Fresh tastes (From Ealing Times)

Fresh tastes

2:55pm Wednesday 22nd February 2006 in Food and Drink By Sandra Carter

What's the latest at The Fat Duck and at Beaconsfield's Sacla' UK? Sandra Carter gets a taste of them both.

SACLA' UK couldn't have chosen a more prestigious place to launch their latest upmarket offerings from Italy's cuisine.

Chefs including Raymond Blanc and Antony Worrall Thompson joined food writers at Heston Blumenthal's Hinds Head pub at Bray to sample Sacla's innovations.

We then all trotted along Bray High Street to the world-famous Fat Duck restaurant, where Heston's tasting menu illustrates just why this High Wycombe schoolboy has won a string of awards culminating in an OBE last month.

So first, Sacla's newest. This Italian family company celebrates 70 years this year, while the UK office at Beaconsfield has been promoting pesto and allied treats to the British public for 20. We were here to try Salsa Verde, a traditional sauce from Piedmont made from anchovies, olive oil, vinegar and masses of parsley.

Here it was served as a dip alongside sole goujons, packed with fresh herby flavours. It was hard to believe it came straight from the jar yet tasted so fresh. Keep a jar in the fridge and it will be brilliant for adding instant herby zing to meat or fish.

It will be in the shops in April alongside Salsa Rossa, made from peppers and sun-dried tomatoes.

If you like serving crostini and bruschetta as a snack but can't find time to prepare the toppings, the next innovation is for you: three toppings in jars, ready to pile onto toasted breads.

We tried tomato, olive and grappa served on a herb raviolo which was excellent.

So does Heston's restaurant The Fat Duck deserve its three Michelin stars and being voted the Best Restaurant in the World?

The self-taught chef has created an amazing experience in this little former pub that opens straight onto the street. Everything is exquisite, from the menu card (which has the texture of skin) to the plates and the service.

And the food... Don't come looking for meat and three veg. This is food as an experience, especially if you choose the Tasting Menu.

A stream of extraordinary tiny dishes arrives, each one a surprise for the senses. Two squares of jelly, one beetroot and one orange, but the eye is tricked as the orange tastes of beetroot (orange variety), and the red of blood orange.

Vanilla and cinnamon ice cream: the waiter gives you two plastic puffer jars to puff under your nostrils, one containing cinnamon bark, the other vanilla pods. The aroma through your nose completely changes what you taste in your mouth.

The Fat Duck trademark snail porridge follows, then sardine on toast sorbet, amazing roast foie gras with almond fluid gel and cherry, pigeon with pistachio and cocoa, all created using Heston's revolutionary researches into molecular gastronomy.

For me the best fun came at the end, when we were presented with The Fat Duck Breakfast: a plate of smoked bacon and egg ice cream, pain perdu and caramel with morels, alongside a wacky egg-shaped cup of tea jelly. The flavours throughout were perfectly achieved, the presentation faultless.

Heston is always coming up with new ideas and we were given two fresh from the laboratory: hot and cold tea from the same glass (one liquid is denser than the other so they don't mix), and a caramel wrapped in what looks like cellophane, which you eat without unwrapping. Never a dull moment at The Fat Duck.