The Fat Duck Cookbook

By Heston Blumenthal

Back by popular demand, a lower-priced version of the must-have book from the genius behind the Fat Duck, the restaurant named best in the world by Restaurant magazine.

The cookbook hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a "showstopper" and by Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue as "the most glorious spectacle of the season…like no other book I have seen in the past twenty years" is now available in a reduced-price edition. With a reduced trim size but an identical interior, this lavishly illustrated, stunningly designed, and gorgeously photographed masterpiece takes you inside the head of maverick restaurateur Heston Blumenthal. Separated into three sections (History; Recipes; Science), the book chronicles Blumenthal's improbable rise to fame and, for the first time, offers a mouth-watering and eye-popping selection of recipes from his award-winning restaurant. He also explains the science behind his culinary masterpieces, the technology and implements that make his alchemical dishes come to life. Designed by acclaimed artist Dave McKean—and filled with photographs by Dominic Davies—this artfully rendered celebration of one of the world's most innovative and renowned chefs is a foodie's dream.

Reviews and News for The Fat Duck Cookbook:

"Heston Blumenthal, the chef of the three-Michelin-starred Fat Duck in Bray, England, is a brilliant obsessive of another school. Not afraid to geek out, he's just as curious about how sound affects taste (diners who order a dish called Sound of the Sea listen to an iPod playing waves) as he is about 17th-century English cuisine. Last year, he oversaw the publication of "The Big Fat Duck Cookbook," written with Pascal Cariss - 11.6 pounds and $250 worth of engagingly written personal history, scientific research and recipes from his lab. . . . I mean kitchen. Republished as the somewhat more portable and accessible FAT DUCK COOKBOOK (Bloomsbury, $50), it now weighs in at just under six pounds. A lavish extravaganza larded with cartoons and Ralph Steadman-esque illustrations by Dave McKean, the book downloads everything in Blumenthal's head (which is a lot), including recipes for already legendary dishes like snail porridge as well as nitro-scrambled egg and bacon ice cream. If your dream cuisine involves liquid nitrogen and a rotary evaporator, Blumenthal's your bloke."—New York Times Book Review. See holiday listing.

Michele Kayal's Associated Press cookbook roundup featuring The Fat Duck Cookbook is being picked up not only by this, The Concord Monitor, but also the News-Times (Danbury, CT), The Reno Gazette Journal (Reno, NV), Lake County News-Sun (Waukegan, IL), Globe Gazette (Mason City, IA), The Trentonian (Trenton, NJ) with more to come.

The Fat Duck Cookbook is included in the Denver Post's Best Cookbooks of the Year roundup.

A review for The Fat Duck Cookbook on the New Yorker's "Book Bench".

A couple of recent mentions... New York Times.

...and one in an article about Thomas Keller in the Wall Street Journal.

Florence Fabricant, mentions The Fat Duck Cookbook in her much-loved section in "Dining In" in the New York Times.

"A fascinating read, with insight into the creation of [Blumenthal’s] outlandish dishes."-- Fat Duck on Conde Nast Traveler blog.

From the New York Times style blog “The Moment”.

“This is not your mother’s cookbook. This cookbook is for geeks. It’s for young cooks hell-bent on staging at El Bulli, Alinea and, of course, Fat Duck. It’s for the dining elite with the means to eat at those restaurants and the intellect to remember every bite. And it’s for voyeurs, those with an interest in the mad scientist that is Blumenthal and the desire to read 110 pages on exactly how the chef thinks and how his restaurant became legendary. Those that lack the patience could be satisfied by simply flipping through the book’s pages—extreme, abstract food photography and illustrations from macabre cartoonist Dave McKean combine for at least a few hours of slack-jawed ogling.”—Time Out Chicago blog. Read blog,

Here's a post on New York Magazine’s Grub Street about Heston’s visit in November.