A day in the lab

[kingseven]

On Friday I went down to a restaurant called The Fat Duck in the little village of Bray.

Very nice place it is too - though I think my kitchen at home is bigger than theirs, but I can't get 3-star food out of mine!

As far as I know they are the only restaurant in the world with a lab - which is where I spent the day with their head of food research. In return for the little I know about coffee and my offer to do some staff training on milk and beverage pouring they were willing to help me with a signature drink for competition.

I can't really give too much away at this stage but we spent a long time looking at the fat soluble flavours in coffee (as opposed to all the water soluble ones which make it into the cup - especially the bitter ones like trigonelline etc) We got some very interesting flavours from the (rather wonderful) beans - though two men getting through 750g of beans (and thats just the espresso end) in one day leaves you a little twitchy.

It was great fun to play with proper science kit again (no beakers or heating plates or cooling thingymajigs since chemistry a-level for me) and it interesting to see how far you can manipulate flavour and food.

Sadly I didn't get to eat in the restaurant (and to be honest I was frankly unwilling to stump up the £150 odd quid for the tasting menu and wine) but they have just bought a pub next door that does very very good food, and not at stupid prices. (sell over)

So - perhaps this will be the first year someone uses liquid nitrogen in competition!

[Raf]

Good luck, King. Sounds very interesting.

[stevenzaat]

Finally a good restaurant which also put all their effort in the cream on the cake. In NL most star-rated restaurants just use pods to be sure of consistency, but as we all know this will not give the result of fresh beans and the hand of a barista. So maybe this is the first step.