveraged the publicity from the show/book" would make the soundest business sense.

Maybe he'll use the proceeds to change the menu.

4. The question of the Michelin stars is worrying. There's a strong argument that Michelin, finding themselves increasingly out of fashion and irrelevant to modern diners, jumped on MG with both feet to prove that it could still have some commercial point. The fact that MG is looking increasingly like it might be a bit of an embarrassment must be a worry to everyone.

The weird thing is, I genuinely can't tell if he deserves the stars or not. People whose opinions I respect are split about 50/50, which unfortunately, further undermines the point of Michelin.

I'd find the whole argument a lot less confusing if it weren't for the totally random factor of the stars.

5. Ramsay is surfing the edge of disbelief with his bipolar chef/media personality existence. Soon, people who care about food will no longer believe he can do both things at once and he'll have to continue getting richer, being a cartoon chef and opening more and more branded franchises for the rich and stupid. There are worse ways to go, I suppose, but it would be a shame to see HB go that way.

6. He seems to a be clever, enthusiastic chef, who might be brilliant, who might even make good TV, but unless his business plan is to fill his pension fund ASAP then open an entirely different kind of restaurant and never darken our screens again, he could well cark spectacularly.

We can feel, as reasonably well-read foodies, how MG is teetering on the edge of becoming the same kind of laughable self-parody as Nouvelle Cuisine. The fact that HB has chosen just this moment to become it's public figurehead - in spite of his protestations - is, IMHO, a career limiting move.

[Basildog]

Heston doesn't need to change his menu because it's perfect. He's proved it's perfect with science. If he changed his menu he would be conceding that it wasn't perfect since something that is perfect doesn't need to be changed, ever.

I just think you don't get it.

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I think we get you.

[Simon_S]

We can feel, as reasonably well-read foodies, how MG is teetering on the edge of becoming the same kind of laughable self-parody as Nouvelle Cuisine. The fact that HB has chosen just this moment to become it's public figurehead - in spite of his protestations - is, IMHO, a career limiting move.

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Tim, that's a great post, chock full of good points, but this one especially got me thinking.

I don't know how I feel about this programme either. I have seen people laughing in the face of it, others claiming that Heston is actually laughing at us, and to be honest under normal circumstances the temptation to mock the pretension of it all would be too much for me to resist myself. Having said all this, for some reason I think it's not nearly as cynical, or as pretentious, as some people think. You know, I think Heston really *is* a guy who is trying to "perfect" dishes, at least to his own mind.

I think the fact that he eschews the MG moniker is probably symbolic of his viewpoint -- he's not doing it for its own sake, with a totally dogmatic approach -- he's simply trying to make these dishes as tasty as possible, with whatever technical means is necessary. Of course, the "you can try this at home" aspect is, for the most part, ludicrous, but I think Heston passionately believes that methods of cooking can be improved. I don't think he wants to be known as "the guy who cooks great scientific stuff" but rather "the guy who cooks great food".

For this reason, I think this show is actually an attempt to step away from his media-crowned role of MG King. Up until this, the word "Heston" was rapidly followed by "Snail Porridge", or "Bacon and Egg ice-cream". Think Heston, think unappetising combinations of ingredients. Of course this is a problem with MG's image across the board: many people just assume it won't taste good, and that it's always style over substance. Here, we have Heston cooking treacle tart, Black Forest gateau, steak and salad, fish n' chips. This is something that should speak to the average Brit in their own language. If Heston truly believes that techniques can be improved (and I believe he does) and he wants to push an idea of good food done better (and I believe he does) then this is going to persuade the man on the street more effectively than Snail Porridge. Some may still laugh, but I think it's thought-provoking to all but the most closed-minded of punters. Few will ever try the recipes at home, but that's not really the point. For me, this is a robust defence of modern cooking techniques, which may tip the balance in the teetering MG viewpoint.

As regards the menu at Fat Duck itself, I'm somewhat torn. When I read about the restaurant first, many moons ago, it was the headline wacky-sounding stuff that caught my eye, and when I went, I honestly would have been very disappointed if they hadn't been on the menu. On the flip side, having since seen the elBullis and Alineas of this world in action, FD now just seems so pedestrian.

The thing is, though, when I was there (a Sunday lunch) I got the very strong sense that it was a "regular haunt" for some of the patrons. Indeed, one large group seemed to be there for a young girl's birthday party (girl, about 12, festooned in birthday paraphernalia!) and seemed remarkably at home. Somehow, despite the menu, the place felt like a local restaurant serving Sunday roasts to well-to-do families fresh from church. It may be that he's doing plenty of repeat business from a demographic that would not necessarily be expected. Certainly, at the table I'm referring to, both Granny and granddaughter tucked in with gusto!

In short, I think he can continue to do what he's doing at Fat Duck and he'll continue to fill the restaurant. But if he wants to be considered with the greats mentioned above, that menu, or at least a part of it, needs to change on a more regular basis.

Si

[Scott]

Nice post Tim.

[Pizza Napoletana]

I didn’t “get” the steak method: burn the outside with a blowtorch (for our lovely Maillard reaction), cook on low for ages (don’t want to denature those proteins), cut off the outside of the steak, fry it again.

The Maillard reaction as induced by a blowtorch is a surface reaction. Why brown the surface of the meat, cut it off, then brown it again?

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Although he does mention the mailard reaction when using the blow torch, the focus at that point was to kill off the germs and bacterias from outside of the meat.

I think is a good point as the benefit of low temperature cooking (50C) may be overshadow by food poisoning (a safe temperature would be 63 C and above). Also, in US for example, the Gastrovac has encountered problems with the health official due to low temperature cooking and bacterias...

On the other point of his 20 hours cooking... This is easily answered by all the followers of H. McGee, H. This and also Blumenthal early work on slow cooking benefits

I really enjoyed the programme.

[jackal10]

There were several oddities:

Cooking at 50C is too low to do any actual cooking, even over 24 hours. Its more like accelerated aging, and some collagen decomposition.

Blowtorching, then cutting off the crust, then searing seems very odd.

Even with a blowtorch you won't get the outside anything like sterile, and the migration of the maillard flavour into the meat will be minimal. . In fact searing for 2 mins a side will do most of the cooking. He adds smoked salt as well, which will dominate the flavour

I'd cook at 57C for 8 hours or so, then blowtorch...

[Zoticus]

If Veyrat & Adria can change their menu's so can this guy, or give up the pretense of walking with the kings.   :wonk:

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Perhaps you've got this the wrong way around. Where would Veyrat, Adria and Gagnaire be without treading the trail blazed by goodly Heston of the gleaming probe (thermometer)?

Edited November 18, 2006 by Zoticus (log)