From thousands of votes cast by readers, bloggers and reviewers, Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck came out on top as the number one restaurant in Squaremeal’s UK top 100 restaurants for 2016.
Heston Blumenthal
On hearing the news, Heston said: “I thought we might have a bumpy ride, critic-wise, but we’ve had a batch of great reviews. Winning the Squaremeal award came completely out of the blue, it shows a big change in the people of Britain as we were so straightjacketed by French cooking before.”
Voters applauded Heston’s ‘deceptively simple’ formula, a fantastical combination of ‘exquisite artistry and outstanding culinary expertise’
With three Michelin stars to his name, Heston has been boasting about multisensory dining since 1997, at a time when the neuroscience world hadn’t even explored the topic.
Famed for introducing to the world cooking and eating as a multisensory experience, Heston is legendary for his commitment to the research and discovery of all things culinary and his wonderings of nostalgia and his fascination with sensory perceptions have been tirelessly studied.
His unending curiosity and questioning approach cross-pollinated the worlds of gastronomy, neurological sciences and the arts, in many cases leading to collaborations with research centres and universities around the world.
As early as 1993 one of his creations, Triple Cooked Chips, changed forever this simple classic, while his work with sound, perception, nostalgia and neurological responses contributed to a whole new world of understanding.
Conducted back in May and June, the top 100 is selected from a number of votes cast by readers, bloggers and reviewers, and is sponsored by BMW.
In this industry, we look out for each other. That’s what being a chef is all about - shared graft, shared passion, shared success. And for the past 17 years, The Staff Canteen has been your space to connect, to learn, to be inspired - a tribe built by chefs, for chefs.
• 5,000+ recipes to sharpen your skills.
• 2,000+ videos to fuel your creativity.
• 1,000+ features sharing the real stories of this industry.
• Daily industry news as it happens.
• Hospitality’s largest social media platform - connecting over 560,000 followers worldwide.
We know times are tough, and every kitchen’s feeling it. But if we stand together, we’ll get through it - and we’ll come out stronger.
Think of it as buying the community a coffee - just £3 to keep us going.
Your support keeps this space free, independent, and dedicated entirely to you and your industry. Together, we can keep inspiring chefs everywhere.
Chip in £3, drive us forward, and keep the community strong. Thank you.
We’re in this together. And together, we move forward.