15 Postcards
Step inside the opulent Mandarin Oriental for a culinary adventure at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, where inventive British classics shine in an elegant setting.
"A restaurant offering dishes inspired by England’s oldest recipe books, with a great view of Hyde Park." - The MICHELIN Guide UK Editorial Team
"The menu may take inspiration from one of England's oldest recipe books, The Forme of Cury, but there is still something decidedly 'Heston' about the modern and creative dishes on show at this restaurant housed inside The Mandarin Oriental Hotel. You need only take one look at dishes like the signature illusory 'Meat Fruit' to see the eponymous chef's playful influence. Crucially, the flavours of the creations are sublime too, with the aforementioned dish providing a smooth, utterly delicious chicken liver parfait, regardless of its fun, fruity form." - Michelin Inspector
"The Knightsbridge hotel restaurant with Blumenthal’s name on it has two stars." - Eater Staff
"No one pulls off history and wizardry like the chefs at Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. Their update on ye olde meat fruit deploys smooth chicken liver parfait as the core, a mandarin jelly “peel,” and a stalk of ruscus as the stem, presented on a slice of grilled sourdough brushed with herb oil." - Adam Coghlan, James Hansen
"It may be called “Dinner,” but this restaurant is open for lunch, as well. The title harkens back to a time before electricity, when sunset forced “dinner” to be taken closer to midday, a time that also produced the dishes available at this establishment. Created by British celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal and a team of food historians, each menu item notes the year in which it was created, such as the “Roast Marrowbone Royale (c. 1720)” or “Roast Halibut and Green Sauce (c. 1440).” It’s an edible reenactment of early British cuisine that would be gimmicky if it weren’t so sincere, and so sincerely good: Dinner has received two Michelin stars and was rated the fifth best restaurant in the world in 2014. Dinner’s most acclaimed dish is a starter called “Meat Fruit (c. 1500),” in which a perfect sphere of chicken-liver-and-foie-gras parfait is double-dipped in an orange pool of liquified mandarin jelly and pierced with a ruscus stalk, presenting itself as an utterly convincing mandarin orange, despite its innards-stuffed innards. Many dishes reintroduce guests to once-standard meat options like a “Savory Porridge (c. 1660)” with frog’s legs and fennel, or the “Spiced Squab Pigeon (c. 1780)” that’s cooked with onions, ale, and malt; others employ curious historical ingredients like the “Roast Cod (c. 1830)” with cockle ketchup and seaweed butter. Floor-to-ceiling windows offer guests views of Hyde Park—aptly, King Henry VIII’s former hunting grounds—or into the appropriately equipped kitchen. In keeping with an air of antiquity, Blumenthal installed a functioning pulley system modeled after a version used by the Royal Court as well as a roasting spit over an open fire for the sole purpose of roasting the pineapples for one dessert, the “Tipsy Cake (c. 1810).” Finally, you don’t have to be medieval British royalty to eat like it." - ATLAS_OBSCURA