Nearly eight months after being released from a psychiatric hospital, chef Heston Blumenthal is trying to understand his life and career through the prism of his newly diagnosed bipolar disorder. “The more I understand what it's like, the more I can look back and see it,” he says.
In October, he had a mental health crisis that landed him in hospital, where he found himself hallucinating and coming up with ideas after just an hour or two of sleep. The experience made him reconsider the insomnia that had plagued him early in his career, when he was working 120-hour weeks in his kitchen and sending pre-dawn emails to colleagues. At the time, he saw it as a hallmark of his drive, the price of success. Could his behaviour have been an early symptom of a disorder? “I think I've been there for quite some time,” he says. It's too early to draw any conclusions. “I want to learn more about myself.”
After opening The Fat Duck in 1995, the self-taught cook Blumenthal created a menu that appealed to all the senses, with dishes like snail porridge and bacon and egg ice cream, and his experimental approach to food earned him the nickname the Willy Wonka of cooking. In 1999 the restaurant was awarded a Michelin star, and five years later it received three stars, a status it has maintained. This success made him a celebrity, leading to TV shows (Heston's Feast, Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection, Heston's Great British Food) and cookbooks, as well as a range of foods sold in the Waitrose supermarket chain (including Christmas puddings that were resold for hundreds of pounds on eBay). He then opened The Hines Head in Berkshire and Dinner by Heston in Knightsbridge, London, where we met.
Sitting on the terrace of a two-star restaurant, hidden by a brilliant blue sky, Blumenthal's shaved head and black-rimmed glasses are a familiar sight, but his demeanor is hesitant, he's collecting his thoughts, and he is accompanied by his wife of almost 18 months, Melanie Saysson.
Blumenthal wants to talk because, despite increased awareness over the past decade, it's “really hard” for most people to talk openly about their mental health. “They're afraid the stigma will affect their ability to do their job.”
Since going public, he has been contacted by acquaintances and strangers alike who have said, “That was really brave and inspiring”, but no one has said, 'I get it, I'm got it'”, despite the fact that more than one million people in the UK live with the condition, according to the charity Bipolar Disorder UK.
The positive side, all the ideas and surprises, and the negative side. You can't have one without the other.
Blumenthal knows he can be open because he has the means to get treatment and is no longer integral to the day-to-day running of the business: “It's a lot easier having a platform, because I'm not the CEO or the COO.”
In 2006, he sold his restaurants to a company called SL6 to focus on developing his own brand and new ideas. “The powers that be care about where the customers sit… If money comes in from the get-go, it can stifle free thinking and creativity.” SL6 made an operating loss of £1.3 million last year, with revenue falling from £11.5 million to £9.5 million, although it expects to make a profit of £2.4 million in 2022. Rising labour, energy and ingredient costs have put pressure on the business, and it is focused on increasing footfall and reducing expenses.
Blumenthal says his role in the business can be roughly described as “creativity and development. My taste buds.” Pointing toward the kitchen, he acknowledges, “These guys do all the work. It's taken years to organize and build a team. If I went in there, I'd cause chaos.”
The chef has told his senior management team about his diagnosis and is considering what actions the company can take to best support mental health and neurodiversity. He received his ADHD diagnosis in 2016, which he thought was “really great,” but acknowledges, “I don't know if it's great for everyone.” Learning about neurodiversity has helped him. A car alarm went off and Blumenthal lost focus because of his sensitivity to noise. “Oh, this is going to be hard,” he said, pausing until the sound stopped. He has found ways to organize his life, including using objects as memory triggers. “I like to see myself as a walking experiment.”
Blumenthal says the Michelin star system can be stressful, but “the guide is for the public, not for chefs.” © Anna Gordon/FT
Last year, he was driven by a desire to “save the world” and found himself in an extreme crisis that led to increasing mental and physical changes.
“I wanted to love everyone there, because they're all so amazing. I just spewed ideas,” he recalls. But then someone moved “a sticky note,” and suddenly I was really angry at the world, and I wasn't mincing words.” He likens his mood swings to those of a child: “Sometimes I get so excited, the balance flips, and I start yelling. There's the positive side, all the ideas and surprises, and then there's the negative side. It can't be one and the other.”
The feelings intensified. “I became a danger to myself and a potential danger to those around me. I'm not talking about physical danger, I'm talking about emotional danger. I'd never had suicidal thoughts[before]. Thankfully, I don't anymore.” At one point, he said, “it seemed like there was a gun on the table. It felt real.”
This period of excitement fueled ideas. “I wrote pages and pages,” he says. Last year, he had only one or two hours of sleep for four or five days. “I was so excited. I was talking about making things. I was really frenetic.” “It was really frenetic,” Sayson reiterates, refuting the idea that this creativity was productive. “I had so many ideas, I didn't have time to make anything happen.”
In November, Sayson, concerned about Blumenthal's mental and physical health, had him committed to a psychiatric hospital. Blumenthal spent 20 days in the psychiatric hospital, then transferred to a clinic for 40 days, where he says he was able to get treatment and adjust to his medication. “It was wonderful,” he said.
Blumenthal's diagnosis is bipolar disorder type 1. He took my notebook and underlined the various ups and downs, depending on the type of illness he has. His own diagnosis is characterized by long periods of highs and short periods of dramatic lows.
“The most wonderful times in the world are actually the most dangerous times,” he said. The lack of sleep and excitement put his body under stress that doctors said could be fatal. “I knew I was really out of shape.”
While he doesn't want to experience mania again, he doesn't regret what mild mania may have done to his career. When he yelled in the kitchen, he says, it was at himself, not at others. “If I had a plate in my hand, I might have broken it. That didn't happen that often.” Unlike the restaurant kitchen depicted in the TV show “The Bear,” he prefers a quiet workplace.
He admits the Michelin star system is stressful but, despite French chef Sébastien Bras's request in 2017 to give his star back due to the pressure, he won't give it back: “I can't give up. The guide is not for chefs, it's for the public… You can't run a three-star restaurant forever,” he says.
I'm sleeping better. I'm getting better at not letting my phone distract me.
There was nothing in Blumenthal's background that suggested he would become a chef — his father owned an office-supplies company and his mother was a housewife — but his interest in cooking was sparked when, at age 16, he ate for the first time on a family vacation at L'Osteau de Baumanière, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Provence, near where he now lives. He later realized that becoming a chef was “chasing that feeling I got from that restaurant, that cricket, that carving at the table.”
He once attributed his drive in part to his mother's withholding of praise. “Nothing I did was ever enough,” he says. When he wrote The Fat Duck, she told him, “It's not a book. It took me 10 years to write that… 200,000 words.” After her death in 2020, he discovered she'd been clipping articles about him throughout his career, and writing to friends about his successes. “I wish I was in a position to ask her why she never said that.”
Blumenthal worked in Raymond Blanc's kitchen for a week to see the realities of running a restaurant, and Marco Pierre White's Cantine for three weeks, and was a self-taught cook, before opening The Fat Duck with the money he earned from selling his house and a £10,000 loan from his father.
Innovation is Blumenthal's trademark. He quotes Picasso: “Every child is an artist. The question is to remain an artist when you grow up.”
“We build up fear,” he says, explaining that he once tried to help his staff overcome this fear by creating a museum of bad ideas: “We had to come up with ideas that were so bad that no one would think of them.”
Blumenthal says the medication has stabilized his mood, allowing him to really pursue and develop his ideas. That's now his top priority, along with maintaining a healthy lifestyle. “I'm sleeping better. I'm getting better at not getting distracted by my phone.” However creatively fueled those old highs may have been, he doesn't want to go back. “Highs mean lows,” he says.
