Could I borrow your phone, please?
elimite 5 percent Upstairs in a tiny kitchen liberally spattered with intriguing notes saying things such as baby snowball!, quail egg layers and siphon mash!, while cries of ‘Chef! Your liquid nitrogen order has arrived’ ring in the air, Otto Romer, the project manager at the Fat Duck, Jonathan Moore, Waitrose’s executive chef, and Manisha Kotecha, of Waitrose product development, have laid out a selection of canapes, smoked salmon and chocolate mousse cake. Blumenthal is late, delayed by traffic, and waiting for him to arrive is a bit like waiting for a member of royalty to put in an appearance – slightly nerve-racking. When eventually Blumenthal appears, dressed all in black with fetching leather elbow patches, shaven head and the trademark flashy specs, he and the Waitrose team get down to a serious discussion of acidity, the colour of peas and the starchiness or otherwise of various sauces. A ham hock terrine gets short shrift and it transpires that the box of chocolates has been back and forth several times until perfection was finally reached. ‘Sometimes we can do tastings all day,’ Blumenthal says, ‘back to back. It’s hard to do, especially as swallowing is part of the process – not like a wine tasting where you can spit it out. You really have to eat everything.’