Recently in Fat Duck Category

Michelin's guide for Great Britain and Ireland has awarded its top accolade of three stars to French celebrity chef Alain Ducasse's eponymous restaurant at London's Dorchester hotel.

It is the first time since 2004 that Michelin has handed three new stars to a UK restaurant and brings the total of restaurants holding three stars to four including Gordon Ramsay's flagship restaurant on Royal Hospital Road in London, Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck and the Roux's Waterside Inn, both in Bray, Buckinghamshire.

The Ledbury in London is the only restaurant in this year's Michelin guide to have been raised to two-star-status, while 18 establishments have been awarded their first star.

This brings the total of Michelin-starred restaurants in Great Britain and Ireland to 140, the highest number in the guide's 36-year history.

Among the new one-star restaurants is the Harwood Arms in London, which sees Ledbury and Harwood Arms chef Brett Graham as the big winner in this year's guide being awarded a total of three stars at his two restaurants.

Other restaurants celebrating their first Michelin star are: Galvin at Windows, Apsleys A Heinz Beck Restaurant at the Lanesborough, and Texture, all in London, as well as the Samling in Ambleside, Cumbria, The Goose in Britwell Salome, Oxfordshire, and Paul Kitching's 21212 in Edinburgh.

Fifteen restaurants have lost their stars in the 2010 Michelin guide for Great Britain and Ireland, with the most high profile loss being Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's in London. The Capital in London, and the Vineyard at Stockcross in Berkshire have both been demoted from their respective two-Michelin-star status, following the departure of their respective head chefs Eric Chavot and John Campbell last summer.
 

Michelin has identified four restaurants as rising stars including Simon Radley at the Chester Grosvenor in Cheshire, who has been tipped as a future two-star establishment.

The Marquis at Alkham, Kent, the Black Swan at Oldstead, North Yorkshire, and Rosel and Co in Padstow, Cornwall, have named as rising one stars.

The 2010 Michelin Guide for Great Britain and Ireland has named 28 new restaurants as Bib Gourmands, a move reflecting a continued trend within the UK dining market towards competitive pricing.

The Bib Gourmand status is awarded to a restaurant offering "good food at moderate prices" at £28 or less for three courses (€40 in Ireland). The 28 new Bib Gourmands bring the total to 31. 

Restaurants at opposing ends of the culinary spectrum - a Michelin-starred eaterie and a college offering - both came in for fulsome praise in this weekend's national newspapers.

Simon Rogan's fine dining restaurant L'Enclume in Cartmel, Cumbria, scored five out five in the Daily Telegraph, with critic Jasper Gerard arguing it could possibly be the best restaurant in the world. 

Comparing Rogan to Heston Blumenthal, he said L'Enclume was the Fat Duck of the North: "Blumenthal deserves his three Michelin stars, but it's absurd that Rogan has only one."

At a very different level, the Vincent Room Brasserie at London's Westminster Kingsway College offers first class cooking and friendly service at reasonable prices, according to The Guardian.

"We left utterly charmed by a venture that combines the indulgence of youth with professional rigour far, far better than this review," Matthew Norman enthused.

Does anyone remember the Channel 4 series Big Chef Takes On Little Chef, in which Heston Blumenthal reinvented the roadside restaurant chain's ghastly menu into something people might actually want to eat?

If so then you'll remember the group's chief executive Ian Pegler, whose annoying "blue sky thinking" mantra drove not just Heston but also thousands of viewers insane.

Well, Pegler's back. Unbelievably he's launched a "national campaign to promote the concept of blue sky thinking as a recipe to get Britain out of the recession".

He's jumped on the Conservative bandwagon because "the Tories are offering a bue sky and Pegler is backing them to win the next election".
 
"Pegler is launching it as a national campaign and has started by painting the ceiling of the flagship Little Chef in Popham with a blue sky," a press release issued by Little Chef informs.

Now I don't need to go into the details of why this is completely ridiculous but one thing I will point out is that Pegler is in fact taking credit for something he had nothing to do with.

He didn't paint the the ceiling in Popham - Heston did. What's worse is that Heston did it in an effort to take the micky out of Pegler after his "blue sky thinking" catchphrase drove him to swear on national TV.   

Some people really are shameless.

After Heston Blumenthal came under fire following the outbreak of norovirus at the Fat Duck last February, fellow molecular gastronomist Ferran Adrià has now been accused of inadvertently poisoning his diners.

German food writer Jörg Zipprick has accused the chef patron of the iconic three-Michelin-starred El Bulli restaurant in Spain of poisoning his diners with additives.

Zipprick claims Adrià's menus should carry health warnings about the additives in his new book, The Unappetising Underside of Molecular Cooking.

"These colorants, gelling agents, emulsifiers, acidifiers and taste enhancers that Adria has introduced massively into his dishes to obtain extraordinary textures, tastes and sensations do not have a neutral impact on health," he says.

"It would not occur to any fast-food chain to stuff us with 20 or 30 dishes full of chemical additives."

Zipprick's criticism follows last year's attack on Adrià by fellow three-Michelin-starred Spanish chef Santi Santamaria, who also accused him of poisoning his diners. 

Adrià responded at the time by saying: "Obviously, if you consume too much of anything it's bad for you - too much roast beef, sugar or salt is bad. But 80% of the products I use are ecological, and the additives under debate account for just 0.1% of my cooking." 

Things have gone from bad to worse for our favourite culinary wizard Heston Blumenthal.

Victims of the food poisoning outbreak at his three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, are now seeking legal damages from the chef, reports the Daily Mail.

Blumenthal closed the iconic restaurant for two weeks in February after more than 500 diners were struck down by norovirus, or winter vomiting bug.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) released a report on its investigation into the outbreak earlier this month stating the official cause was contaminated shellfish.

The report pointed to "several weaknesses in procedures" at the Fat Duck including delayed response to the incident and staff working when they should have been off sick.

The victims are now seeking damages against Blumenthal over the chef's 'pathetic response' to the episode - among them high profile diners including boxing promoter Frank Warren and TV presenter Jim Rosenthal.

However, a spokeswoman for the Fat Duck defended the restaurant saying it was still in the process of reviewing the HPA's report and was not yet in a position to respond to claims.

"Unfortunately, until our insurers and legal teams have completed this review we are unable to comment further and we have written to all of our guests who were affected to advise them of this," she said.

The official cause of the outbreak of the norovirus, which forced celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal to shut his three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant last winter, has been revealed as contaminated shellfish.

Blumenthal, chef-proprietor of the iconic restaurant in Bray, Berkshire, was forced to close the Fat Duck for two weeks in February/March after up to 40 diners were afflicted with a mystery illness resulting in vomiting and diarrhoea. Following media coverage of the outbreak, the number of potential cases leapt to more than 500.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) today released a report on its investigation into the outbreak stating the organism responsible was norovirus "which was probably introduced via shellfish".

"Oysters were served raw; razor clams may not have been appropriately handled or cooked; tracing of shellfish to source showed evidence of contamination and there have been reports of illness in other establishments associated with oysters from the same source," the HPA report said.

Pretty scary stuff. If you can't trust the oysters at a three-Michelin-starred restaurant, who can you trust?

Celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal is set to hike the prices at his three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant by a third.

Our favourite culinary wizard pushed up the cost of his much celebrated 12-course tasting menu from £130 to £140 this week. But he plans to eventually bring it up to £170, making it the most expensive tasting menu in the UK.

Even the tasting menu at Thomas Keller's French Laundry in Napa Valley, California, comes in at less than Heston's new prices at $240 (£147), while Jean Georges Vongerichten's flagship eatery in New York City charges $148 (£90).

However, the Fat Duck's prices are still nowhere near those of the three-star restaurants in Paris, many of whom charge in excess of €250 (£214) for their Menus Prestiges.  

Blumenthal said the hike was the result of the sheer investment in staff, produce and research that goes into the production of the Fat Duck's menu.

"The costs associated with employing 45 chefs to cook for, on average, 42 covers a service are huge," he told Restaurant Magazine.

Seems like the recession isn't much of an issue to old Heston but then again the Fat Duck did lose hundreds of thousands of pounds when it was forced to shut for two weeks amid a food scare earlier this year.  

On a separate note, Heston has agreed to appear at the Caterer and Hotelkeeper Chef Conference in September.

He will take to the stage in a one-on-one interview and is expected to talk about the breadth of his culinary experiences over the past two years, as well as future projects, including a 140-seat restaurant at London's Mandarin Oriental hotel, which he plans to open in 2010.

For everyone who watched the Channel 4 documentary Big Chef Takes On Little Chef, during which Heston Blumenthal transformed Little Chef's menu, it was pretty clear that there wasn't much love lost between our favourite culinary wizard and the roadside restaurant chain's CEO Ian Pegler.

The Fat Duck's three-Michelin-starred chef patron's efforts weren't ever quite "blue-sky-thinking" enough for the Little Chef boss, who in the end was proved wrong when Heston's menu took the restaurant it was launched at by storm.

The menu, which includes dishes such as braised ox cheeks, coq au vin and Hereford steak and Abbot Ale pie, proved a big hit not just with food critics, but also with Little Chef's target market of truck drivers and travelling salesmen.

And so last week, Pegler announced that following the success of Heston's trial-menu at the restaurant in Popham, Hampshire, Little Chef had taken the decision roll it out at its 175 restaurants across the UK.

Good news all round then, right? Apparently not.

Despite the great success of the menu, Pegler clearly hasn't quite forgotten his differences with Heston, who has said that he was not consulted by Little Chef about the planned rollout.

At last night's Craft Guild of Chefs Awards, where he was honoured with the Special Award, Heston revealed he was "surprised" that Little Chef had announced plans to launch his menu nationwide without further discussions with him first.

Not quite what I'd call blue-sky-thinking...

Heston Blumenthal not consulted about Little Chef menu rollout 

Chris Staines, head chef at the Michelin-starred Foliage restaurant at London's Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park, has resigned.

The news comes just a week after Caterer revealed that Heston Blumenthal, the three-Michelin-starred chef patron of the Fat Duck in Bray, is in discussions to launch a restaurant at the five-star Knightsbridge hotel. Renowned New York-based interior designer Adam Tihany, who created the interior for Foliage, has also been associated with the project.

Chris Staines declined to comment on the reasons for his resignations but one can imagine that perhaps he was disgruntled with the hotel's handling of the news regarding Blumenthal.

His resignation gives credence to Blumenthal taking over the space of Foliage.  

Watch out for further details on Caterersearch.

Heston Blumenthal to launch a restaurant in London

Heston Blumenthal is planning to open his first restaurant in London.

The chef patron of the iconic three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck restaurant and the Hind's Head pub in the Berkshire village of Bray, is in discussions to launch a restaurant in the capital and has been linked to London's Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park.

More details to follow soon on Caterersearch.

Yesterday it emerged that Prince Philip had taken his 50-strong entourage to the Fat Duck for their Christmas lunch.

What a generous employer. Who pays his wages again?