Heston Blumenthal is attracting criticism from villagers in his home of Bray in Berkshire, Britain’s most famous food destination, with a coterie of highly regarded restaurants orbiting Blumenthal’s world famous Fat Duck restaurant. The chef-king of Bray has now swooped on the last independent pub in town in an apparent attempt to close down competition.
The Fat Duck itself was once a pub called The Ringers, but it is now a temple of mustard ice cream and snail porridge a la Blumenthal, the current lord of molecular cuisine. Hardly the sort of pub where you would find pickled eggs or rollmops to scoff with your pint of bitter, now it is more likely to be Romanée Conti ’66 with duck liver foam on oak moss.
Now Blumenthal has swooped on the last place in Bray, where a pint of Rebellion Bitter is ‘de rigueur’, the last holdout of English village life not invaded by London sophisticates and international gourmets – The Crown. Not only is there irony in the name, but rumour has it that Blumenthal bought the pub to stop rival celebrity chef Marco Pierre White from moving into his territory.
White, once Blumenthal’s boss, was the first native Brit to score a Michelin three star accolade, and began the restaurant revolution that made Britons believe that they are as good as the French at fancy food. White wanted to do ‘a Blumenthal’ and turn The Crown into a destination restaurant under the sign of a Great British Chef, but he has been gazumped.
The Crown is now a Fat Duck annex, where diners waiting for a table sip expensive glasses of Dom Perignon whilst luxuriating in the new, plush decor. Locals in search of a real pub will need to wander down the road for a mile and a half to the Bell in Maidenhead.
As Blumenthal also owns The Golden Hind he has a monopoly on Bray’s pubs, making the only not-Heston-please option being the Roux establishment of the Waterside Inn.
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