The Fat Duck Experience!

(Photo credit carendt242)

As a present from my partner we had booked a table at the Fat Duck to celebrate my"significant" birthday - however as a result of their problems we were cancelled. I must say they didn't handle that very well, just sending a rather stark e-mail saying it was cancelled. We were then unable to get any reply from the restaurant as we wanted to know what they proposed in terms of re-booking. We were told it was cancelled only a few days before the booking so having made arrangements to stay in Bray we were then faced with loosing our money on the accommodation. After sending a rather terse e-mail we got a response in 24 hours offering us a table for last Saturday night. In the meantime we decided to use the accommodation and had dinner at Cliveden House, and lunch the next day at the Hind Head (Heston's pub in Bray). It was a lovely weekend. So once again we made our way to Bray last weekend. The staff were all very attentive, and we were given a personal letter from Heston apologising for having cancelled our original booking along with a signed book each. My partner had also arranged (long before the crisis) for Heston to sign a copy of his "Fat Duck Cookbook" for me and we were also given that. We opted for the tasting menu - I don't think there is anything else to do at such places. However I think our first mistake was to go for their selection of wines to go with the dishes. That was £90 each! If I had really thought about it I should have opted to have a good bottle from the list - I am sure we could have had something very nice for a lot less than the £180 we paid for the selection. I wasn't overly impressed by the wines - we could have paid more, there were three choices £90, £165 or £195 per head! As I said the staff were good, but most of them were young and french. Often after describing the wine and/or the food for each of the courses we turned to each other and said "What did he/she say?" . Communication was an issue, also with the wine I was lightly falling behind, and had a few glasses stacked-up as to be honest I wasn't all that keen on the selection. After asking if I wanted to keep the wines and replying in the affirmative they were then promptly whisked away! The junior very French Sommelier obviously realised that I was not enjoying the wines so half way through the more senior (easier to understand) Sommelier started serving us, he engaged me in conversation as to what I was unhappy about with the wines, but didn't make any constructive suggestions about alternatives. Only suggesting as I didn't want the Sake that he would replace it with champagne - not an obvious replacement to me - I declined! What about the food - yes it is theatrical and in my view a bit pretentious, a couple of things I really didn't like, froie gras and the snail porridge.  Also its a small restaurant and the tables are fairly close together which was a bit disappointing, we were also surprised at how casual our fellow dinners were dressed, jeans being the order of the day! I can't say I felt that I had had a meal at the end of the 3.5 hours experience (maybe that is good?). On the other hand the petit fours were delightful, and they very efficiently got us a taxi at the end of the evening. Would I go back again - no I was pleased to have gone - but at well over £500 for two for dinner I would rather go around the corner to the Waterside Inn, another 3 star restaurant with a lot less pretension and a more realistic price. I do wonder at the business model of the Fat Duck it must rely on "one-offs",  I don't think they would have much repeat business - but I maybe wrong. Also I understand that the tasting menu has not changed much in the past 3 years! For our next mega celebration I vote we go the the French Laundry - much more my style!