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Want to eat at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck Melbourne restaurant? Fat chance ...

Jessica Wright
Jessica Wright

Heston Blumenthal
Heston Blumenthal Angela Wylie

As the saying goes in the entertainment industry: Never work with children or animals.

Or celebrity chefs.

Heston Blumenthal is one of the most personable and charming cooks in an industry notorious for overblown egos and fiery temperaments, (g'day Gordon).

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But at Crown Towers on Monday even the Fat Duck owner's patience was stretched - with the most comical of outcomes.

At a press conference held in a swish boardroom at Crown, in an attempt to smooth over public relations which saw nearly 240,000 people miss out on a seat at his yet to be opened temporary Fat Duck Melbourne restaurant in the Crown complex, Blumenthal called the last 13 successful applicants to notify them of their booking.

Just 14,000 diners will have the chance to eat the molecular gastronomy degustation ($500 per head, wine not included).

What should have been a straightforward photo and press op quickly turned into a comedy of errors.

Blumenthal's first call was to a bloke who sounded mildly pleased to take the call - before informing the uber chef he didn't really want the table as his girlfriend had already secured a table.

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The second call proceeded as follows:

"Hi, it's Heston Blumenthal."

"Click."

The disbelieving person on the other end of the line then switched his mobile off for good measure.

(The ensuing voicemail will be something to treasure).

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It took more than nine hang-ups, mishaps, unanswered or engaged phone calls to finally connect the under pressure chef with a happy customer.

Jane, who spoke with a British accent, positively squealed with delight.

Speaking from a mine in Queensland, she gushed to Blumenthal:

"You have made my day much, much, much improved. Thank you so much."

A happy and very relieved Blumenthal said he was counting the days before he could move his entire 3 Michelin-starred operation to Melbourne for six months from February.

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"I love this city, this country, just everything about Australia," he said.

Acknowledging the huge compliment he had paid to the Victorian capital by personally choosing it as his temporary culinary home - Blumenthal had offers from literally every major capital in the world to house Fat Duck while the original in Britain undergoes renovation - the "mad scientist" chef said it was well deserved.

"Melbourne people are incredibly open to new food and they are adventurous," he said.

"The food and produce is incredible here. You could come for two months, eat out every lunch and dinner and still have so much to choose from."

With the 45-seater restaurant (plus a four-person chef's table) only here for six months, most of the many thousands of people who hoped to get a seat missed out on their chance to experience Sounds of the Sea and other iconic Blumenthal dishes, a fact the chef readily and regretfully acknowledged.

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"The ballot system was always going to be a problem due to the sheer numbers of people who applied," he said.

"Out of 90,000 plus entries which represented 257,000 people about 500 weren't contacted with an answer either way as the email has gone to spam, the details have been filled out incorrectly or any other of the technical glitches that happen when working with computers on this scale.

"At one stage we were receiving 34,000 calls to the Duck a day for these bookings. The demand was overwhelming.

"So it was very important for me to contact at least a few of the successful people to congratulate and thank them for going through the process."

Those who were successful in their application to Crown to eat at Fat Duck Melbourne will have to pay for their table in full, within the next four weeks, to confirm their reservation.

Blumenthal said he was nervous ("means I'll never be complacent") but promised diners an experience they will "hopefully never forget".

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Jessica WrightJessica Wright is a breaking news reporter for The Age. Previously she was the national political correspondent for The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age and a breaking news reporter for the <i>National Times</i>.

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