It's all too much but I'd do it all over again

After our Chocolate Wine Slush, we were invited to try the cheese board, to which some of us hesitantly said "yes", and "perhaps", but Nikki just came out and firmly said, "today is not a day for saying no" and went ahead and ordered. Spurred on by her enthusiasm, I decided to have one too. It's an extra £15, which is quite a lot for the small amounts of cheese you get, but by that point you wouldn't really want much more to eat, anyway. One of the reasons we said yes was just that we didn't want the meal to end, and given an excuse to prolong it, we took it. For my part, this reluctance to leave was as much to do with the pleasure we were all having in each other's company (especially nice as none of us had actually met Chris before), and the relaxed atmosphere in the restaurant, as it was about the food.

Actually, I should say something about the atmosphere, because it was one of the least stuffy restaurants I've ever eaten in. The food is not the only reason that The Fat Duck regularly ends up listed in the top two restaurants in the entire world. The staff were all, as I said before, utterly charming, but also extremely conscientous, appearing non-intrusively whenever needed, and melting away when they weren't. They were happy to wait while the others took photographs, or to join in a discussion about the merits (or lack of them) in blue cheese. Sometimes their French accents almost bordered on caricature and it was a little hard to understand what they were telling us, but since we were all so willing to go along for the ride, it didn't really matter, especially as we were given souvenir menus to take home and peruse at our leisure. Of course, we could have opened the envelopes at the table, to see what each course was as we went along, but they were beautifully sealed (with a proper embossed seal) and it seemed a shame to open them and risk spilling food all over the beautiful paper. Actually, these envelopes are worth mentioning, too. They're made of thick paper which has an almost calfskin-like quality, with a soft pile that makes you want to stroke it, and creates a tactile sensation that has a similar effect to some of the flavours in the dishes. They'd be strangely covetable even if they didn't come replete with the smart black embossed Fat Duck seal on them. Another example of the wonderful attention to detail.

It's hard to pick favourites after all the amazing food we ate — the oak moss, the edible seaside and that intense blackcurrant sorbet being just a few — but the cheese course turned out to be one of my favourites because it was the most communal. We all picked out different cheeses from the extensive selection, and there was much reaching across and around the table in order to share them. My favourite was one of the light goat's cheeses, which had a pretty brown rind that looked almost like tree bark, although it was probably the incredibly gooey yellow one that Chris had chosen which will be the most memorable, even if I didn't like it as much. It was so runny that it looked like homemade custard, and was served on a spoon and oozed all over the plate; very strong in flavour with an umami effect that was a little overwhelming compared to the lightness of most of the cheese I'd chosen. Again, probably one I would have appreciated a bit more if I hadn't already eaten so much rich food.

And even after that, our meal still wasn't finished. We were offered hot beverages from a rather dauntingly full tea menu, studiously avoiding the £35.00 price tag of one tea, although our curiosity was piqued (it's an "aged" tea with a 1970s vintage; one for the tea connoisseur). Nikki chose one of the Puerh teas, but it was brewed too strong for my tastes, so I was glad that I had opted for the Jasmine Pearls Green Tea, blended from Jasmine Dragon Pearls, Dragon Phoenix Pearls and Moli Long Zhu, hand-rolled and then scented with jasmine six times. It had a lovely delicate flavour and a delicious perfume which I found so evocative that I found myself "remembering" places I'd never even been to; cities in the Far East that I've always daydreamed about visiting. This was ehanced by the Mandarin Aerated Chocolate, as the jasmine tea complemented its flavour rather nicely, bringing out the sharp mandarin flavour of the chocolate to wonderful effect. There was also a wonderfully smooth mouthfeel to the chocolate, which was almost like sucking a pebble, or rather like the way you hope a smooth pebble would feel in the mouth, but never does. (What do you mean you've never put a pebble in your mouth?)

The Apple Pie Caramels were quite nice, but mostly remarkable for the fact that their wrappers were edible as well, so you could put the whole thing in your mouth. Which frankly raises the point of them being wrapped in the first place, but oh well, it was clever. The Violet Tartlets were also delicious, benefitting from the same salted caramel flavour that you get with Ladurée macarons, although I unfortunately didn't really notice any of the violet flavour, which was a little disappointing. I think by this point though, I'd actually become a little intoxicated by all the food, all those flavours combining to make me quite tipsy, making me wonder if a shorter tasting menu might actually offer more benefit.

Fifteen or sixteen courses is amazing, and all of them were wonderful, but after a while it is quite easy to become almost inured to the new experiences provided by each course, because there is too much to take in; by the time we got to the end of the meal I'd become quite blasé about it all. Don't get me wrong, I had a fantastic time eating all of the courses — obviously, or I wouldn't have written five posts' worth of reviews. I'd happily sit through the same menu again (although perhaps with some substitutions for the salmon and the pigeon — to try other new dishes as much as anything), but I would have been just as happy with a menu that was half as long and half the price. I still would have experienced some amazing dishes the like of which I'll probably never taste again, and I still would have had a lovely time discussing the synaesthetic qualities of all those things, but I don't think I would have become quite so blasé towards the end. Plus, if it was half the length and half the price, I could afford to do it again sooner rather than later! Because I definitely do want to do it again. Only a person who really hates food would say no to five hours of culinary inventiveness designed to evoke memories and debates and interest. And while I can't afford to dine out at the Fat Duck for a while (or anywhere else, really), I can at least dine out on my memories for a while.

This is pt.5 of my Fat Duck restaurant review.
Read all the parts here: part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5