Chef aims for a piece of Gordon Ramsay's pie with new restaurant

Chef Heston Blumenthal is set to open a new restaurant in London next year. Photo / Getty Images

Bad news for snails. Heston Blumenthal is to open a new restaurant in London next year with treble the space for diners as at his three-Michelin-star restaurant Fat Duck.

The chef, whose business has been recovering from a nasty bout of diner illness, will open a new eatery at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park in Autumn next year, The Independent has learnt.

The Fat Duck in Bray, Berkshire, has 45 places; the new restaurant will have space for 140 diners.

The long-rumoured move will greatly increase Blumenthal's earning power, putting him into the same multi-restaurant league as chefs such as Gordon Ramsay and Jamie Oliver.

It will also, though, expose him to the bigger financial risk which has proved the undoing of chefs such as Marco Pierre White who expanded after running a single acclaimed restaurant for years.

Blumenthal has run the haute cuisine Fat Duck in the wealthy commuter village of Bray in Berkshire since 1995, turning it into one of the world's finest restaurants. He also co-owns the nearby Hinds Head pub, which specialises in reinventing historic British food.

He has been in discussion about opening at the Mandarin Oriental for months. Seating 140 guests, the new restaurant will serve lunch, dinner and afternoon tea. The kitchen will be headed by Ashley Palmer Watts who has been group executive chef at the Fat Duck for nine years.

Designer Adam Tihany will create the interior using traditional materials such as wood, leather and iron.

Although there was no menu disclosed last night, Blumenthal's spokeswoman indicated the venue would follow in the footsteps of the Fat Duck by featuring the chef's "inimitable style of culinary alchemy with a menu heavily influenced by his ongoing research and discovery of historic British gastronomy".

The Fat Duck is known for its "molecular gastronomy" - a phrase Blumenthal dislikes but which emphasises his scientific approach to taste and flavour.

Dishes on the £125-a-head (NZ$322) tasting menu include "nitro green tea" and bacon and egg ice cream, as well as the mollusc-inspired porridge.

Blumenthal said: "I am thrilled at the prospect of opening a restaurant in such a central London location. I have great respect for the Mandarin Oriental brand and working in partnership with the hotel group is a natural step and one which offers an exciting opportunity."

The Mandarin said it was "delighted" to embark on the new venture, which has been the talk of restaurant circles for months.

"I have always shared his enthusiasm for English recipes and have enjoyed working with him to help develop talented British chefs through the Roux Scholarship programme," said David Nicholls, its corporate director of food, who described himself as a long-time friend of the 43-year-old.

Blumenthal, a former debt collector, has been slowly expanding his commercial activities in recent years, filming two BBC series about his quest for perfection.

Last year he signed a three-series deal with Channel 4. He has also published several books.

He has been hoping a new outlet in the capital will end his reliance on the Fat Duck, which is the basis of his culinary reputation.

The restaurant, one of only three in the UK to have three Michelin stars, was named the second best restaurant in the world in April.

In February the venue was hit by a mystery illness which left more than 400 diners suffering flu-like symptoms, vomiting and diarrhoea.

The highly contagious noro virus is believed to have been responsible for the illness, which cost Blumenthal £100,000 a week.

- INDEPENDENT