Melbourne's Blumenthal coup

ONE of the world’s most famous restaurants, The Fat Duck, is to close at Christmas and relocate to Melbourne.

The restaurant’s owner and chef Heston Blumenthal, announced in Melbourne today that ahead of the launch of his permanent Crown restaurant - Dinner by Heston Blumenthal - around August 2015, he is shutting his famous Bray dining room and bringing the entire concept to Melbourne for a six-month stint.

The Fat Duck, at one time ranked the world’s number-one restaurant, and famous for its conceptual gastronomy, will be totally renovated while Blumenthal’s Bray team is in Australia.

When the refurbishment is finished, The Fat Duck returns, leaving Dinner in its wake. The Blumenthal restaurants will take over the space currently occupied by Crown’s Breezes.

It is a significant endorsement of Melbourne’s gastronomic credentials.

“What I want the guys at the Duck to see is this incredible hunger the Australian public have for food,” Blumenthal said in Melbourne this morning.

“For the purest cuisine you might go to Kyoto or Tokyo, or for three-star French to Paris, but it’s dull. But in that segment half to two thirds up the ladder, and for diversity, I’d put London, New York, Melbourne and Sydney in the top six cities of the world to eat.”

When deciding where to shift the Fat Duck operation, Blumenthal conteplated cruise ships, Las Vegas, a ski resort and Lake Geneva. “None of them really worked,” he said.

“But over the years continually coming here and making some great friends… I think I’ve spent enough time here, and I’ve got enough friends here, to know the market, and what’s happened in Australia in the past five years is quite remarkable. It’s the biggest food explosion I’ve ever seen in any country.”

Source:  The Australian - 31 March 2014