Posted on 19-1-2003

Heston: the hottest chef in the world

He doesn't look much like the world's hottest chef - or the one who introduced the world to sardine ice cream, snail porridge and cauliflower risotto with chocolate jelly. He doesn't look much like the chef who has won his third Michelin star faster and younger than anyone in history. In fact, Heston Blumenthal doesn't look much like a chef at all. One of the new breed of mobile prop forwards maybe, but not a chef.
There's no toque on his cropped reddish hair. His broad features break easily into a breezy grin. His white jacket struggles to contain his shoulders and chest. His lower body has the sort of chunky musculature that comes from hours in the gym.

Yet this cheerful, diffident, shy 37-year-old is leading the world in a revolution in modern restaurant cooking. His restaurant, the Fat Duck in the wealthy Thamesside village of Bray, Berkshire, is only the fourth British establishment to hold three stars (the others are Michel Roux's Waterside Inn, also in Bray, Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, and Restaurant Marco Pierre White, although White has renounced the accolade).

But the Fat Duck has none of the multi-million-pound fixtures and fittings, the bevies of deferential waiters, the artworks, the solemn hush of a temple of gastronomy. It is small, cheery, elegant and comfortable.

The Fat Duck is simply the most easy-going, accessible and democratic great restaurant in Europe - the more unexpected because the style of cooking Blumenthal and his young team have developed is far from what has come to be thought of as the conventional Michelin style, based on the principles of French haute cuisine. He calls it molecular gastronomy.

When he opened the Fat Duck in 1995, aged 28, he cooked French brasserie classics: petit sale aux lentilles; steak and chips, sauce Bordelaise; salmon rillettes; lemon tart. However, he cooked it to such perfection that he attracted a quiet following among his fellow chefs, including those who then slugged it out for the title of the nation's number one culinary maestro, White and Ramsay.

Both visited the Fat Duck regularly on their days off, not bad for a chef whose only formal training had been a week in the kitchens of Raymond Blanc's Le Manoir Aux Quat' Saisons.

Those seeking to discover the seeds of Blumenthal's success in his childhood will be disappointed. 'Although my mother was a very good cook, my childhood memories were not woven with gastronomic experiences. I didn't spend hours beside her, stoning cherries or peeling potatoes. Food nostalgia for my generation was quite heavily influenced by synthetic flavours such as strawberry Angel Delight.'

His father had started an equipment leasing company in the Seventies, which was doing pretty well. At 16, Blumenthal's family went abroad for the first time, taking a summer holiday in France.

'My father had read about a restaurant in Provence called L'Oustau de Baumaniere. Neither of my parents had eaten in a gastronomic restaurant before and I was lucky enough to share the experience with them.

'The sommelier, sporting handlebar moustache and leather apron, was directing diners around the encyclopaedic wine list. Lobster sauce poured into soufflés and baby legs of lamb carved in front of excited diners were just some of the wondrous sights. At this moment I realised gastronomy was for me.'

However, after leaving school, he became a photocopier salesman and debt collector, among other jobs, before ending up as credit controller for the family business. All the while he was teaching himself the classical foundation of French cuisine.

In 1985, he met his wife to be, Susanna, who shared his love for all things gastronomic. They fed his obsession with trips to France, where they ate, ate and ate. In 1990 they bought a tiny cottage near Beaconsfield and the following year, their son, Jack, was born. Nearly two years later, Susanna gave birth to a daughter, Jessie. It took two more years of searching and saving until they found a 450-year-old pub in the centre of Bray. 'Money was tight, but I was lucky enough to have friends who took time off to help decorate the place.'

It wasn't long before the Fat Duck was receiving attention in influential quarters for its inspired brasserie food. Then, in 1998, the year the Fat Duck received its first Michelin star, Blumenthal had something of a Pauline conversion. His technical understanding of cooking and his inquiring spirit had already been stimulated by the influential Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee.

As Blumenthal tells the story, he was cooking French beans. The conventional way to preserve as much of their brilliant green colour is to throw them into a large pot of heavily salted boiling water, boil them until they are part cooked, plunge them into iced water then re-heat them when you need them. 'I asked myself: why do we do this?'

Searching for an answer took him to Len Fisher and Peter Barham at Bristol University, who had been looking at the problem of the French bean and other gastronomic conundrums, but had yet to find a chef who shared their curiosity. The answer turned out to be simple: the greenness of the bean did not depend on the salt, the boiling water or the ice water douche. It depended on the level of calcium in the water. Use low-calcium water and you can boil French beans, or any green vegetable, well beyond the crunchy stage, and still preserve that green colour.

'At last, here was a chef who understood,' says Barham. 'He was completely open-minded. He still wants to know what happens to food from the moment it is produced or grown, to the moment it is eaten. And he uses his knowledge to produce the most fantastic dishes.'

After French beans, he started asking about other areas of cooking. Why do we cook meat this way and fish that way? Why does this go with that? Why can't it go with something else? And by finding and understanding the scientific explanations behind the processes of cooking, he developed new methods. He made contact outside conventional culinary circles, with such figures as McGee, Charles Spence, Professor of Experimental Psychiatry at Oxford, and Professor Tony Blake, vice-president of research at Firmenech, the world's largest flavouring company.

In 2001, the second Michelin star was awarded. The same year, the Fat Duck was named Guardian Restaurant of the Year, Blumenthal became the Guardian Weekend cookery writer, made a six-part series for the Discovery Channel, opened a brasserie on Bray Marina and published his first book, Family Food. The Fat Duck also picked up the Good Food Guide Restaurant of the Year, AA Guide Restaurant of the Year, AA Wine List of the Year, and he was named Good Food Guide Chef of the Year and voted AA Chef of the Year.

His cooking is rooted in his first gastronomic love, French cuisine de haut en bas. Each of his dishes, no matter how outré they sound, is grounded in pleasure. Each element is worked on incessantly to refine its effect. His dishes work on levels of sophistication involving temperature, texture and taste that few other chefs, British or otherwise, begin to understand, let alone approach.

But he allies his culinary passion to another fundamental consideration. When he writes or speaks about food, he constantly alludes to the tastes and sensations of childhood. It isn't that he wants to recreate flavours of long ago in an adult form. He simply wants the eater to taste food that has the same magical freshness and clarity we experience when we first eat anything. His investigations show how even a small amount of understanding can raise the amount of pleasure we derive when we eat. This suggests a colossal shift in culinary history.