It's a ball at Heston's

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This was published 12 years ago

It's a ball at Heston's

Test of time ... Heston Blumenthal.

Test of time ... Heston Blumenthal.Credit: Getty Images

A meal at a superstar chef's latest venture proves historic, writes Paul Edwards.

THE middle setting at the windows overlooking Hyde Park at London's Mandarin Oriental Hotel is perhaps the hottest table in the world right now. This is centre stage at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, the hotel's new restaurant and the chef's first venture into the big smoke.

To score that table – at what is being hailed as the new shrine of molecular gastronomy – you have to book many months ahead, unless you know someone in high places.

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Those who follow Blumenthal's writings and television appearances will know he is fond of serving dishes such as bull's bollocks and calf's thymus glands. He is keen to confront, educate and delight and takes a schoolboy's glee in shocking his audience.

As far as I know, no bulls were emasculated in the preparation of my memorable meal but some glands appeared on my plate, comfortingly called sweetbreads. They followed a shinbone split lengthwise, filled with marrow, mace and anchovy.

The restaurant at the iconic hotel, which has Rotten Row on one side and Knightsbridge on the other, is an elegant space with ancient touches: mock Tudor, with the odd ecclesiastical homage.

A roast turbot dish.

A roast turbot dish.

The kitchen is ultra-modern and in full view – all shiny and theatrical – and here, if you're lucky, you'll see the man himself. Blumenthal divides his time between Dinner and his original restaurant, The Fat Duck, at Bray, which holds three Michelin stars and has been voted the best restaurant in the world and best in Britain four times.

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Most of the day-to-day cooking at Dinner is done by head chef Ashley Palmer-Watts, who follows the guidelines laid down by Blumenthal's current fixation with culinary history. This is why you are likely to be confronted with a starter called rice and flesh, first recorded in 1390 and consisting of saffron rice, red wine and calf's tail.

My main course of spiced pigeon, served with artichoke, was a relative new chum, with a 1780 heritage.

The new London restaurant, Dinner.

The new London restaurant, Dinner.

Haute cuisine protocol and fear of looking dopey meant I just couldn't ask for some of Blumenthal's three-times cooked chips – so I pinched some of my wife's.

A little number dating from 1630 was my dessert: the exquisite baked lemon suet pudding, filled with caramel and Jersey cream and surely doing very little to reduce my cholesterol count.

Perhaps I would have been marginally better with tipsy cake, first noted in 1810 and featuring a cinnamon-cream-infused brioche with spit-roasted pineapple.

That little lot, for two people, with a sommelier-suggested wine with each course, came to about £300 ($485). You could easily spend that much in a high-end restaurant in Sydney or Melbourne.

It was during the suet pudding that the room hushed and the great man himself came smiling and blinking into the room; his whiter-than-white jacket giving him a surreal, almost saintly aura as he worked the tables.

Blumenthal asked if we were enjoying our meals. The reply was a no-brainer. However, assuming you thought the circa-1720 salamagundy might have benefited from more horseradish cream, you'd have to be brave to tell him. Brave enough to munch on bull's testicles, perhaps.

dinnerbyheston.com

- Sun-Herald

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