Fat Duck, Bray (May 2011)

Best. Restaurant. Ever. Okay, at least I’ve been to.

Let’s just say with all the hype and 1000 tonne boulder of expectation that surrounds the place, the epic, repeated phone calls needed to get a booking, and if you can battle through what we went through to get there and still love the night we had, that’s gotta say something for the Fat Duck.

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Here’s the long story short:

Our group met at Paddington station, bought tickets and hopped on the packed train to Maidenhead. Should have been simple.

10 minutes pass and the train has not moved. No air-con, and becoming increasingly packed.

Finally an announcement. Delayed. But no indication when it’ll leave. Sounded pretty typical. Another 10 minutes, no more news. Again… not unusual say the locals. Finally another after 15 mins, and the delay will be at least 2 hours. Disastrous!

So our local friends reckon we should call a car to shuttle the 6 of us. Good plan, however it’ll take an hour for the car to come. Fail.

Plan C is to head to Heathrow via the express, then catch a cab to Bray. Should only be about a 20 pound trip.

Get to Heathrow, get into the cab, then they tell us because it’s going outside of the Greater London area, it’ll be a 60 pound trip because they need to get back into the city. Stupid, gullible tourists. But we pay anyway.

Eventually, we get there 1.5 hours late. Having called ahead to let the Fat Duck know we’ll be late, they were more than generous and understanding on arrival. At least on the outside.

And on the way back, get a cab to Maidenhead station. Sign board says 10 mins to our 12:45am train. 2 minutes later, 30 minute delay… and 5 minutes later, leaving at 3:00am. So we pay another 80 pound to get back to London.

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So I’ll let the photos do all the talking.































Where Le Chateaubriand was the wrong side of Gaga, Fat Duck is most definitely soooooo right. The side that pretty much everyone loves. Just like the tracks on her album, each dish takes you on a journey that stimulates all the senses. Including the most important one down there. You know what I’m talking about. The stomach.

5 / 5 yums!
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Where? High St Hurley, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6, United Kingdom