Six of the most unappetising dishes in posh restaurants

The Michelin-starred restaurant Club Gascon in the City of London has added a new dish to its winter menu: grey squirrel, served in a terrine. It’s not the first time a top kitchen has plated up an unappetising ingredient...

Bug salad

Protein-rich insects are heralded as the food of the future. The London restaurant Archipelago serves up a Love Bug Salad, mixing fried locusts and crickets with spinach and rocket leaves. All for £7.50.

Fried moss and ‘soil’

Copenhagen’s Noma has been ranked the best restaurant in the world four times since 2010, with its seasonal and foraged food. Edible malt soil and fried reindeer moss are two typical menu items.

Snail porridge

The most famous dish in ‘haute gross cuisine’, from Heston Blumenthal. Snail porridge may sound like something from the gulags, but it can be ordered at the Fat Duck in Berkshire as part of a £220 tasting menu.

Compost-smoked veg

Under head chef Magnus Nilsson, Sweden’s Fäviken has rocketed into the world’s top 20 restaurants. One signature dish is veg smoked in leaves which have decomposed for a year. Compost to you and me.

Pig’s head

This was at the centre of any self-respecting medieval banquet. London restaurant Hawksmoor – where a steak can set you back £34 – serves it atop Canadian poutine. Known on these shores as gravy and chips.

Bird’s nest soup

Best-known for being boiled into a soup, bird nests are also served up in Chinese cuisine in jellies and tarts. Bound together with bird saliva, a particularly tasty-looking nest can cost up to £1,500.