Recently in Heston Category

He's just completed his first installment of Big Chef programmes, but senor Blumenthal was back on our screens last night for more with his new series looking at chowing down throughout the ages.

Blumenthal is targeting those epochs when large meals went hand in hand with culinary invention. And to kick off he turned to the Victorians.

"It was extraordinary", said The Guardian's TV critic Sam Leith of 'Heston's Victorian Feast'. "Heston lacks telly charisma...lines were delivered with the uncertain enthusiasm of a born lab-tech - but what he does with grub is gripping."

The three-star chef served wacky food to Radio 5 presenter Richard Bacon, former Scud star Rageh Omaar, Dawn Porter, Kathy Lette, Jemma Redgrave and Toby Young.

And what dishes: cow's head soup reduced to a stock cube wrapped in gold foil shaped as a watch, which was then dissolved in water. There was also an Alice in Wonderland-inspired layered liquid infusion with toffee, hot-buttered toast, custard, cherry tart and turkey flavours. And he finished with a six-foot edible garden, complete with olive soil and potato rocks.

According to Serena Davies, TV critic for The Telegraph, "it's great. If food can seem this amazing even when you can't taste it, heaven knows how divine the experience of actually eating it must be".

However, Times television critic Andrew Billen thought the whole thing "utterly pointless". Heston now "flaps around wondering where on television his future lies", he added.

Heston Blumenthal puts on a brave face >>

Heston Blumenthal hopes to reopen Fat Duck this week >>

Heston Blumenthal gets green light to reopen Fat Duck >>

Oh dear (or och aye as the Rat is led to believe our learned friends in Scotland are prone to utter).

Poor old Richard Bath, the food critic at the Scotland on Sunday newspaper, has got himself into a bit of a muddle with his latest review, of the Malmaison in Leith, Edinburgh.

"With the possible exception of the twee little Berkshire village of Bray, where Heston Blumenthal and Raymond Blanc jostle for elbow-room next to the Thames, nowhere outside of London has as great a concentration of restaurants as Leith," the piece begins.

Now, correct us if we're wrong, but Raymond hasn't got a presence down in Bray, although the Roux family runs the Waterside Inn down there. These French chefs eh? All the same...

Bath then goes on to complain that "there seemed to be no woodcock" in his companion's Truffled Scotch Woodcock.

More eminent foodies that the Rat have got in touch to point out that Scotch Woodcock is in fact soft scrambled Eggs on toasted brioche with anchovies, truffle and capers.

Back to school Richard...

It seems that Heston Blumenthal, everyone's favourite three Michelin-starred chef/scientist, isn't off our television screens at the moment.

After an appearance on BBC2's irreverant music quiz Never Mind the Buzzcocks earlier this month which left Heston shuffling nervously in his seat, our Heston turned up on Sky Sports' Saturday morning show Soccer AM over the weekend.

Heston - a huge fan of nouveau riche Islington side Arsenal - turned up on Saturday and proved he's perhaps better off in the kitchen when he missed the target in Soccer AM's 'Road to Rome' segment (but then, to be fair, so did everyone else).

Kitchen Rat got to thinking about what other TV shows Heston could make guest appearances on.

A stint on Location, Location, Location perhaps? "I'm looking for another large house in Bray, with a massive kitchen and fireproof walls"...

How about Cash in the Attic? I have found this old bunsen burner - how much could I flog it for on eBay?"...

Perhaps we could come up with a new format- Challenge Heston - where contestants have to come up with even more palate-challenging food concepts than bacon and egg ice-cream. Or How to Cook Good Naked, with regular guests Gok Wan and Jamie Oliver. 

Kitchen Rat considered a concept that would see Heston being filmed as he attempted to save Little Chef but decided it was too far fetched...

A London businessman claims he is the first person to have dined at all of the world's three-Michelin-starred restaurants.

Andy Hayler, from Chiswick, has travelled the globe over the past four years and visited all of the 68 three-starred restaurants in Europe, the USA and Asia.

He told the Evening Standard he completed his culinary marathon last month with a meal at Thomas Keller's Per Se in New York. The 20-course tasting menu at the restaurant in the Time Warner Centre in Manhattan was the most expensive meal of them all priced at a hefty £500.

Hayler said he started his gastronomic travels after a series of disappointing experiences at some of London's top-rated restaurants. But after reading a rave review of Joël Robuchon's Jamin in Paris, he decided to give fine dining one last chance. He estimates he has spent about £15,000 on food and drink and equally as much on travel costs and accommodation.

It's not uncommon these days for chefs to dabble in the scientific arts of culinary creationism.

Following in the footsteps of Heston Blumenthal, Ferran Adria and John Campbell's inventions such as the infamous snail porridge or pimms caviar, there's very little left that hasn't already been tried.

But we hear rumours that one experimental chef has been trying out Marie Rose ice cream - yes, we kid you not, the prawn cocktail sauce transformed into a frozen scoop of gloop..

Perhaps there are some things that are best left untried.

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