I mean where do you even begin with this? The Fat Duck is one of those places that is so ingrained in the culinary public consciousness as being “the place” that it’s hard to imagine it could ever live up to that, especially after months of waiting for it to come around once we’d decided we were doing it. But yet, somehow it does. From start to finish in what turns out to be a 4 hour journey, this is impeccable. And the most exciting thing about it is just how fun and playful it is, in opposition to the easy dismissal of fine dining being all snobby French waiters looking down on you and twenty courses of foams etc. We decide, on the drinks front, to take it comparatively gentle - a glass of champagne when we arrive (it is a special occasion, after all), but going for the non-alcoholic drinks pairing, which is just hit after hit, from dealchoholised rosé to a Merlot grape, assam tea, bay leaf, and rosemary infusion that has the aroma of tomato juice but tastes like a completely different drink, so much sweeter. The food journey starts with a liquid nitrogren aperitif (Aperol Spritz for me), a paradox of texture in a single bite. We’re then presented with an aerated beetroot macaron with horseradish cream, then a red cabbage gazpacho with pomegranate ice cream. Then, it turns out, the actual courses begin. And where better to start than breakfast, getting to pick out a variety pack cereal box which somehow turns into a full English. I’m captivated from the first bite. But it’s after the third course, having experienced the Sound Of the Sea with its edible sand and the foam of the sea and some gorgeous tuna, that I take off my headphones playing the seashore soundscape and tell Alasdair that I’ve found god. Before that, a crab ice cream cone, filled with passionfruit and vanilla jelly, the most perfectly formed little thing you’ve ever laid eyes on. We eat our way through a foggy walk in the woods, a lamb dish where the meat and fat are cooked separately and then reattached with edible glue, and the most delightfully bamboozling cheese and grapes I’ve ever eaten in my life. We’re given eyemasks, offered some Horlicks, and played a lullabye to help us fall asleep for dessert and wake to find a pillow floating in mid-air, our milk and cookies (meringue with a milk ice cream centre) waiting for us atop, and pillows of sponge and vanilla pannacotta on a base of nitrogened-up Greek yoghurt. And then. And then the sweet shop comes out for our petit fours and oh my word it’s a sight. Of course it is, they’ve got a mechanical sweet shop model, opening up to reveal four sweets for which Alasdair has the (incredibly strong) digestif pairing, and I opt for a hot chocolate and a glass of PX (the greatest testament to the evening: I have no qualms when the bill arrives and it turns out that glass was £48). I spent pretty much every moment slack-jawed with childlike glee. Our new friend Alex, the assistant manager, told us that we must come back at Christmas, for what is admittedly the most expensive Christmas dinner in Britain. It’s hard to say I’m not tempted. An absolute treat of an experience that is one of the best meals I’ve ever had.