Fat Duck: I'm Not An Oyster Shucker…
I got into the Fat Duck at 7.30am the next day and worked under a Canadian chef called Jon on the amuse bouche section – a tiny area of the…
Holy Ballotine Of Mackerel 'Invertebrate'!
The gashes and blisters from my battle with the oysters were making it hard to work, and I had shovels for hands at the best of times. The size of…
'How Long Have You Been Cooking For?'
The rush subsided, the adrenal tide went out, and then came crashing back like a vicious tsunami. Seven a la carte orders came in for the radish ravioli of oyster…
Coq Au Van: In Defence Of Gordon Ramsay
I was about to begin my post, telling you how many of the dishes at the Fat Duck were cooked using the ‘boil-in-the-bag’ sous vide method. I was about to…
Celebrity Chef Absenteeism Syndrome
In the three weeks I spent at the Fat Duck, I only saw Heston Blumenthal once, and it got me thinking about the whole celebrity chef phenomenon. I knew it…
Week Two In The Fat Duck House
Somehow I got through the first week of my stage at the Fat Duck, and slept most of the Sunday and Monday. The alarm went off at 7am on the…
Restaurants And 'Tips As Wages'
Wage slaves in the catering industry had some rare good news today with the Government’s announcement that employers are to be banned from using tips to top up staff pay.Some…
Waiter! There's A Snake In My Broccoli!
This has to be the cheffing story of the week – and it still makes me recoil in horror when I think about it. It’s not just my mortal phobia…
Tuna-Friendly Dolphin And Other Stories
I arrived at the Fat Duck prep room the next morning, checked the rota, and found they’d put me down for service on the amuse bouche section. I was surprised.…
Stool Pigeons And The Fat Duck
We finished the day doing the worst job on the prep list – cutting pistachio kernels in half. There were thousands of them, and even before we were a quarter-way…