Blumenthal honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award

Famed for his quirky molecular gastronomy, Heston Blumenthal has been awarded the 2017 Diners Club Lifetime Achievement Award at the World’s 50 Best Restaurant Awards.

Aside from a two-week stint at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir in Oxfordshire, Heston Blumenthal has had no formal training, putting him at odds with many of his contemporaries.

In 1995, Blumenthal opened his 40-seater restaurant, The Fat Duck in Bray which quickly became renowned for its snail porridge and eggs-and-bacon ice-cream – as well as charging £255 per head for its set menu, not including wine.

However, Blumenthal was awarded his first Michelin star in 1999, his second in 2002 and his third in 2004 and in 2005, The Fat Duck was awarded the number one spot on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list.

Building on the success of The Fat Duck, in 2004 Blumenthal acquired The Hinds Head, a 15th-century pub in Bray and his first venture outside of Bray, Dinner in the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park in 2011 which purports to serve traditional British dishes using historical recipes, such as roast marrowbone with Welsh cake, snails, piccalilli, anchovy, mace and picked vegetables from circa 1720 and ‘Frumenty’ made with grilled octopus, smoked sea broth, picked dulse, lovage and spelt, a recipe from around the year 1390.

A year after opening, Dinner earned its first Michelin star and made its debut on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list at number nine and Blumenthal subsequently opened The Crown again in Bray and The Perfectionists’ Café at London Heathrow.

He also relocated The Fat Duck to Melbourne for six months while it underwent a renovation and once The Fat Duck returned to its location, the Melbourne venue continued as the second Dinner restaurant.

Commenting on his award, Blumenthal said “I am honoured, thrilled and really quite excited to be given The Diners Club Lifetime Achievement Award. For me, this award is particularly special because it’s voted by my peers. After 20 years of The Fat Duck, I now feel like I’m just starting – and those 20 years were my apprenticeship. The future is very, very exciting.”

Blumenthal will be officially given the title on Wednesday, 5 April 2017 at the awards ceremony in Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne, Australia.

Recently, it was announced that Hong Kong’s beloved Umberto Bombana of the three Michelin starred Otto e Mezzo was also bestowed with the Lifetime Achievement Award by Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants.