A meal at the Fat Duck is certainly a unique experience. The attention to detail is unbelievable, the atmosphere unassuming, cosy and intimate and the food, for the most part, delicious. The meal is expensive, and sets an expectation that it doesn't really achieve. Over and above the quality of the food and service (on par with many top restaurants), what you are paying a premium for is Heston's creativity (every dish is truly original) and his brand. Heston certainly gets top marks for his business model, not dissimilar to Disney's: industrialise the magic.

The Fat Duck provides a culinary ‘ride’. Everyone sitting around you gets the same ‘special’ stories about the food they are about to be served from the well rehearsed waiters, reciting the same lines to table after table. Everyone gets the same dishes, in the same sequence. And after a while that conveyor belt feeling takes away some of the magic and what you are left with an intellectual appreciation, not an emotional one.

The food itself is nice but I'm not sure there is a need to reduce so many ingredients into liquid form, only to re-sculpt them into pieces of art – too often using gelatin. Sometimes a vegetable just wants to be a vegetable and Heston might want to leave a little room for nature's magic alongside his own. Add to that a little bit of spontaneity and love and this restaurant might once again be the best one in the world.