Restaurant Gordon Ramsay (London, UNITED KINGDOM) ★★★☆☆

I had a daunting task ahead of our trip trying to decide which three Michelin starred restaurant to visit when we're in London. In case you're wondering; there are currently three of them in the British capital - Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, Chef Pierre Gagnaire's Sketch and foul-mouthed (but talented) Chef Gordon Ramsay's eponymous restaurant in Chelsea (I had them in that order). But the guy from high above made it easy for me. Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester rejected me as soon as they knew we're bringing our little nugget and Jelloman didn't want Sketch cuz we've been there before (albeit a decade ago) so I was left with just one ball to juggle. 

Gordon Ramsay's flagship restaurant at Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea has held 3 Michelin stars since 2001. That's almost 2 decades and counting. There have been three head chefs over the years, Mark Askew, Clare Smyth and now Matt Abé, who took over from Clare Smith in 2016 when she left to open her own restaurant Core (which has two Michelin stars of her own now). Australian-born Matt Abé spent the early years of his career honing his craft at Aria Restaurant in Sydney and later at Vue du monde in Melbourne before joining Gordon Ramsay's team at Claridges.



I have been to my share of three Michelin starred restaurants but this has to be one of the smallest dining rooms I have seen so far, 12 tables, 40 seats and not a lot of space between them.

Restaurant Gordon Ramsay is open for lunch and dinner from Tuesday till Saturday. At lunch service, they offer a 3-course set lunch menu (a well-priced £70 one which is only available from Tuesday to Friday), a 7-course Menu Prestige (£160), a 7-course Season Inspiration menu (£195, I was told with more premium ingredients) and the a la carte menu. We visited on a Saturday so we only had the choice between Menu Prestige and the Seasonal Inspiration menu, which we ended up taking the former for the entire table.

Lunch started off slowly with a small ham brioche that came with a hint of exotic spices.

It was followed by our amuse bouche, egg cappuccino with bacon and fresh chives. The bread stick with lardo was pretty tasty.



The first dish of the tasting menu was pressed foie gras with spiced quince jelly, caramelized walnuts and smoked duck. Perhaps I have been spoiled way too much and too often by Hong Kong's dining scene over the years so I am no stranger to beautifully decorated foie gras terrines. Presentation-wise, this paled in comparison to many of those I had the pleasure of enjoying since I fell madly in love with traditional and modern French cuisine. In fact, the signature foie gras terrine at Petrus Shangrila Hong Kong immediately came to mind and it's one of the many foie gras terrine I could recall that looks and tastes better than this one (and Petrus never got its star until this year). Not the best start.



Next was brilliantly cooked ravioli with lobster, langoustine and salmon, finished off wonderfully with a powerful sorrel sauce.



This was by far the best dish of the afternoon with the perfectly thin pasta meshing well with the lobster, langoustine, salmon and spinach. The velvety sorrel sauce was flavorful yet not to the extent of overpowering the flavors of the seafood.



Our fish course was flawlessly cooked Cornish turbot, black truffle, celeriac purée, celery and hazelnut. It was served with dabs of black garlic purée and a smoked fish sauce. 



I picked their Cumbrian Blue Grey as my main course and it was a decision that likely came back to haunt me (after seeing how others enjoyed their pigeon). The dry-aged beef cooked reasonably well, was served with purple onion, pearl onion, green pea purée and leeks (which was covered by black garlic dust). Reasonably good but definitely not great.



Everybody else had the French pigeon from Brittany. This was done two ways, the breast roasted and served with a small slice of pan-seared foie gras.



While the second serving came with a leg confit elegantly decorated with raspberry sauce, crushed nuts and perilla flowers. A very nice dish displaying solid cooking techniques.



Our first dessert was pineapple soup with kaffir lime, toasted coconut and coconut foam. There were various degrees of sweetness and acidity in each layer making this a nice palate cleanser.



Then, the real palate cleanser before the second dessert, lemon custard with thyme granita.



Our final dessert was Grand Cru 75% chocolate mousse topped with lemon thyme. There was something overpowering inside the mousse cake, something that tasted like rum. That, combining with the lemon thyme had way too much acidity in it, which the chocolate mousse and brown sugar ice-cream both failed to neutralize. I had to give up on this one (and I rarely give up on a dessert).



They told us there was a small surprise for us and that turned out to be the canapes. They better included these in the prices cuz I'm definitely not paying extra, not when I am already paying about £600 for this meal (menu did say £8 extra per person)!



This meal reminded me of a place in Tokyo called Restaurant Ryuzu which has held two Michelin stars for the longest time. They offer very solid French food demonstrating exemplary cooking skills but the problem is (at least for me), none of their dishes ever jumps out at you. This meal was exactly the carbon copy of it. I could name 3-4 dishes with exceptional cooking (ravioli, turbot and pigeon) but none of these will ever settle in my long-term memory as a memorable dish. Do I think this is worth the heavy price tag? Well, it's difficult to judge a dining experience solely on food; there are always ambience and service that should be taken into account. And speaking of service, our servers mixed up Jelloman and mom's pigeon. Mom wanted "well done" but was served with Jelloman's "medium rare" pigeon. Needless to say, she freaked out when she saw all the blood coming out of the pigeon breast. That to me, certainly shouldn't happen at a three Michelin star caliber restaurant. Enough said.

Food Rating: 6.5/10
Price: £££££
Address: 68 Royal Hospital Road, London, United Kingdom
Closest Tube Station: Sloane Square
Tel: +44 20 7352-4441
Website: www.gordonramsayrestaurants.com/restaurant-gordon-ramsay
Opening Hours: 12:00pm - 2:10pm, 6:30pm - 9:45pm (Tue - Sat)