HESTON Blumenthal is unlike any other TV chef. While the likes of Jamie Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Gordon Ramsay busy themselves telling us good food needn't take forever to cook, the self-styled molecular gastronomist' sets out to invent perfect' dishes, no matter how long they take to prepare, or how far he has to travel to source the ingredients.

In the first series of In Search Of Perfection he travelled to Italy to find the best tomatoes for his Bolognese sauce, and spent weeks coming up with and testing new batter recipes for his fish and chips dish. He eventually settled on a Japanese tempura-style mixture that contained vodka, and applied it to the fish with a soda syphon.

He's now back with a new eight-part series, but it's not been easy trying to top what he's done before. First of all, Heston and his team of like-minded boffins had to find dishes in need of the Perfection' treatment.

"It was easy to do things like bangers and mash and fish and chips in the first series," he explains, "but we had a lot more to think about this time."

"We wanted the dishes to be ones that we are used to," he continues. "Dishes we might not eat very often, but that have a certain nostalgia for most of us. And we also have to choose dishes that will have the audience thinking I wonder how he's going to do that one?'"

Heston, winner of three Michelin stars, and creator of the much-talked-about bacon and egg ice cream and snail porridge, is fascinated by the crossover between cooking and science. But because of the complicated nature of the recipes on the show - his forthcoming take on chilli con carne is around 10 pages long - he has resigned himself to the fact that most people won't try out his creations at home, but takes just as much satisfaction from people talking about his work.

"It's the technical stuff that gets people hooked," he says.

"I love the idea that you can do a dish in the way we do and have the show packed with scientific information, yet it can still appeal to and entertain people who have no interest in cooking. That, for me, is brilliant."

The new series of Heston Blumenthal: In Search Of Perfection continues at 8.30pm on BBC Two.