Heston Blumenthal cooks up wacky creations on Channel 4's Heston's Feasts

The leader
Heston Blumenthal, chef-owner of the three Michelin starred Fat Duck in Bray was one of the first chefs in Britain to experiment with the scientific, laboratory-style of cooking. He’s the original culinary alchemist, using an army of scientists, test tubes and a multi-sensory tasting room to create his Willy Wonka style recipes. ‘Looking back,’ he says, ‘my initial foray into the research and development path I have now taken was really spurned on by the limitations of the kitchen.’ He’s famed for his snail porridge, egg and bacon ice cream and seafood served on edible sand with oyster “air”, delivered with an iPod playing sounds of the sea as you eat. Despite closing for two and a half weeks after 400 diners reported an unexplained illness in March this year, The Fat Duck was fully booked on the day of reopening, so for now the self-trained Blumenthal and his innovative handiwork is still on top.
The Fat Duck, Bray, Berkshire, SL6 2AQ
01628 580 333, www.thefatduck.co.uk

The inventor
Dubbed “the shining star of the North” by Gordon Ramsay, and “a great chef who cooks from his heart” by Blumenthal, Paul Kitching is renowned for being one of Britain’s most imaginative chefs. At his Michelin-starred restaurant Juniper, which held Greater Manchester’s only Michelin star for 11 years, he cooked up [has it closed?] an eclectic array of dishes, from marshmallow in pea soup to Branston pickle ice cream and a toothpaste ‘n’ mouthwash dessert using egg whites, strawberry coulis, Crème de Menthe and Andrews Liver Salts. A chef who’s certainly not shy of expressing himself, he says his presentation style is inspired by the landscapes of Lord of the Rings films, he also paints faces on plates with curried fudge and liquefied salmon. Though his personal tastes aren’t quite as eclectic; ‘My favourite dish ever would be a huge bowl of cooked frozen peas inside a jacket potato with about half a pound of cottage cheese and chives’. His next project, Restaurant 21212, opens in Edinburgh in May (check). ‘It will be more grown up in terms of food style than Juniper,’ he says. ‘The dishes will still be distinctive but in a different way.’
Restaurant 21212, Edinburgh, EH7 5AB
0845 22 21212, www.paulkitching.com

The health advocate
The raw food scene is exploding. Natural food restaurants have always been popular in the US, but up until recently in the UK raw food and vegan restaurants were few and far between. The capital’s first gourmet raw food eatery, Saf, opened in the East End last April and has benefited from the shift towards healthier eating. Executive chef Chad Sarno says, ‘With the growing health epidemic globally and frustration with Western healthcare we are forced to take alternative, preventive actions to take care of our own health, and many people are doing this through a plant based diet’. On the menu at Saf, more than half of the dishes are raw and the rest are cooked below 48ºC, including beetroot ravioli, pad thai and vegetable tart. To create his raw cuisine, Sarno uses some unfamiliar techniques including dehydration, culturing and blending. ‘I would recommend acquiring a food processor, blender and of course most importantly a quality set of knives to begin stocking your raw food kitchen,’ he says. ‘Raw food is the future of food, there is no other direction’. It will be some time before raw food restaurants are a staple in every city, but it’s emerging as much more than a culinary trend.
Saf restaurant, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3AT
020 7613 0007, www.safrestaurant.co.uk

The innovator
When you think of curry, a light healthy meal doesn’t exactly spring to mind. That’s all changed with the first healthy Indian restaurant in the UK (is this definitely true?). Seventy-seven-year-old businessman Dr Kartar Lalvani is the brainchild behind Indali Lounge – the first Indian restaurant that doesn’t use butter, ghee or cream in its dishes. Dr Lalvani uses his pharmaceutical background and probiotic yoghurt, organic ingredients and wholegrain flour to make his cuisine healthful. ‘I’m actually a scientist and pharmacist,’ he says. ‘I have used my knowledge to change the perception of Indian cuisine. We use a lot more herbs and fresh spices to compensate for removing the fats and pungent spices’. The modern, extensive menu offers delicious dishes such as melt-in-the-mouth spiced salmon, tender aromatic Goan fish curry, delicate okra with tomatoes and ginger, and the first chicken tikka masala with no butter or cream. Like Anjum Asand, Lalvani utilises traditional Ayurvedic principles in his menu for their health benefits. He says, ‘Ayurvedic and medicinal benefits are retained by obtaining the optimum flavour from formulating a mix of nine precious spices, and not overcooking them. Indian restaurants in the UK are generally unhealthy and contain excess fat and too much spice. I’m pleased to see there are now some restaurants that are starting to restrain on excessive use of fats and heavy spicing’. Some sceptics may presume curries without fat and ghee will lack flavour, but the food at Indali Lounge is aromatic, appetising and far more appealing than your traditional chicken korma.
Indali Lounge, Baker Street, London W1U 7BT
020 7224 2232 www.indalilounge.com

The mentor
Fifteen in Cornwall is a restaurant with heart – set up by savvy chef Jamie Oliver with local charity The Cornwall Foundation of Promise, it trains local disadvantaged young people to be chefs, and the results are delicious. Executive chef Neil Haydock oversees the worthy cause, and has been at the restaurant since it opened in 2006. He has the mammoth task of overseeing the 20 professional chefs the “black hats”, and training the new 20 apprentice chefs known as the “white hats” every year. ‘You feel not so much a chef but more a welfare worker or a parent of a very large family,’ he says. ‘My whole reason for taking the position at Fifteen was to teach what I had learned in my 24 years in the industry’.
At the end of the year, many of the apprentice chefs’ lives are totally transformed, and almost all of them continue with a career in the restaurant industry. Understandably, Haydock finds it hard to see his apprentices leave, ‘I try not to show it being a chef and all, but as I said they become like family, and it’s a rollercoaster of emotions when they leave, of sadness and pride’.
The restaurant itself couldn’t be in a better location; set on the beach at Watergate Bay the view is stunning. At high tide the sea laps below the restaurant’s wraparound windows while at low tide you can see miles of golden sand. ‘The style always has been and always will be Italian,’ says Haydock. ‘This style of cooking has real roots which we apply to Cornish produce. In a nutshell the food is about seasonality, provenance and good honest cooking. I left London because all the produce that turned up at the restaurant had no identity or soul and was immaculately packaged. Here we have to pick, shell, scale and wash our products and we know everybody involved in the process, even the guys who produce our olive oils in Italy. My favourite ingredients are the ones in season such as new season lamb, Cornish asparagus and Cornish albacore tuna. It’s tremendously important to support local producers’.
Fifteen Cornwall, Watergate Bay, Cornwall, TR8 4AA
01637 861 000, www.fifteencornwall.co.uk

The developer
Located in a windowless basement in Crystal Palace, Island Fusion is an unexpected hidden treasure. Head chef Calvin Bennet creates a unique blend of Caribbean, European and Asian cuisine, ‘Jamaica’s motto is “out of many, one people”,’ he says. ‘The islands have a multicultural heritage and it’s because of this diversity that I fuse exciting dishes’. Island Fusion is one of very few authentic Caribbean restaurants in London, ‘Caribbean restaurants in the UK are less widespread than Italian, Indian or Chinese restaurants because of the lack of passion here in its delivery’, says Bennett. ‘At Island Fusion its all about freedom of expression’. Superb traditional Caribbean cuisine such as jerk chicken and plantain is served alongside dishes with European influences such as Pina Colada cheesecake. ‘Caribbean food is full of flavour,’ Bennett says. ‘The older generation played an integral part in what the food is today. Everyone you know from the West Indies will tell you a story about the food their mum or grandparents cooked. For us, the chefs, it’s our duty to expose this and be part of the transformation of Caribbean food’.
Island Fusion, Crystal Palace, London, SE19 1TS
0208 761 5544, www.islandfusion.co.uk