Description
The Fat Duck is located in Bray, Berkshire in the High Street. It is run by chef proprietor Heston Blumenthal, who has owned the premises since it opened at the location in 1995. It is not the only Michelin three-star restaurant in Bray, which is also the site of Michel Roux's restaurant The Waterside Inn. Blumenthal had only previously worked for a week at Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons in Oxfordshire, having previously been a trainee architect.
Until permission was granted in 2010 to extend the kitchen space, to the former small size of the Fat Duck's kitchens, additional storage was available in rows of garden sheds in the garden behind the restaurant. After permission for the rebuild was granted, the kitchen was rebuilt with a lower roof and additional internal storage. The restaurant has thirteen tables, and can seat 42 diners. It has a very high proportion of chefs working at the restaurant, 42, equating to one chef per diner. Much of the menu is developed by experimentation, for example the egg and bacon ice cream came about following Blumenthal investigating the principles of "flavour encapsulation". A research laboratory where Blumenthal and his team develop dishes is two doors away opposite the Hinds Head pub, which is also owned by the chef. It was where the majority of the laboratory scenes for the television series Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection were filmed. The lab equipment includes a centrifuge which is used to make chocolate wine, and a vacuum oven. The restaurant takes reservations up to two months in advance, and following the norovirus outbreak in 2011, it was receiving some 30,000 requests for reservations per day, although that figure also included people who couldn't get through and were redialling.
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