Milo's Profile
Hinds Head Bray - Revisited
Had a similarly disappointing experience. Dreadful, chaotic service. Overcooked, cold, unseasoned food. And expensive too.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
"Redefining Perfection
Blumenthal knows that messing with the word perfection is tricky, and he doesn’t take a universalist’s view with his recipes—they are perfect only insofar as he has customized them to his own ideals. In fact, he suggests that his concept of perfection is rather more akin to a very refined version of novelty..."
This extract is from these boards. If when HB uses the term 'perfection', what he means is novelty refined according to subjective criteria, then it raises the question, why use the term 'perfection' if by his own admission there's really nothing perfect about it at all?
Anyway, I'm going to give this dialogue a rest now, I feel I'm getting about as far as if I had slagged off Robbie Williams on a Robbie Williams fan board.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
I certainly have, and it makes me wonder if he didn't mean 'perfection' why he still chose to use the term.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
Regarding a sense of history, I know all about Mrs Marshall etc. It's not this I'm getting at. Rather, when you start bandying around the term 'perfection', you imply imperfection in everything that's gone before. It's like saying that now we have synthesizers music is better than ever.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
Alright Howard, in a nutshell, I am of the opinion that the FD is disproportionately about marketing, and I think that this marketing makes it very difficult to step back and understand why a significant number of people, including food professionals and critics, are not impressed by the food. I like to think, though, that I am at least having a stab at this, perhaps clumsily. I realize that you are a fan, but question is not why you like it, but why many other people don't like it. As I mentioned up-thread, either the science has improved HB's manipulation of the physiology of taste and this is reflected in a near universal positive consensus, which is not the case. Or the 'science' is part of creating positive anticipation/experience in suggestible individuals, which is marketing.
I do not want to conflate HB's undeniable success with his place in the gastronomic canon.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
I'm not challenging the genuineness of your, or anyone else's, enjoyment of the Fat Duck. I've enjoyed it myself. The problem is with the degree of importance that it's given.
It's post-modern in the most hackneyed sense, it's what Andy Warhol would have cooked, but forty years too late to be innovative.
Now I'm not really worried if I'm in a minority, since I'm not insecure about my food knowledge. I've eaten around a lot both pre and post HB, and for this reason I see him as part of a continuum rather than as a new dawn for gastronomy. In fact, I see HB as the first chef to create dishes for their marketable potential rather than than their eatable potential.
Why do you think that new dishes like 'seaside', and, formerly, 'snail porridge', 'egg & bacon ice cream' etc. get instantly written up in the international press? The fact that this doesn't happen with any other chef suggests that these dishes have been conceived as PR not as food, and indeed, HB's PR sends out a press release and the papers have their story.
This isn't cooking, and I don't see how it can be good for cooking. It's self-promotion, and whilst I respect the fact some people enjoy buying in to the HB's celebrity by splashing out on a meal at the FD, I reserve the right to raise the question of HB's gastronomic integrity. I may be wrong of course, but I'm yet to be convinced otherwise.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
HB pitches his menu to thirty-somethings just starting to have the cash to spend on eating out. He's popular with them because he shares the same values as they do; a fetish for technology, informality and no sense of history.
HB likes to present his food as 'challenging', and diners feel sophisticated about appreciating something challenging, but in reality it's quite the opposite; it's extremely easy and safe. Easy, because everything is done for the diner, the tasting menu, the wine choices, the menu rubric and the wait-staff who tell you how to eat the stuff. Safe, because the 'scientific' approach provides an iron clad guarantee against insecurity --
"Snail porridge, isn't that just pretentious twaddle?"
"No, it's scientifically proven: (goes on to repeat some HB non sequitur)"
The day I hear a chef that I respect praising the Fat Duck, I 'might' consider reevaluating my position, but in the meantime the opinions of all the food groupies, bloggers, and recently solvent IT professionals in the world count for very little or nothing.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
What 'hate'?
I think HB is showman rather than a great chef. I think HB uses uses science as a rationale for adolescent silliness. I think HB's client base is predominately ignorant about cooking. I think he does his job well, but as I say, his job is that of an entertainer.
I don't hate anyone, but I'm certainly not going to praise HB just to keep on your good side, so please, in future, keep your psychoanalysis to yourself, okay?.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
The more technology that exists to help the cook achieve his or her vision then the more potential exists for better food.
However, making technology an end in itself is not a substitute for vision.
Beyond the techie theatre, then I don't see that HB has made any significant contribution to cooking, apart from raising public awareness of the likes of Harold Magee, and Herve This. I don't believe that HB has much in the way of vision. Most of his use of technology seems to me to be gratuitous, although more generous clients such as yourself call it theatre.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
I'm not saying things are 'untrue', but rather that many of the ideas are ill-reasoned. For example Heston claims that many of his methods are superior, but he fails to state by what criteria. I think we can infer that the criteria he uses are his own subjective preferences, which is what every chef does anyway. No matter how much science is involved, it is unscientific to claim that this in itself improves something unless some criteria is commonly agreed upon.
The fact that very many people walk out of the Fat Duck not agreeing that they have just eaten the best meal of their lives demonstrates, at least, that Heston is not able to manipulate the physiology of taste to the extent some people claim.
My own take is that the FD is good, but not that good, others may think differently, which is fine by me.
Fat Duck - anyone been?
I wouldn't say the FD was in any sense bad, just massively disappointing. Heston is a nice guy, and I think people tend to believe his hype because of this. As a bit of a cynic (and a real scientist by day) I just couldn't accept the validity of all the half-cocked theorem being chucked around, and so was unable to suspend disbelief.
Interesting, but nowhere near as good as some people claim.
Top 50 restaurants in the World
Regardless of whether this list worthless or otherwise, it certainly generates business.
Heston Blumenthal said that it increased his turnover at the Fat Duck more than getting 3 Michelin Stars, and it is referenced quite prominently on his website.
http://www.fatduck.co.uk/awards_list.htm
Personally, I think its unfair to the restaurants who are left off the list. It probably doesn't matter to the beneficiaries that the award system is uneven, but it does matter that those not getting recognition might not be getting it because the organizers can't be bothered to do things properly.
Moving to Hoxton - seeking restaurants and kitchen advice
Not tried it yet, but The Bacchus, a former pub, has been restored and is now doing modern stuff, lots of sous-vide, cooked by a former el Bulli stagiare.
Sounds worth a try even if you're not from the area.
The River Cafe
Okay, the River Cafe is expensive, and there is no doubt that a trip to Italy would be of far more interest to a chef cooking Italian, not to mention cheaper. Nevertheless, if you are in London, then you could do a lot worse.
These days people seem to relate the value of a meal to amount the food has been manipulated; think Molecular Gastronomy. The River Cafe does ingredient based cooking and the vision of such and such a chef is sidelined in favour of a more traditional approach. There's obviously not as much to say about a perfectly cooked Cep risotto as there is about something cooked in liquid nitrogen, but this doesn't mean that there's not as much to enjoy.
I say give it a go.
