Heston Blumenthal Will Launch Four 'Secret' Pop-Up Restaurants in Melbourne

Potential diners will have to follow clues to find them, but the meals will be free.

Can't pony up the big bucks to dine at one of Heston Blumenthal's highly acclaimed, Michelin-starred restaurants? If you live in Melbourne, Australia and are good at scavenger hunts, you might just be in luck. According to the Daily Mail, the famously bespectacled British chef will launch a series of four pop-up restaurants there next month, and meals will be completely free. (In contrast, tickets to a Fat Duck pop-up the chef hosted in Melbourne last year were priced around $500.)

"The 'Hidden Heston' restaurants will pop up for one night only in separate secret locations across the city, in a move that is associated with MasterChef Australia and Channel 10's 'Heston Week,'" the Mail explains. Don't expect to just waltz on in, however: The location of each pop-up will be top secret. To snag a seat, wannabe diners will first have to decipher clues posted to MasterChef Australia's social media accounts, as well as explain why they should be able to attend the pop-up in 25 words.

Fine-dining chefs taking their cooking on the road to Australia is clearly all the rage these days: Rene Redzepi's hallowed Copenhagen restaurant Noma is currently stationed in Sydney for a ten-week pop-up restaurant. Despite its hefty price tag of more than $300 per person, seats for the Noma pop-up sold out in 90 seconds and the waitlist is a jaw-dropping 27,000 names long.

The competition to snag a free seat at one of Blumenthal's pop-ups will no doubt be fierce as well: Tickets to last year's Fat Duck pop-up were quite the hot item, with scalpers demanding sky-high prices of $1,000 or more.

from Eater - All http://ift.tt/1VgzehZ
via IFTTT