Heston Blumenthal: how the wizard went to Oz
Heston on moving Down Under and what's next for the Fat Duck.
Sunday 16th August will be a big day for Heston Blumenthal. Not only will it be 20 years since he opened the Fat Duck in Bray, it will also be the day the Fat Duck in Melbourne closes after six months, and work begins to take the whole thing back home to Berkshire again.
The three-Michelin-starred restaurant has been operating at the Crown Towers Hotel, Melbourne since February, while essential work takes place to extend and modernise the kitchen at the original restaurant in England.
Moving to Melbourne
“We’d been needing to rebuild the kitchen at the Fat Duck in Bray for years,” Heston says. “But I couldn’t say to the guys 'See you back here in six months'. We have an amazing team and some of them have been with us for years.
“So we spent a decade finding somewhere to move the Duck to while we re-did the kitchen. We looked at Dubai, Courchevel, Las Vegas. We came close to San Tropez, and then this whole opportunity in Australia opened up.
“I love Australia – it’s had the biggest food explosion I have ever seen. It’s multi-cultural and a relatively new country, so they are not bound by traditions. They are keen to try new things and they’re really enthusiastic about their food.”
But the real success of the move depended on Blumenthal convincing his 70 or so staff, many of whom have families, to relocate with him.
“I Skyped Bray on a Sunday evening and all the staff were asked to come in. I’d worked out my words carefully – they are the Fat Duck, and if they didn’t want to go then the whole plan couldn’t work.
“When I told them there was total silence. I panicked, but there was a five-second time lag on the Skype – then they all jumped up with joy.”
Different stages
Within hours of the ticket ballot opening, every seat at every service in the six-month period had sold, despite the £250 per person price tag for 16 courses, excluding drinks, to be paid in advance.
Like a touring theatre company, the drama has remained the same – diners have been entertained by savoury lollies in mind-messing flavours, sound of the sea, snail porridge and the mad hatter’s tea party with a dissolving pocket watch.
But the stage, provided by the Crown Towers Hotel, has proved Blumenthal with a welcome change from the old-world charm of Bray – and, he says, his best kitchen yet.
“The Duck is all about contrast – an old building with ultra-modern food, whereas the Fat Duck in Melbourne is beautiful, plush, grand,” he says. “The kitchen is the most amazing I’ve ever seen.
“The three central island ovens cost almost twice as much as I paid for the whole Fat Duck in 1995. Back then I had a £300 reconditioned oven I’d bought under the arches somewhere in Battersea. I am really bad at smelling the roses, I never think anything is good enough, but standing in front of those new ovens for the first time was one of those moments when you think: 'Actually, I did good.'”
“The guys did so much work before the opening – we tasted the dishes on every table, depending on the lighting and the air conditioning. We also had to find matching ingredients. Snails were the biggest problem – we have two breeds in the UK, but in Australia they only have one breed and it’s the one that’s not as good.
“There was so much expectation and hype, and it was going to cost 40 or 50% more than the next most expensive restaurant in Melbourne,” he says. “Fortunately, the response has been great.”
The reaction
The critics have indeed been united in their praise. “A brilliant once-in-a-lifetime experience that was unforgettable and worth the considerable investment,” says the Guardian. The service is “a hospitality masterclass”, the staff “unflappable, well-rehearsed and occasionally cheeky” says Good Food Australia.
Dinner Down Under
The Heston story doesn’t end for Melbourne when the Fat Duck leaves in August. In another characteristic act of wizardry, a new 130-seater Dinner by Heston Blumenthal restaurant is hiding behind the walls of the Fat Duck, waiting to be unveiled.
“We built Dinner as a permanent restaurant, then built the Duck inside it, so it’s like a doll inside a doll,” he says. “We’ll shut and all the staff will move back to Bray to re-open the Fat Duck in September. Meanwhile in Melbourne they’ll pull out the Fat Duck leaving behind Dinner, which will open in November.”
What next for the Fat Duck UK?
So with his Australian legacy firmly secured, what can we expect when the Fat Duck re-opens in Bray? He is tight-lipped, but this much he will say: “It will have a new, larger kitchen, yes. We are also going to shrink it; we’re going down to 40 covers. I know that doesn’t make sense from a financial point of view, but the Fat Duck is not about that for me.
“There will be two or three new dishes, and every other dish will be worked on. And there will be a new concept enveloping the whole thing. It’s possibly the most ambitious thing I’ve ever done; and it’s still the thing I am most nervous about.”
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