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Heston Blumenthal's plan to personalise Fat Duck diners' menus is in bad taste

Harry Wallop

Heston Blumenthal wants to customise menus for diners.
Heston Blumenthal wants to customise menus for diners.Patrick Scala

When Heston Blumenthal reopens his Fat Duck restaurant after a six-month refurbishment, the menu will be individually tailored, thanks to his team researching diners when they book. Should we cheer or fear this?

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the man who concocted snail porridge wants to take fine dining to another level. Yet Blumenthal's latest innovation leaves a rather odd taste in the mouth.

It is a dish of George Orwell's 1984 with a Maoist mousseline on the side. Less soup a la grec, and more snoop a la Google. He says he has been talking to Derren Brown, the illusionist, "about how we could find out things about people without them being too aware". The intention, it appears, is to present customers with a dish that takes them back to some private, childhood fantasy.

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But Blumenthal's sinister-seeming action is actually part of an insidious trend: mass personalisation (or what you and I would call snooping). The idea is to sell you more stuff by probing into your personal data. This is why shops ask you for your postcode at the till.

Businesses say you will receive adverts, service and even meals that you really want. Yet it feels creepy. (So too does Googling customers to see if they are "interesting enough" to be given a table – as one restaurant chain apparently does.)

Blumenthal should know that eating, at its best, is serendipitous. No amount of stalking can produce a genuinely joyful plate of food.

Daily Telegraph, London

Harry Wallop is a Daily Telegraph columnist.

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