You don't have to be a scientist to be a great chef, writes Tom Doorley
It's a long way from spam fritters. According to Restaurant magazine, 14 of the world's best places to eat are in Britain. And before anyone accuses the UK publication of cultural bias, the chosen restaurants have been selected by some 600 chefs, critics and other experts from around the globe. Britain, it would seem, is a culinary hot ticket these days.
The best restaurant in the world, if you are to believe the poll, is a former pub in the stockbroker belt village of Bray in Berkshire. Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck is a temple to "molecular gastronomy", a form of cuisine - "cooking" is too mundane a word - where science is harnessed in a pleasurable assault on the taste buds.
I have yet to make the trip; Blumenthal's restaurant has a formidable waiting list, with weekends booked solid two months in advance.
Jay Rayner of the Observer and Jan Moir of the Daily Telegraph came away from The Fat Duck in awe of Blumenthal's bizarre menu, which includes dishes such as sardines on toast sorbet and smoked bacon and egg ice cream.
Molecular gastronomy was invented by Spanish chef Ferran Adria of El Bulli, near Barcelona, whose melon caviar is the stuff of legend. Essentially he, and his followers, use chemistry and physics to produce extraordinary taste sensations. In restaurants such as El Bulli and The Fat Duck it is not unusual to have a spoonful of something very tasty blast-frozen at the table with a spray of liquid nitrogen. The famous melon caviar is produced when the fruit's juice is mixed with a chemical reagent that makes droplets form a permeable skin when it is added to yet another chemically manipulated liquid.
El Bulli is ranked at No 2, while 2004's No 1, the impeccably conventional French Laundry in California, has been pushed into third place. I can console myself that I have eaten in the - allegedly - third-best restaurant in the world, and very good it was too. But I'm glad that someone else was paying.
There is some consolation too that The French Laundry and most of the top 50 restaurants in this list have kitchens rather than laboratories. Consolation, at any rate, to someone like me who believes food should be . . . well, food. It strikes me that too many of the judges want the eating experience to go way beyond the simple matter of grub.
Ranked at 18 is Sketch in London, which combines breathtaking prices with bizarre combinations that stop just short of molecular gastronomy. At 44 is The Ivy, a restaurant which rises above being just a good bistro thanks to the rubbernecking opportunities afforded by its celebrity-studded clientele. London's Nobu and Jean Georges in New York (No 20 and No 9 respectively) are very expensive exercises in low GI fusion food.
Tetsuya's in Sydney (No 4) is possibly the best value restaurant in the list. I ate there very happily at less than €100 per head including wine but the combination of French haute cuisine and Japanese minimalism, while interesting, is just a bit too ethereal.
Of course, this is all about food as theatre rather than food as, simply, food. Sometimes it is pleasantly arresting, but generally it comes across as something desperately trying to revive the jaded palates of the rich and world-weary.
The Top 50, however, includes some startlingly brilliant restaurants such as Tom Aikens (No 8) and St John (No 10), both in London. They are concerned with real food and bold flavours, especially St John where generally unmentionable parts of animals take centre-stage. Its high ranking rescues this league table from the accusation that the judges are slaves to fashion.
France's top-ranking establishment is Pierre Gagnaire in Paris (No 6) and the country accounts for a mere 11 out of the 50. Spain has four, Italy three (level-pegging with Australia), the US 10. Not all of the French selection are definitively haute cuisine. While the Louis XV in Monte Carlo is there (yes, I know it's not strictly La Republique and all that), this being a restaurant where the ingredients for your herbal tea are snipped from living plants in front of your very eyes, at No 50 is Bordeaux's exceptionally earthy La Tupina, the world's best (and possibly most expensive) char-grill.
Did Ireland make it? No. Probably because most of the judges are not regular visitors, and possibly because our best chefs don't aim to rewrite the culinary rules. The exception is Kevin Thornton of Thornton's in the Fitzwilliam hotel, the only Irish chef who speaks of "food as theatre". Maybe he needs to let the pyrotechnics fly. He certainly has the genius to pull it off.
L'Ecrivain on Baggot Street deserves a ranking in the world Top 50. One of the best meals I've ever eaten was consumed there - and I've dined in almost half of Restaurant magazine's pick of the crop. But it lacks the theatrical quality that gets you into such company. Thank heaven for that.
I must try snail porridge some time. That's one of The Fat Duck's specialities. But it's easier to get in to The Wolseley (number 41) and it does breakfast, right on Picadilly. Including porridge - made from oats.
The Fat Duck, High Street, Bray-on-Thames, Berkshire, England. Tel 0044-162-8580333) www.thefatduck.co.uk