The best restaurant in the world? Without doubt.

The Fat Duck. A name that is already legendary amongst the culinary set. Ranked the No. 1 restaurant in the world by the World Press Organisation, and numerous other list makers, this unassuming former pub in the picturesque Thames-side village of Bray is a fantasy destination for anyone who takes his food seriously.

That said, I approached my initiation to the gastronomic Everest with sceptical curiosity as much as excitement. How could any restaurant deserve to be best on the planet, ahead of millions … probably billions … of choices? Wunderkind chef Heston Blumenthal is known for his science and his bizarre taste combinations, “cooking” with liquid nitrogen and inventing bacon and egg ice cream. It would be interesting, but would it be tasty?

Far, far beyond tasty. This was the finest meal of my life, leaving everything else miles behind in the dust. Blumenthal plays with your tastebuds the way a master musician treats an instrument, pulling out potential you didn’t know was there. Flavours roll through your mouth in carefully calculated waves, sometimes complementing, sometimes clashing, always carefully planned for maximum impact. And it wasn’t just a meal. It was an experience. Part theatre, part spa, part trip down memory lane as you encounter childhood foods cleverly re-interpreted for the gourmand.

Thanks to my kind hosts from Haymarket publishing, we indulged in the chef’s tasting menu, giving ourselves entirely to Blumenthal’s genius. The man can have control of my senses any time he wants.

We started with a procession of tiny dishes, each calculated to bring your senses to life. And I mean ALL the senses. Part of the essence of this place is the belief that taste and the other senses are entwined, and the best experiences link them. So first up is the liquid nitrogen; a magnificent piece of theatre to start the show. Our server (an elegant and beautiful girl we decided had the bearing of some exotic African princess) wheeled a cart up to our table holding a thermally insulated bowl, a chrome jug and another container a bit like the cans you squirt whipped cream out of. First the liquid nitrogen, 190 degrees below zero, goes into the bowl. Then a mousse-like mixture gets pumped out of the container onto a long spoon. Then the server lowers the spoon into the liquid nitrogen. As a white fog spills over the rim of the bowl, the mousse freezes instantly in this tasteless chemical. And then, instantly, to your plate and your mouth, where the combined flavours of tea and lime explode in your mouth, complimented by the odd textural sensation of a crisp yet cold outer layer followed by a gooey interior.

That’s one hell of a start. And you have 14 more courses to come. Describing every one might be a bit tedious, even to fans of the exotic, so let me limit myself to a few of the more mind-bending dishes.

The opening salvo of starters culminated in the woods. In the centre of the table, our server placed a square platter, about three inches deep and covered with a rolling turf of oak moss. Lying atop this moss was a little plastic box for each of us, of the type you get breath-sweetening strips from. Except that this little box had just one strip within. Put it in your mouth, and your taste buds are suddenly infused with the taste of oak moss. At the same time, the server pours something in a crystal stream onto the moss, releasing a roiling white fog that extends over the table and falls down the sides, sending up the loamy, rich sent of the deepest forest. As the mist clears, the waiters place the corresponding dish in front of you: a wafer-thin slice of toast spread with black truffles, accompanying a tiny parfait comprised of layers of pureed pea, quail jelly and langoustine cream, topped by a quail-egg sized portion of foie gras. Blumenthal had magically allowed us to consume an entire eco-system.

And if the trick works once, why not switch environments and do it again? Several courses further on came the mysteriously titled “Sound of the Sea”. This began with a large, beautifully polished conch shell being placed ceremoniously before each of us. A pair of headphones crept incongruously from its mother-of-pearl interior.

Our instructions were simple. Put on the headphones. Listen. Eat what we put before you. We’ll explain later.

The headphones brought a crashing ocean to our brains. It was a realistic and balanced recording of waves, wind and sea birds, instantly transporting you to the coast. It was extremely odd to sit there at first, next to your dining partners but isolated by this wall of sound. But once you overcame the oddity of it, a marvellous lethargy swept over you. Few things, after all, are as relaxing as the sound of the shore. And then, just as you were getting lulled into a trance-like state, the shore was placed before you.

The plate, if it can be called that, was a shallow box about a foot long and eight inches wide, filled with sand. A glass plate was suspended about an inch above that. And on that plate sat a delicately composed assortment of mussels, oysters, eel and various edible seaweeds, artfully surrounded by a broth-based white foam. It looked as if Poseidon had arranged to have dinner roll right up to the beach. And just like the forest that had gone before, the taste here transcended mere food and turned your taste buds into transport, placing you at the shore with your toes in the metaphorical sand.

Less showy but equally inventive, and delicious, dishes included snail porridge with joselito ham and shaved fennel, salmon poached in a thin coat of savoury liquorice and ballotine of Anjou pigeon.

The transition to the sweet courses started with “hot and iced tea”. A clear glass cup set before you, with instructions to pick up and drink as is. And then the odd sensation of hot tea on the left side of your mouth, with cool, thick, sweet tea on the right. No visible difference between the sides, but an extreme one in your mouth.

Blumenthal’s trademark bacon and egg ice cream was another piece of theatre. This time, he’s playing not just with your senses but with our idea of what’s appropriate to eat, when. Who says breakfast food is just for breakfast? This set of courses begins with a tiny bowl of parsnip flakes … looking like corn flakes but bursting with the earthy sweetness of the root vegetable. Then out comes your waiter with a cart topped with a copper burner and cooker, of the type often used to cook food at your table in French restaurants. But the burners aren’t working today, he explains. So out comes the liquid nitrogen. From a completely ordinary box of eggs one is lifted, cracked and “scrambled” in the nitrogen. (Thanks to Blumenthal’s Christmas special, I had already learned this mystery. The eggs are pierced, blown out and then refilled by syringe with the custard mixture that becomes the egg ice cream.) The egg ice cream, looking exactly like the perfect scrambled egg, comes out of the copper pot and gets laid atop a slice of sweet, sticky French bread and a thin, almost translucent, slice of dried bacon. The taste? Sensational. Like the best scrambled eggs you’ve ever had, but with the odd confusion of cold and the high fat lustre of ice cream on your tongue. The savoury flavour of the egg combined with the sweet of the bread and the bacon was exquisite. We all agreed that of all the dishes we tried, this was the one we could easily have consumed in double quantities!

Heading towards the end now, we were shown the hidden sweetness in another flavour: whisky. Blumenthal’s whisky wine gums take you on a tour of a single malt bar, disguised as candy. The serving is innovative once again: a silver-framed map of Scotland, with the tiny, bottle-shaped candies placed atop the region from which they come. Eating in order from mildest to strongest, you progress from the Speyside to the peaty isles, ending up in America with a bit of Jack Daniels. The sensation of something starting as a bit of candy, then growing and mixing in your mouth until it turns into a mouthful of Scotch, was bizarre and magical.

After an almost five hour dining experience, we staggered back into Bray High Street dazed, transformed, and still a bit unbelieving of what we’d just been through. It may be stretching belief to describe a meal as magical, but it’s the best single word I can think of for the Fat Duck. Nowhere else in my experience has food been used with such precision to stimulate so many senses and evoke so many experiences. I left exhausted, awed, impressed … and completely sated.