Heston Blumenthal

Famous for going against the grain with his inventive recipes, world-renowned chef Heston Blumenthal knows what ingredients work in both food and business; his passion for gastronomic innovation, resulting in four critically-acclaimed restaurants and numerous TV appearances, successfully whets the appetite of his keynote and after dinner audiences.

A: £25k and over

Keynote Speakers Food & Drink, Innovation

Good food and good business? Audiences should tuck their bibs in as they can expect to fill up on the ingredients for both in an evening with Heston Blumenthal, the pioneer of multisensory cooking.

Synonymous with bizarre-recipes-that-somehow-work (take a bow, bacon-and-egg ice cream), the world-renowned chef is the fruitful proprietor of four restaurants in the UK.

As well as British plates, Heston has served up his palate-pushing ideas in several TV productions, such as Heston’s Fantastical Food (2012) and Heston’s Great British Food (2014), in several books, and in columns for The Guardian, The Times, T2 and GQ. In 2014, he won the prestigious accolade for Work on British Food at The Guild of Food Writers Awards.

Heston’s appetite for the food industry began at 16 when his taste buds were blown away at a restaurant in Provence, France. Over the next decade, he took on a number of different jobs, from salesman to debt collector, while he spent his evenings honing his skills in French cuisine.

It was a pivotal moment when he sat down to read Harold McGee’s On Food and Cooking: the Science and Lore of the Kitchen. Inspired by the scientific method of cooking, he began to follow his gut and challenge current kitchen practices.

After years of researching new ways to whip up treats, he decided to buy his own pub, The Fat Duck, in Bray. Heston’s take on French food was a gastronomic triumph, but not without hard graft in the kitchen where he spent 24 hours a day. Following its first Michelin Star in 1999, Heston was able extend the menu to include more of the recipes he had created: by 2004, that star had tripled in record-breaking time.

He has since opened three more restaurants in the UK, including the Hinds Head and The Crown at Bray. His first venture in London at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park—Dinner by Heston Blumenthal—was named the best restaurant in the world by The Times food critic Giles Coren, and in 2014 it received a second Michelin star.

A perfectionist and a visionary, it’s not just the thought of Heston’s triple-cooked chips and snail porridge that will tickle the taste buds of corporate audiences: the chef has combined his passion for food with his scientific and business acumen to create an inspirational recipe for success.

His speaking topics include:

- Chemistry and creativity in the kitchen