Dinner at Heston’s

Long before I enter Dinner, I have done my research. After four years at Imperial I am an engineer worth my salt: alongside my Lit Review I have menus and quotes, and the date pencilled into Outlook three months in advance. Less than two weeks before we are due to go, Dinner opens and the reviews come streaming in: Giles calls it “the best restaurant in the world” [paywall]. AA Gill is in raptures [paywall]. Suddenly, with two days to go, our reservations are worth more than that week’s rent: a few hours later, a pair of reservations are selling for £300. Luckily, it does not occur to us to sell them despite the fact that we may not make rent this month, or that we only have two aubergines and some rice left. I cannot say I will ever regret it.

We told ourselves, to begin with, that we would stick to the set menu: three courses, cooked by Heston (who had chief residency for the first two weeks after opening): how could we go wrong?. And then. Giles Coren had the meat fruit. There are photos. Chicken liver parfaits, wrapped in mandarin flavoured jelly. It even has a leaf... we are not, I realise, sticking to the set menu. We are going to have the meat fruit, and the spit-roasted pineapple. There are photos, snippets, read and re-read: the meat fruit becomes, for the next few days, our Bettie Page, our Gyspy Rose Lee, our pin-up.

We removed the leaf first and spread, gently almost, the sweet pate: every bite superb, a revelation

I have however never peeled the soft outer layer of a pin-up before, or bit in to find her sharp, soft, firm. We removed the leaf first and spread, gently almost, the sweet pate: every bite superb, a revelation. The boyfriend, I realise, is in love, and is not sharing. Good job then that as well as this, we order the Salamagundy. Described as ‘Chicken Oysters, Bone Marrow and Horseradish Cream’, it strikes me as fuller, less coquettish, than meat dressed as a mandarin. It arrives, tiny melting slivers of meat with strong, fruity marrow and the perfectly complementing oh-so-fashionable puree/cream. We are, in short, enchanted, so much so that we barely notice Heston himself to our left, chatting to two men we recognise but cannot name. He has new glasses, tortoiseshell, rather Victorian-deep-sea-diver-esque, and makes me wish that I had worn my own labcoat to match.

At this point we pause, take in the scenery. We recline, smile; starters over, we believe the hype, and begin appreciating the surroundings. To the left, the kitchen, with its glass walls and gently spit-roasting pineapples: it puts one in mind of a more benign, charismatic Henry VIII settingw. Cog-like mobiles hang from the ceiling and avoid any accidental forays into the twee: the decor is sleek and reserved, no mock-tudor lamps or plush rugs depicting hunting dogs; the history of English food is in every aspect of this restaurant, so is its present, and undoubtedly its future.

Our mains arrive. I have the Roast Turbot, a revelation, and the boyfriend has the Spiced Pigeon: both amply exceed our expectations. We eat in contented half-sentences, punctuated with morsels on forks proffered across the table and with whole explosions, every flavour in one bite, consumed slowly. The Roast Turbot is served with cockle ketchup and leaf chicory and makes me think of holidays, the sea, the English countryside. It is firm but embraces the tongue. As for the chicory and cockle ketchup, it hardly seems fair to describe these as “accompanying” the roast turbot, or to demote them to “served with”. On his menu, Blumenthal avoids these words: initially this seems to be for minimalist, aesthetic reasons, but it seems clear that in fact, these are not sides, or flavours: the dish is composed of all three and may not miss a note.

Dessert is Tipsy Cake, a sort of soufflé-bread pudding concoction, served with the infamous roast pineapple, which is caramelised and adds a boozy edge to the fluffy cake, as well as Taffety Tart, served with rose, fennel, lemon and blackcurrant sorbet, with a crispy caramelised top. Again, it is perfectly balanced, perfectly complemented, perfectly Dinner.

When we leave, it is with the certainty that this is the best place we have ever eaten. As Heston himself says, “If nothing else, I hope it’s easy to remember”. He was talking about the name, but he couldn’t have been more right.