The Fat Duck Restaurant

The Fat Duck, in Berkshire, Britain, the pioneering British restaurant that introduced the world to delicacies such as sardine on toast sorbet and mussels cooked in popcorn sauce with hake, has already been declared the world's best place to dine, regardless of what your tastes may be.

Molecular gastronomy may have bewildered the critics, but culinary alchemist Heston Blumenthal's much talked about Fat Duck remains one of the leading exponents of this unique style of cooking in the UK. The shaven-headed man looks nothing like the sort of global culinary legend who attracts avid tourists with digital cameras— in fact, he looks more like a methodical actor or perhaps a more structured film director... either way the man is nothing short of an incomparable cuisine genius.

The Fat Duck Restaurant is an unassumingly yet sophisticated restaurant, with its sleekly designed low beamed ceiling, cleverly soft furnishings, and abstract art on the walls, is miles ahead of the rest, with delectable flavor combinations that appear to have been dreamt up in some sort of parallel universe. Dishes like snail porridge, and bacon and egg ice cream, have become modern classics. Others simply continue to challenge and amaze even the most discerning palettes. Take, for instance, the humble cauliflower, which, much like beetroot seems to be going through a renaissance. It's sautéed in a risotto and paired with chocolate jelly. Then there's veal sweetbread, cooked in a bag with hay, sprinkled with pollen and paired with salty and sugary cockles.

Further dazzling dishes at the Fat Duck Restaurant include grain mustard ice cream with red cabbage gazpacho, and green pea puree layered with quail jelly and langoustine cream. But do all these seemingly eccentric taste combinations really work? Indeed they do. Blumenthal who, despite his razzle dazzle cooking, manages to keep a relatively low profile, combines gastronomy with authentic scientific knowledge and techniques. Who would have thought that chemistry could be infused so masterfully into the culinary arts?

The inviting staff at the Fat Duck Restaurant are more than happy to explain the content of all of the dishes on the menu— many of which are far more meticulous and quaintly pleasing than the popular headline catchers. Three terrific first courses include an artistically layered terrine of chicken and duck; two pequillo peppers delicately stuffed with a mackerel rillette on a salad of French beans whose dressing added a vital bite of acidity and vinegar and, best of all, a feather light boudin blanc made from pheasant meat and foie gras on lentils and winter vegetables.

The other first courses at the Fat Duck Restaurant are quite often a white bean velouté with truffle oil and an escabeche of red mullet, saffron and carrots. There are also six main courses on any given day— roast gilthead bream with couscous; braised lamb shank with haricots blancs; grilled salmon with fennel; spaghettini with marinated anchovies, cockles, chilli and garlic; jambonneau of duck, green coffee sauce and pommes purée; but by far the most popular dish at the Fat Duck Restaurant is a superbly selected rib-eye steak with french beans, chips and a bone marrow sauce.

At the Fat Duck the infamous duck is always cooked to absolute perfection and gently and conveniently falls off its thigh bone whilst the spaghettini, cooked in fish stock, packs far more flavor than most pasta dishes in traditional Italian restaurants. The dessert list reads simply— lemon tart, creme brulée, chocolate tart and pears cooked in red wine— but don't allow the "simplicity" to hoodwink you— the desserts are created with an exemplary level of execution. In the interim if you fancy a drive out of London, this is a hot tip that you won't read about in the papers for a while with any luck. There is first-class cooking, top-notch service and a wine list carefully chosen and from Berkmann Wine Cellars.