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THE beginning of the year is a nerve-racking time for British restaurateurs. The new Michelin Guide appears at the end of January to gratify their aspirations, or confirm their fears, and this year's 26th UK edition was no exception. Among the high-profile winners were The Fat Duck, nestling beside Michel Roux's three-star Waterside Inn at Bray on Thames, and Chez Bruce on Wandsworth Common, where Bruce Poole plies his trade on the site of Hervey's, where the explosive young Marco Pierre White first sprang to notice. Each having won his first cooking star in this year's Michelin, it seemed imperative to check them without delay, especially as I had been remiss enough never to have visited either of them.
I went to both with an Irish foodie friend, Catherine Kelly, and as my sister Elizabeth lives almost within waddling distance of The Fat Duck, it seemed appropriate to invite her to dine with us there: after all, on such a voyage of discovery three tongues would probably turn out to be more useful than two. The Duck's ground-floor interior had a pleasing informality. A large room with a circular bar on one side, it has mainly circular tables of the garden variety, with round-seated, rather hard though cushioned garden chairs. The tables are unclothed and well spaced, and lighting is soft; the staff, presided over by Max, late of Marco Pierre White's Oak Room, are young, knowledgable and friendly. Chefproprietor Heston Blumenthal, still in his thirties and largely self-taught, pops in and out of the kitchen, and, if things are peaceful there, is delighted to settle down and discuss other eating places, especially...