A new reader
has suggested that I review airport food the next time I’m waiting for a flight out of
the UK. Maybe I will this summer, but in the meantime, I am enthralled to
discover that liquid nitrogen chef Heston Blumenthal is cooking up a storm at
Heathrow airport’s new Terminal 2. I have eaten at Heston’s Michelin starred
restaurant in Bray and experienced his scientifically devised menu, but I do wonder
if we really need such gastronomic food in an airport? Yes, says Heston, who
has brought his wacky culinary skills to the newly-opened Terminal 2. So, gourmands
across Britain had better start planning their next holiday.
Forget a spare
£300 or months of waiting for a table at Blumenthal’s The Fat Duck in
Berkshire’s famous culinary village - all you need to taste the work of Britain’s
top chef, is a flight leaving from the revamped Terminal. Among the duty free shops and airport
bookstores, the Daily Telegraph reports spirals of white smoke spilling out from Blumenthal’s
Perfectionists' Café, where liquid nitrogen-frozen ice cream is topped with
popping candy and freeze-dried raspberries. The first tranche of customers report that a 500-degree centigrade pizza oven (below) stands in the
centre of the restaurant, a testament to Blumenthal’s perseverance against
health and safety legislation, where each pizza is cooked for just 60 seconds
before emerging crisp but still light.
There’s no
doubt that foodie culture has now invaded one of the last cornerstones in
Britain with only the motorway service station left to be conquered! Gone are the days when we grabbed a packaged
sandwich from Pret or Boots, before rushing through security, or stomached the
bland slop that is plane food. Instead, passengers
now leaving from Terminal 2 arrive three hours early for
their flight, with plenty of time to enjoy a hamburger made from three cuts of
beef, with each mince strand lined up to create a perfectly smooth texture. Or,
they can order fish and chips and bask in the scent of a small perfume bottle
that sprays malt vinegar pickled onion juice.
At The Fat Duck
at Bray, Heston Blumenthal has fed us eggs and bacon ice cream (above), made foam more
popular than ketchup, and played us sounds of the sea during dinner. But this
time, surely, he’s gone too far. In between dropping off luggage and shopping
for plug adapters, should we really care about food at the airport? Clearly, my
new reader thinks so and who am I to argue as an advocate of Real Food? We
should all care about food and maybe we certainly need some excitement and inspiration in
our airport food. Blumenthal, who has dedicated his life to the scientific
crafting of food, believes that eating shouldn’t be a matter of survival. In
fact, he says, food is a more complex sensory experience than sex. “Flavour perception
is the most complicated thing the human body does. It's more
complicated than reproduction. There are more chromosomes in it than there are
for reproduction," he explains. It remains to be seen whether membership
to the mile high club drops after passengers have sampled Heston’s creations.
Apparently the
menu at The Perfectionists' Café is not be as adventurous as his earlier snail
porridge or meat-fruit pâté creations and each dish is the product of extensive
research. All the main courses are based on his 2006 television programme In
Search of Perfection, in which Blumenthal spoke with scientists, travelled
the world and even sent a potato into space in an attempt to create the perfect
version of each dish. Several million pounds has already been invested in The
Perfectionists' Café, with the custom-made liquid nitrogen pipes alone costing
£50,000. The restaurant hopes to serve 1,300 to 2,000 diners a day and so some
of the more elaborate processes from the TV show have been pared down. According to a Daily Telegraph reporter, Blumenthal has upped the competition in Britain’s gourmet
burger craze. I look forward to tasting The Perfectionist’s Burger when I am
next at Heathrow’s Terminal 2. But then again, a pizza topped with truffled
culcatello salami, roast portabello mushrooms, fior di latte cheese and truffle
oil sounds great. As for the chips? “The
fries are just fries, they’re bought”, says Ashley Palmer-Watts, executive head
chef of the Fat Duck Group. “Making triple-cooked chips on site is just not
possible. We don’t have the kitchen for it.” Well that’s a disappointment,
Heston – not quite perfection at the Perfectionists’ Cafe!
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