monday, october 1st, 2007

It is the pleasure and privilege of a cook to roll up their knife roll and hit the road when inspiration strikes. For me, and I would wager many other chefs, one of the most enjoyable aspects of this job is that there is always something new to learn, always more to be inspired by and more often than not, someone in a restaurant kitchen who finds no greater satisfaction than to pass along their knowledge and experience to the person at the cutting board beside them. On my own personal quest to expose myself to a place where innovation is the elixir that keeps the kitchen's heart beating, I traveled to Bray, England to cook for a few months at Heston Blumenthal's restaurant The Fat Duck.

What is so brilliant about That Fat Duck is that even though it is currently ranked as the second best restaurant in the world, it's tucked away in the ivy strewn embrace of an ancient little village where the most pretentious thing in town is not the highly esteemed restaurant, but the vibrancy of the many rose bushes that sprout up in blazing, unabashed crimson along the meandering, moss covered footpaths.

My mile and a half walk to the restaurant each morning along the Upper Bray Way leads me past rolling pastures speckled with clumps of wet hay and twisted, knotty trees. Stone houses with gnarled wood gables bare signs like Featherstone, Heatherbrow and Violet Berry and heave and tumble over each other in the polished chaos that only the passing of centuries can perfect. On either side of the catawampus road that clearly finds the mad rush of a highway ridiculous, is a border of time-worn trees that cross over the pathway to form an arch that sends speckled shadows down through the cool, gray mist perpetually coating this place like a shiver that won't go away because it exists deep down in the bones where no blanket can squelch it. Beyond the trees, stocky horses, glistening ebony, copper and dappled bodies bound up tightly in woolen blankets, plod through the fields. As they wander, they munch on grass and occasionally look up to the sky in what I like to think is praise for their lot in life.

Rose bushes in Bray.
The arch of trees break as the road meets the village of Bray that is embraced in the leafy palm of holly, ivy, juniper, poplar and the seductive clutch of peachleaf willows. When my bed and breakfast owner explained to me how to find my way to the restaurant, she said of Bray, "There's not much to that place, unless you're counting The Fat Duck." She was right about the ancient Berkshire village tucked into a crook along the Thames. It's a speck of Tudor houses and buildings that are so old their whitewashed bricks have started to buckle and now their shapes are defined by curvy, meandering ribbons of slate, oak and stone. Bray seems plucked from some forgotten story that would inevitably include a frog, a princess and an enchanted mirror. If you're driving through it, it's a one blink and it's gone kind of town but as I walked up to it for the first time, I was so charmed by its enchanted jumble of buildings that I forgot to look for what I had come there to find; The Fat Duck.

One place that's impossible to miss is The Hinds Head. It's the main game in town (or perhaps the only one) for a pint beside a roaring fire. It's a massive village public house of endless rooms of rustic elegance. Also owned by Heston Blumenthal, it adheres to a 500 year old menu and I sense is where I'll find myself after more that one shift at The Fat Duck.

The Hinds Head
I wandered past Hinds Head, sure that The Fat Duck must be up ahead somewhere, but having blinked three times and then four, I was out of the village just as soon as I had arrived, and while I knew I must have missed the restaurant, there is so little in Bray, I was confused as to where it might be. I must admit that I walked up and down High Street, the main road through the village, more than once. Stumbling along the cobbled sidewalk with my eyes up to the buildings, I searched for the metal sign of kitchen utensils that would signal my arrival. After a few more back and forth attempts, I finally spotted it, hanging there in the breeze that blew its metal tools casually back and forth. The Fat Duck is just where I read it would be; right across the street from The Hinds Head, but so unassuming is its humble, whitewashed facade that it's easy to miss the menu hanging modestly to the right of an unadorned wooden door.

If for an instant you think that you have travelled too far into this obscure little patch of field and trees for a meal, one read of the menu will restore all the hope and promise you had for the place. Snail Porridge, Ballotine of Anjou Pigeon, Pine Sherbet Fountain, Mango and Douglas Fir Puree. On and on it reads like the very best, dreamy story that you never wanted to end as a child and therefore started back up at page one the second the book was closed.

The Fat Duck Menu 
The allure of The Fat Duck, tucked into the cozy nook of a town of Bray, tugged on my chef-strings long before I walked up to its soft-spoken door. Now that I am here in the middle of this adventure, knife roll tucked under my arm as I walk to work beneath the tree canopy along the Upper Bray Way, I am reminded once again of how fortunate I am to have found a career that suits me so well. It is a privilege. And it is a pleasure.