Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cala Montjoi, Roses, north of Girona
(
&
34/97/215-0 457;
www.elbulli.com).
(
Barcelona (95 miles/153km).
of flavor, or simply let it melt dreamily on
your tongue. Ever had a cappuccino made
of guacamole? Tomato couscous with
basil sorbet? A frozen raspberry topped
with wasabi? A gelatin of rabbit broth?
Calamari lasagna? Fruit pasta? Escargot
caviar? Whatever you can imagine, Ferran
Adrià has probably created it.
L
$$
Hotel Historic,
Carrer Bellmirall
4A, Girona (
&
34/97/222-3583;
www.
hotelhistoric.com). $$$
Mas de Torrent,
Afueras de Torrent, Torrent (
&
34/97/230-
3292;
www.mastorrent.com).
Cutting-Edge Kitchens
120
The Fat Duck
The Food Geek
Bray, England
restaurant in the world from Ferran Adrià.
Being a rank outsider actually may have
helped Blumenthal doff Escoffier ortho-
doxy. Instead he found his personal guru
in Harold McGee, whose
On Food and
Cooking
excited the novice chef with culi-
nary science. As molecular gastronomy
took off, no one was better equipped to
ride the bandwagon than Blumenthal.
Continually experimenting with freezing,
blow-torching, injecting, dehydrating,
slow-cooking, what have you, he's still
fascinated with manipulating the entire
sensory experience of eating—aroma,
taste, mouth feel, texture, even sounds
(getting just the right brittle crunch in a
homemade potato chip, for example).
Set in a plain tan brick building opening
straight off the village high street, The Fat
Duck is an unpretentious looking place—
no faux old English clutter or haute French
frippery, just an honest square white
room, with rough wooden beams and a
bare floor; the only colors are the lemon-
yellow chairs and one long yellow oil paint-
ing. Clearly, diners come here to focus on
the food, not glamorous accoutrements.
Whether you order from the three-course
prix fixe or the tasting menu (warning:
both are pricey), you'll be treated to an
ever-changing roster of marvels.
For starters, there might be the intense
taste-texture contrast of a Pommery
mustard ice-cream accompanied by red
Heston Blumenthal wasn't the first teen-
ager to be gobsmacked by the wonderful
food on a family vacation in France. But
Blumenthal took that gastro-epiphany to
the level of obsession, hunkering down
over French cookery books for endless
hours. This was in the early 1980s, when
Britain was still hung up on the idea that all
great chefs came from across the Chan-
nel; it was an uphill struggle for a home-
schooled cook. Still, he persisted, opening
his own restaurant in 1995 in the Berkshire
countryside where he'd grown up. In only
5 years, he bagged three Michelin stars; in
2006, he briefly stole the crown of best
A bill, a plume, and a webbed foot mark the
entrance to The Fat Duck.
