Blumenthal's public profile was boosted by a number of television series, most notably for Channel 4, as well as a product range for the Waitrose supermarket chain introduced in 2010.

[8]: 13  He was inspired by the quality of the food and "the whole multi-sensory experience: the sound of fountains and cicadas, the heady smell of lavender, the sight of the waiters carving lamb at the table".

[8]: 28  Over the next ten years he worked in a "relatively undemanding series of jobs – credit controller, repo man"[10] during the day, teaching himself the French classical repertoire in the evenings.

This challenged kitchen practices such as searing meat to seal in the juices, and it encouraged Blumenthal to "adopt a totally different attitude towards cuisine that at its most basic boiled down to: question everything".

Blumenthal later said that science had already begun to influence the cooking at this stage, as already on the menu were his triple-cooked chips, which were developed to stop the potato from going soft.

[13] In 2002, Blumenthal opened a second, short-lived restaurant in Bray, the Riverside Brasserie, selling many of the Fat Duck's earlier dishes at reduced prices.

[citation needed] Blumenthal moved from the BBC to Channel 4 in March 2008, joining the celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Gordon Ramsay.

In January 2009, a three-part series of television programmes on Channel 4 covered his efforts to revamp the struggling Little Chef roadside restaurant chain, using a trial location on the A303 road at Popham.

[35] In 2020, Blumenthal appeared as a judge in the Channel 4 series Crazy Delicious hosted by Jayde Adams, alongside chefs Niklas Ekstedt and Carla Hall.

[39] His other products included a bloody Mary prawn cocktail, sherry-and-balsamic vinegar Christmas pudding, and puff pastry mince pies with pine sugar dusting.

He created unusual combinations, including Roast Foie Gras "Benzaldehyde" and salmon poached in a liquorice gel accompanied by asparagus.

While many of these unexpected combinations have been critically well received, Blumenthal himself has pointed out the limitations of such an approach, insisting that although foodpairing is a good tool for creativity, it is still no substitute for the chef's culinary intuition.

[41] Blumenthal calls his scientific approach to cuisine "multi-sensory cooking", arguing that eating is "one of the few activities we do that involves all of the senses simultaneously".

[43] The trip prompted a passion for cooking, above all because of "the whole multisensory experience: the sound of fountains and cicadas, the heady smell of lavender, the sight of the waiters carving lamb at the table".

The Fat Duck didn't have any of that, so it had had to capture the diners’ imagination in a different way – taking them to the mysteries of flavour perception and multi sensory delight.

In 2004, working on a commission for the photographer Nick Knight, he created a Delice of Chocolate containing popping candy and took the imaginative step of arranging for diners to listen on headphones to the little explosions it made as they ate – the first time such a thing had been done.

[8]: 106–7  With Professor Charles Spence, head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford University he has conducted several experiments into how our sense of sound can affect perception of flavour.

[46] Thus the Nitro-poached Green Tea and Lime Mousse on the Fat Duck menu is served with spritz of ‘lime grove’ scent from an atomiser; and the Jelly of Quail dish includes among its tableware a bed of oak moss, as well as being accompanied by a specially created scent of oak moss that is dispersed at the table by means of dry ice.

It is served on a glass-topped box containing real sand, and accompanied by headphones relaying the sounds of seagulls and the sea by means of a small iPod (placed in a conch shell) and earphones.

[8]: 212 Blumenthal's most famous signature dishes include triple-cooked chips, snail porridge, bacon-and-egg ice cream and parsnip cereal, mock turtle soup (which combines a multi-sensory experience with historical references), Meat Fruit, and his Sweet Shop petit fours.

He was preparing sweet and savoury bacon-and-egg ice cream as early as 2004, and news "about the intriguingly odd confection quickly spread through the food world.

He became interested in historical cooking in the late 1990s upon obtaining a copy of The Vivendier, a translation of a fifteenth-century cookery manuscript that contained unusual recipes, such as a chicken that appears roasted but wakes up as it is served.

Later he met a third food historian, Ivan Day and, in consultation with these three, began developing dishes inspired by recipes in historical British cookbooks.

The opening of Dinner by Heston Blumenthal presented him with far greater scope for historical cooking, and its menu is composed solely of dishes inspired by the recipes of the past.

[50] In 2009, for a private party held during Ascot week, Blumenthal was invited to cook a meal for Queen Elizabeth II at Windsor Castle.

The menu included baked salmon, strawberry gateau and a starter, composed to look like a bowl of fruit, that consisted of offal and sweetbreads.

[58] In December 2013, Blumenthal was presented with an honorary Doctor of Science degree by the University of London, recognising his pioneering research and achievements in his field.