Dinner by Heston Blumenthal is a 2 Michelin star restaurant within the Mandarin Oriental hotel, on London’s Knightsbridge.  Although the celebrity chef Blumenthal is best known for molecular gastronomy and cutting edge cooking techniques, for Dinner he has curated and updated historic British recipes.  And by ‘historic’ I mean going back as far as the 14th century!  Let me begin by declaring that I have some ‘baggage’ with Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, in that I’ve been twice before and I didn’t really like it. But I booked to eat there a third time, in June 2021, simply because my hotel booking at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park included a Food&Beverage credit, so I figured it a good idea to use the credit in the hotel restaurant, whilst checking if my tastes had changed since I was last at Dinner.

Mr A and I kicked off the evening with a Negroni in the bar adjoining the restaurant. They tasted fine, but each glass contained multiple regular ice cubes, rather than the single giant cube used at most sophisticated bars around the world.  We were given our own little bowls of green olives and mixed nuts, which were replaced when we finished them -most generous!  The bar itself had a lot of faux-looking dark wood panelling and brown chairs and tables, which I found a bit dour.  And as we were still under some pandemic restrictions the bar wasn’t busy and consequently the atmosphere didn’t have its usual buzz. 6/10

After our aperitifs we were shown to our table right in the back corner of the dining room, by a large window which looked out to Hyde Park.  Dark brown tones dominated, as tables do not have table cloths.

As I studied the menu (a la carte only, though a tasting menu is available if you’re on the ‘chefs table’) I realised that it was exactly the same as it always is; this place doesn’t do seasonality or innovation!  With Dinner’s menu of historic dishes (each has the date of the recipe printed next to it) it’s not easy to recognise things you like, or might be interested in trying.  I really think a tasting menu would be a good idea at Dinner, so diners could be taken through a selection of the dishes without having to worry about making a tricky decision on individual plates.  When we asked our waiter for guidance he simply pointed us towards the restaurant’s signature dishes, such as “meat fruit” which has appeared in countless magazines since Dinner first opened.  So Mr A and I ordered 3 starters to share, and a different main course each.  At this point we also had to say if we wanted their spit-roast pineapple dish for dessert, because, as we were told, “each pineapple is roasted to order”.

Dinner does not offer canapés or amuse bouches, so all we had before the meal was one type of bread and one butter, which tasted fine, but again this fell far short of bread ‘courses’ at other Michelin starred restaurants. 7/10

Our three starters arrived together. The famous “Meat Fruit” is a chicken liver parfait in the shape of a mandarin orange, covered by a mandarin jelly, with a plastic (!) decorative stalk and leaf, simply served with a slice of toasted sourdough.  I love a chicken parfait, but this one didn’t seem sufficiently set; it was closer to a mousse. This dish was novel and interesting when Dinner first opened in 2011, but it’s really rather dated now, so I question its £24.50 price tag.  For that, a 2 star kitchen should be able to create an edible leaf instead of using plastic! 7/10

Our second shared starter was called “The Truffle”; a ping-pong ball sized sphere of mushroom parfait, rolled in black truffle, it did actually resemble a truffle.  The only accompaniment was a slice of griddled sourdough.  Once again, although the dish was tasty, I felt it’s presentation was pretty lazy, and I couldn’t see how a small ball of mushroom parfait could cost £28. 7/10

The third of our starters, “Roast Scallops” looked more like it’s £28 price tag and a proper starter dish. Two scallops, on point, were accompanied by charred broccoli, fresh peas and broad beans, grilled cucumber and cucumber ketchup.  A good, fresh, summery dish. 9/10

Although our waiter knew we were sharing these starters, we weren’t given extra plates for the purpose, which is poor service at this level.

At this stage we walked over to take a look at the open kitchen. The maitre d’ joined us and gave us quite a detailed commentary on how the kitchen was laid out, and who was doing what.  When we returned to our table we saw that our napkins hadn’t been folded; something which normally appears de rigueur in starred restaurants.

I’d ordered “Chicken & Asparagus” for my main course.  I received a super-tender and moist cylinder of rolled breast meat topped with chicken skin crumb, alongside two asparagus spears, fresh peas, a pea puree, drops of lemon gel and pieces of hen of the woods mushroom.  My love of the latter was a motivator to order this dish, so I was pretty disappointed to only get a few tiny pieces.  But on the whole this was a good quality and tasty dish. 8/10

Mr A had chosen “Powdered duck breast”, which consisted of two slices of on point duck breast, roast and pickled beetroot and “spiced umbles”.  We had to consult Google to learn that “umbles” is offal and you can see in the photo that slices of duck heart are on top of the breast slices.  I wasn’t comfortable with this – when a chef knows the great flavours and textures in offal I feel he should shout about it, not hide the fact away from conservative palates.  I’ve no idea where the “powdered” part of the title came from, but this was a very good dish, especially the rich duck jus. 9/10

As at the start of the meal, there were no surprise extras in the form of a pre-dessert.  I decided not to order a dessert, so we shared the “Tipsy Cake” we had pre-ordered, but there was till a bit of a wait to get it!  And thankfully, this time we did get extra plates to share things.  In a small Staub oven dish there was a delicious and moist sugared brioche cake with a vanilla custard sauce. I couldn’t taste any alcohol, so I can’t tell you why it’s called “tipsy cake”.  On the side was a strip of spit-roasted pineapple.  What happened to the rest of the pineapple, which was supposedly roasted to order??  It was a nice dish to share; I might have found it too sweet to eat all of it myself.  9/10

We had thought that was it, but our waiter said he wanted to bring us a surprise, because I was a “Fan of MO”, and after a few minutes he appeared with a white bespoke made trolley carrying a food mixer and the things.  He then proceeded to make us ice creams using liquid nitrogen!

The ice cream was very good, and this little piece of table-side theatre brought a pleasing end to an otherwise disappointing meal.  I imagine ‘regular’ diners who aren’t “fans of MO” would be disappointed at not getting this treat.  I wasisappointed because I didn’t like the 10 year old menu, I didn’t like the small lazy starters, I didn’t appreciate the lack of amuse bouches, and when paying prices at this level I expect tablecloths. (tablecloths are more hygienic in a pandemic, and they help absorb noise). I didn’t like the dour decor and found that the wooden floor and tables made the restaurant unnecessarily noisy.  Finally, I don’t like dressing up for an expensive restaurant, only to find dress codes are not enforced and people at the next table are dressed very casually (probably a hotel restaurant thing).

This was the most disappointing 2 Michelin star meal I’ve had. How did it earn these stars?!

So no, I have no plans to return to Dinner by Heston Blumenthal. 7/10

PS we did get a petit four each, despite not ordering coffee or tea. It was a pleasant short pastry tartlet with salted caramel and chocolate ganache. 8/10