I Went To Willy Wonka's Restaurant

I went to Willy Wonka's Three Michelin Star Restaurant. And it was one of the most bizarre, creative restaurants I've ever been to. It was one of the only times I've ever put headphones on during a dish, played a literal card game to get my dessert, and dissolved a pocket watch inside a broth. Okay, so Willy Wonka is a fictional character, but if he were to open a restaurant, it would be just like this one. It's one of the most fun and playful fine dining experiences I've ever had, and they have the credentials to back it up. I'm of course talking about the fat duck in the United Kingdom. I could go on and on about the awards that this restaurant has won. It's held three Michelin stars for the past 19 years. It was ranked number one in the world. But a meal here will set you back about $400 and last around four hours. So the two questions that we have to answer today are, what makes this place so special? And is it worth the price? When you arrive, you're given two special objects that I've never received at a restaurant, a magnifying glass and an adventurer's guide. And from there, the adventure began. We have to read from the book before we eat each dish. How do you start a meal with something that refreshes and then instantly vanishes? This is a nitro-protein aperitif. Rather than it being a drink today, it will be a bite to eat today as I'm going to freeze it in liquid nitrogen. In the canister, we've got a mix, which I simply drop that into the liquid nitrogen. This will freeze now very quickly as the liquid nitrogen is minus 196 degrees Celsius. We finish the Campari spritz with all the essences and oils from the orange peel. But then the first dish arrives and it sets the tone for the night because it's such a fun, unexpected bite. We had an aerated beetroot dish that was light from the meringue shell and had a burst of earthiness and zing from horseradish. A red cabbage gazpacho with a mustard ice cream, which is a combination of words I never thought I'd say. And a compressed cucumber dish with oyster leaves, which was fragrant, light, and refreshing. Even their bread was special because they use burnt wheat to make it smoky and they pair it with a butter that they went through 30 different butters just to find the right pairing. Bread looks good. The combinations here are wild, with the next course consisting of quail jelly, langoustine cream, and chicken liver parfait all put together in one dish. Now we're about to get to the really weird and exciting part of the dinner, but before we do that, we have to understand why all of this is happening. Our real-life Willy Wonka is none other than Heston Blumenthal. He's widely considered to be one of the best chefs in the entire world and he's known for being an absolute mad scientist in the kitchen. He popularized using things like liquid nitrogen and using more scientific cooking methods in the kitchen over 20 years ago. He believes that food should hit every sense. Sight, smell, touch, taste... What are even the senses? I forgot the senses. Taste, of course, but also sight, smell, touch, and even sound. And the fat duck is his baby. He says he wants you to feel like a kid when you come into this restaurant. You enter his world of curiosity, get a few dishes that encourage you to play with your food, and these next few dishes really make you feel like you're a kid, starting with rocket lolly. This is a salad. Yep, you heard me right. It's a Waldorf salad that they've turned into a popsicle that you can pick up and eat. And if it looks familiar, it's because it's supposed to remind you of those really sugary, sweet rocket popsicles that you would get as a kid that have three different layers of colors. Except here, the flavors are red apple, celery, and walnut-infused milk. Pretty crazy stuff. This is a salad. But crazy is relative, and after this comes one of the craziest dishes of the night called the sea. A seashell with headphones in it is placed on the table next to a glass and wood box with sand in it and seafood placed on top. The idea is to take the headphones, put them in, listen to the sounds of the ocean, and enjoy your dish. If it sounds familiar, it's because there's actually a dish that's inspired by this one in the movie Always Be My Maybe, where they listen to the sounds of animals dying while eating their food. I'm sorry. But this one is just sounds of the beach. Don't worry. Now, this dish is where I kind of draw the line. I'm all for unique and experimental dishes. I love them, but I felt like going into this, theoretically, that it would be a little bit too gimmicky for me. However, I was actually really surprised at how much of the restaurant noise that these headphones actually drowned out. And all you could really hear were the sounds of the beach. So it was a really immersive experience. The team actually just went to the beach and collected these sounds that you would hear on the ocean. So I was converted. It was actually a pretty cool eating experience. And from one crazy dish to the next, we arrived at Alice in Wonderland. This dish comes with a giant Mad Hatter hat with a bunch of sandwiches for a tea party on top of it. But more importantly, it comes with a box that has a gold pocket watch in it. You take the watch out of the box, dip it into the water, and watch it dissolve and disappear. And it looks pretty simple, but to make the pocket watch, they actually had to take the stock and ice filter it, put it through two different centrifuges, which I thought were just in science labs, and then cover it in gold leaf. I mean, I was just lost for words. I don't understand how people can think of food like this. It's incredible. I thought Willy Wonka's Whimsical Chocolate Factory was fake, but it seems like it's been reincarnated in the UK. And before we headed into my favorite part of the meal, yes, there's still even cooler dishes to come, we had a few more normal dishes by Heston Blumenthal's standards. An absolutely gorgeous Dover sole dish that's paired with grapes and wine. There are fizzy bursts of carbonated grapes, a champagne fluid gel, and a little bit of caviar on top to make this a decadent but light and refreshing fish dish. We also had a Wagyu beef dish with pickled onion gel, which was rich, fatty, and a great way to end the savory courses. Now come the dessert courses. And this is, in my opinion, where I get starstruck. The first one was pretty normal at first glance, but it turns out it was actually the most complicated dish on the menu. It has more than 20 elements and 50 stages of the preparation process. It's a dessert that's inspired by the idea that rotten grapes from the winemaking process can actually yield really interesting flavors. And it's so complex that it was actually the final challenge But my favorite dessert was the next one. We literally had to play a card game to get our next dessert. You get a deck of cards with a variety of different sweets on it, and each one has its own qualities and strengths. And you even get to make your own with a childhood favorite sweet. No, secret. You don't get to see my cards. Please, I'm going to win this game. So you shuffle your cards and battle it out in head-to-head matchups between candies, hoping to win. Freaking lost. And the winner gets a coin that they can put in to unlock this massive structure, which is Heston's sweet shop. So, sweets I promised and sweets you must have. It's good to spot also a few details, such as the coats of arms, Heston's original sign, and also the date of the opening of this restaurant. And here you can spot two rooms, a kids' room and also a laboratory. Is that not the coolest thing that you've ever seen? I just, this restaurant genuinely just makes you feel like a kid again. What they're doing with food here is one of the most creative things I've ever seen. And honestly, I couldn't help but smile when I saw that sweet shop open and the drawers automatically start coming out. You get super unique candies, like a chocolate that was actually made with beef stock, a jam tart that looks like a Queen of Hearts playing card. That smells so good. And a coconut tobacco chewy candy. And with that, the night of wonder, whimsy and fun finally came to an end. That was an experience. But the question is, was it worth it? Absolutely. You're not going to go here every day and you're not coming here for a normal meal, but it's something that should be on everyone's bucket list to try at least once in their lives. If you want to see how fine dining can be playful, experimental and creative, this is absolutely the number one place that you need to go. And it's a restaurant that would make Willy Wonka proud. If you want to see more of the craziest restaurants in the world, definitely like, comment and subscribe. Let me know where I should go next. But for now, I'll see you later.