Smash hit

But while Blumenthal’s brain was bulging, his bank account wasn’t, and the restaurant dream remained just that. It was lucky Susanna — his wife and mother of his three children — was so understanding: “She is the single biggest reason for my success,” he says. “We were saving, saving, saving then going to France and blowing the money eating. She was a nurse and had never experienced fine dining but she loved it, too. Our mates thought it absurd.

We even flogged the car — an awful, lilac-blue Proton — so we could go to France. I didn’t have a plan, but as long as I was cooking, she was happy.”

He almost opened a restaurant in South Africa — he had family there — because of its lower start-up costs. “It was the only time my wife put her foot down. She didn’t know how much time we could spend together.”

Instead in 1995 he sold their house, moved in with his ever-supportive parents and bought a local restaurant, the Fat Duck. “It was not easy with a newborn, asking your wife to give up the family home and your security. We sunk everything into it. It came close to going under several times. I am not the world’s greatest businessman and I made numerous mistakes but at least I had power to make my own decisions. I was determined that if I failed it wouldn’t be due to lack of effort.”

He smiles. “I kept making false economies. I bought this old Metro for a hundred quid that had been painted with emulsion and had one door red and one green. It had been a plumber’s van and still had old pipes in the back. We had to take my kids to the doctor with suspected carbon monoxide poisoning. And it blew up after two months.”

He is, in the best sense, obsessive. He can remember the year he was awarded his first (of three) Michelin stars (1999) more readily than the year his first child was born (1993).

But to succeed, he had to compromise. “It was steak and chips to start with.” As he grew more adventurous, conservative customers balked. “It was quite a challenge to make people eat crab ice cream.” Some would study the menu and then stalk out. “The open-mindedness of the customer is far greater now. People thought they were coming to a village pub for a roast.

“There is no point making people eat something they don’t enjoy. But the ideal customer is one who starts off sceptical but is won round.”

The knocks, though, were hard. “I am not the world’s most confident person,” he confides. “I do care what people think. I haven’t chosen the right path in that respect; I haven’t made life easy for myself.”

Why this lack of confidence? “The first three months I had a Michelin star I went around saying, ‘We don’t deserve it’. My wife said, ‘Shut up, you do’. I have this desire to keep improving, so I find fault. Being branded number one restaurant in the world is actually very humbling.” Yeah, right. “No, really. I thought before maybe I should try to seem a bit more arrogant but I would find it very difficult; it’s not me.”

So we should not be braced for his version of Hell’s Kitchen? “No, I don’t think I’d be any good. Television forces people to be larger than life. I would be too shy. And I like asking questions, to keep learning; people with big egos might not want to look unsure.”

You can overstretch yourself. “Exactly; it’s a good point. I came very, very close to opening a restaurant in Tokyo (purely, he admits, for financial reasons), but at the last minute I got the heebie- jeebies. Then this place came up.” He is referring to the Hinds Head, a lovely pub he has bought near the Fat Duck.

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