Regarded by many culinary disciples as the most famed cafe in the world, the Fat Duck in Bray has attracted the highest accolades Best Restaurant in the UK, 3 Michelin stars and 5 AA rosettes to cite a couple. Nevertheless it is for cook owner Heston Blumenthal's insane culinary alchemy the cafe remains a location of gastronomic pilgrimage for anyone with an interest in food. Country boy Blumenthal never trained as a cook, and worked for one week in an eatery kitchen before opening the Fat Duck in 1995. He suffered exposure to the arena of gastronomy on a visit to France when he was fifteen and was instantly consumed by it.

But unable to secure a job in a London restaurant or hotel on his return, he learned the basics of French cuisine from books, and worked in office hardware to pay for journeys to France. On these trips he visited eateries, vineyards, cheese makers, butchers and workman producers, soaking himself in a cooking custom that he would later turn on its head.

During the beginning at the Fat Duck, Blumenthal became charmed by the culinary ideas of writer Harold McGee, who queried the basic rules of kitchen practices. Charmed, Blumenthal started a sensory journey exploring further the science of food and the results of smell and taste on the palate, the memory and emotions and developed dishes that truly pushed the limits apropos diners' expectancies. Who can forget the ballyhoo that met snail porridge or bacon and egg ice cream? But the kitchen sorcerer was undiscouraged.

The concept with this pudding was not to form a pudding that was based mostly on breakfast but to play with the entire idea of encapsulation, says Blumenthal. Initially discharged as a trick, the chef's new angle to gastronomy shortly won the eatery worldwide recognition, and in 2005 it was announced The Best Cafe in the world by over six hundred global food critics, writers and chefs.

In Feb 2009, Blumenthal closed the cafe for a couple of weeks after a bunch of clients reported feeling sick. At the end, food poisoning was rejected; no surprise to industry insiders who know Blumenthal to keep a spotless kitchen, and it seemed the transmissible novo virus was the culprit. The closure is alleged to have cost above £100,000 with eight hundred cancelled bookings, but Blumenthal's reputation survived untouched: in truth there had been an undoubted outpouring of real goodwill from critics and food lovers that paid the cook back in full for his spineless truth expressing his dismay over the event.