Four masterchefs share their stories.

Heston Blumenthal dishes out divine advice as flamboyantly as he designs his food pairings. Ananya Bahl met the chef when he visited India last month.

CHEF HESTON BLUMENTHAL— British celebrity chef, author, and TV show host—belies every preconceived notion of his star status. When I meet him at Romano’s in JW Marriott Mumbai Sahar for Masters of Marriott, he immediately puts me at ease with an experiment. First, he asks me to think of someone I love and take a sip of red wine, followed by another sip after I’ve thought of someone unpleasant. The same wine tastes smoother in the first instance, and more acidic and tougher to swallow in the next. “I find that [this experiment] works for food and drink with a spectrum of flavour profiles... we don’t realise the difference our feelings make to the taste of things.” Blumenthal’s gastronomic adventures boil down to one thing: question everything. And he wears a t-shirt with the same words so you can't miss it. Excerpts from our conversation:

Don’t you need a childlike curiosity to question everything?

I’ve always said this: get kids into the kitchens! Children have fewer defence mechanisms at play.

This makes it easier to question and come up with new flavour combinations that you didn’t think of earlier. It’s important to learn from their responses to taste.

History features heavily in your menus, and two of your restaurants are housed in regenerated historic venues.

In the process of being more selfaware, I can continually revisit the past to go forward... I see cooking as a means of time travel. The Fat Duck (thefatduck.co.uk) is in a building constructed in 1548—it is tiny, all I could afford then. I feel like human beings perform well under pressure, in a restricted space. Of course, this is easier said in hindsight.

Is there an Indian dish you love? If you could design a sensory experience around it, what would it be?

Auditory perceptions have a huge impact on one’s taste buds. Once, we tried to bring the sound of the waves from the seaside town where our guests grew up to help them draw from their memories and heighten the tasting experience. I’ve grown up with Indian food and British curry, and I love eating with my fingers. I walked into Peshawari recently, and the ambient music helped me go back to my childhood, because going to get curry with my parents was considered a treat. I once put up a curry house in a townhouse in Bolton with Bollywood dancing and a huge elephant figurine, and all the guests were clapping away!

Any chance we will see The Fat Duck in India soon?

Currently, I have a huge project on hand: it’s of mind-boggling proportions, and I can’t talk about it. Think of it as a new and improved Fat Duck. Once that’s up and running, hopefully, we can bring it here too!

Chef Blumenthal is known for his scientific and creative style of cooking.

Blumenthal's restaurant, The Fat Duck, in Bray, England.