When was the last time that food or anything related to food made you cry? I have been watching Masterchef Australia and during each episode, I’m finding myself on the verge of tears, shouting at the television, like a person who needs to get help from a couch.

 

The one where Heston Blumenthal turned up with his seven-page recipes and oversaw the construction of his burger and chips was the one that tipped me over the edge. I cried openly. I wept for Michael and his dead dad. I wept for Heston’s descriptions of food that remind us of our childhood. I wept, quietly and consistently, for television and how bad (Montesin) or brilliant (The Killing) it could be.

 

A few weeks ago I was at Heston Blumenthal’s Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental in London, having, as one does, lunch with The Writer. Dinner, you see, referred to breakfast in old French: disner. That was not the only word that needed translation to contemporary terminology because every single deceptively simple dish on the small but perfect menu needed a translation, first from English to English, then from what I saw in front of me to what I tasted.

 

If you are one of the 30,000 people a day calling Heston’s Fat Duck in Bray trying to get a table to taste snail porridge and listen to the sea on iPod headphones, I suggest you abandon this slightly ludicrous quest and go to Dinner instead. Not that you will find it much easier to get a table really, but if you are in London I suggest you drop in and take your chances. It is right opposite Harvey Nichols so there’s your excuse if you ever needed one.

 

I did not ‘just turn up’ but I saw people doing it and some managed. I went about it the ‘right’ way. I started the process three years ago for Bray. A year and a half ago I gave up when a local critic wrote that that she had been twice. That took all the fun out of it. Food writers have a responsibility: eating out in places like this is not about boastfully mentioning your claims to restaurant fame but encouraging your readers to experience brilliance for themselves.

 

When Dinner opened I started the ordeal again. I needed to try this. I needed to know what the panic and fuss was about. A month ago the e-mail from one of my contacts in the UK came in: ‘We’ve done it. This is the date I have for you.’ It happened to be weekend when I was going to be in London judging the Guild of Food Writers Awards. I screamed at my monitor, hard and consistently. I called The Writer. I tweeted and status updated it. Then I fainted.

 

The Mandarin Oriental is old posh. I love these hotels, with their bellboys and their deep oriental rugs and their concierges who actually know what they are doing, a rarity in London these days. I loved the space at Dinner itself even more for one thing, and one thing only: it is not frightening.

 

In fact, it is very comfortable, has acres of natural light, the staff smile and are generally happy and enthused, rather than snobby. There is no drama. There is no dress code or fustiness of any kind imposed on the diner. The food, when it turns up, spot on time and exquisitely presented, is accessible. There are no little bits of things you cannot understand. It looks edible. The clientele on a Sunday lunch was young and vibrant. We felt right at home.

 

The drama, in fact, is pure Heston and starts the moment you cut into that perfect ‘mandarin’ in your Meat Fruit and it turns out to be a lightly jellified, naturally orange structure, holding the smoothest and most velvety quantity of chicken liver parfait. I am still trying to figure out how they brilliantly counted the quantity of pate’ that a diner normally puts on their toast so that I had exactly the same quantity of toast slices I needed to shovel my parfait and not a crunchy bit less or more.

 

Every single item on Dinner’s menu has been spectacularly studied so that when you get it it looks deceptively simple. TW had the Roast Marrowbone from 1720 (the recipe not the actual bone) – a notch up from Fergus Henderson’s St. John, the bone was split wide open, the marrow sitting in comfortable parts inside, the parsley, anchovy and deep tinge of mace umami to the pickled vegetables’ sour. If you ever think ‘I don’t like offal’ then have this: it may not change your life, but it will certainly change your thinking.

 

The most difficult thing you will encounter here is choosing. There isn’t a single dish, from the 1390s Rice and Flesh to the 1940s Cod in Cider that I did not want to try. I also wanted the Wing Rib of Black Angus but it was for two and TW wanted to have two different mains. I don’t know how I stopped myself from ordering that huge slab of cow for myself.

 

TW’s Spiced Pigeon (c. 1780) was salty, fatty, beautifully gamey meat, my Powdered Duck (c. 1670) was unctuous, soft, padded flesh (‘powdered’ is an old term and here refers to salting, brining for six hours then slow cooking in duck fat for nine hours) with just the right quantity of dark, thin jus adorning it. Considering that Heston’s tomato ketchup takes three kilos of tomatoes to produce 40 grams of sauce, I cannot begin to imagine how deceptively complicated that jus must have been.

 

We were lucky. Right behind us, through massive sheets of glass, the entire kitchen brigade was visible, working non-stop. On the other side of the table we could see the hotel garden overlooking the magnificent green of Hyde Park. The only reason I did not think I was dead and in heaven was because everything was way too good and I couldn’t see 75% of Malta’s politicians anywhere.

 

And the chips, I hear you asking. Well yes, we did have them. Produced using Heston’s classic thrice-cooked method (boil quietly, fry to paleness in oil, then fry again to crunchy, golden perfection) they proved beautiful in their own right. They’re finger licking fun and laughter. The pommes purée was liquid velvet: I would have bathed in it had I not eaten every single drop.

 

My friend and food writer Alex English, writer at The Observer and the rather brilliantly-named Domestic Sluttery (follow her on twitter) said, while we were both contemplating getting very drunk and approaching Jay Rayner (we did the former, not the latter) at the Guild Awards dinner, that I should go for the Tipsy Cake. The nice thing about being around food writers is that you don’t question stuff like this: if she said it, I would go for it.

 

I have now lost my religion. This was not a cake: it was an epiphany steeped in alcohol, lighter than the wings of fairies, tasting and feeling divine. TW’s Chocolate Bar had equal amounts of divinity bestowed upon its haloed head, the chocolate smoother than the slopes of the Alps in winter, the ginger ice-cream all essence of root.

 

To make everything even easier, we never choose wine in these places: there are stunningly good sommeliers who will make your life simple and fun by choosing your wine to go with each dish, which is why we ended up experimenting with Malbec from Argentina and Tributo from Portugal’s Tego as well as Rui Reguinga Winemaker’s finest. I’m not a wine person but I could taste the sommelier’s cleverness right there on my tongue.

 

Just like you know how good a manager is from how well somewhere works in his or her absence, at Dinner, Heston hardly ever makes an appearance. His Executive Chef is the venerated-in-his-own-right Ashley Palmer-Watts. We could see him buzzing away at the passe. He will take Heston to his next three Michelin stars, no doubt.

 

He looks exactly like a Masterchef contestant and considering the level witnessed this year (and apparently last, which I did not watch yet), who knows where he was discovered?

 

This, though, is by the bye. This review is about one thing, and one thing only: it hinges on Masterchef’s take-the-plunge-and-get-into-food-in-a-big-way motif: if you as much as love eating, love good food and never have a cappuccino after 11am, then get on that waiting list.

 

It will be worth every day you wait and will make your life until that happens worth living. Every day after that will be about returning. I have started the countdown.

 

 

For the lowdown, the detail of how and what and of course, to get on that list, click here http://www.dinnerbyheston.com/

 

Worrying about cost? Don’t. Starters are an average £15 and mains £30, with desserts at around £10. Never was money better spent.