Location: Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London
Visited: Mid May 2010, evening reservation, all 4 diners opted for Tasting Menu
Royal Hospital Road, the jewel in the crown for Gordon Ramsay and the holder of 3 of those Michelin Stars for better than first class food, service and experience.
Apparently.
A table of 4 booked to visit this restaurant in May '10 simply to experience food and fine dining theatre at its best. With recent visits in the last few years to other UK 3* establishments (The Waterside Inn, The Fat Duck both in Bray, UK), we had very high expectations and very high presupposed standards that such accolades command. What was delivered, from food to service, was far from worthy of such accolades. I like to get down to the business end, so here follows a list of all the errors and fatal flaws in the delivery of this 3* magic.
In some order of how they stacked up throughout the evening:
- Restaurant welcome was very informal, too informal
- We had a corner table (fine), but my chair was physically touching the person behind me
- Restaurant was very loud, and rather warm. There was no intimacy to set the scene for what should have followed. Had it been intimate, the disappointment would have been worse.
- Bread - lifeless and definitely not home made. It had that 'travelled' guise.
- Sommelier spoke to us like we were sommeliers ourselves. Even with an above average understanding of wine, even I was stumped, and his advice was not very helpful. We weren't looking for a master-class demonstration on his understanding.
- 'Lobster in a cone' - messy, and did not excite the taste buds. Other pre starters were inspired, but not well executed.
- Too long service times between courses.
- Staff continually leant across you to collect plates, place items on table
- The lifeless bread kept appearing after every course (even with the Tasting Mains). I didn't need bread with my Fish course, or my Lamb.
- Incorrect cutlery was laid and staff did not realise until they delivered the course, prompting them to turnaround with the food, swap the cutlery, apologise that they had made a mistake, and return the food.
- We added a 'buttered' Lobster course from the a la carte menu to the Tasting Menu. We shouldn't have bothered. Over cooked Lobster tail, the claw was acceptable. It was bad enough to complain so we did, however head chef advised being Scottish and native Lobster it is apparently supposed to be this texture. Nothing to do with being overcooked then. Native or not, it wasn't brilliant and we had yet to be wowed by any culinary delights.
- We were offered our decantered red wine with our lobster and fish course which was interesting. We politely declined.
- The other courses were average. I had eaten better food and experienced culinary magic at many 1* and 2* restaurants. Lamb was okay, texture and flavour good, but not great.
- The desserts - personal preference possible, although the table agreed, the dessert menu was uninspiring and lacked 'colour' and 'flavour'. We had deliberated over the desserts early on when discussing 'a la carte' or 'menu prestige'. This, and no doubt our other grumblings had been acknowledged when we were duly delivered every dessert on the menu. The Maitre'D had opted to 'help us with our decision'. It back fired, instead of well crafted plates of glorious sweets, we were given a platter of small portions - without the frills.
We had some great wines which was a highlight of the evening (the cheese board I thought was excellent also) - a Leflaive Puligny Montrachet Les Pucelles 2001 and a Stags Leap Cabernet Sauvignon 1996, both outstanding.
Some of these may appear to be small errors, but errors none the less and at this level you cannot afford these type of faux pas. What they and the food in general amounted too was an evening not to be repeated, but more disheartening, and herein lies the problem, is that you expect to be 'wowed' at such experiences.
Experiences is what these dining visits are, its entertainment of the senses. But how disappointing this show was. Perhaps having not long dined at the Fat Duck our expectations were too high, surely with the hype and the 3* we are allowed to, and should do? Maybe not. Maybe the Michelin inspector got it wrong, maybe the restaurant had a bad night. Surely not at this level ...
In the back of our minds I firmly believe we 4 diners actually thought this might happen, but the proof was in the pudding and it had yet to be ticked off the list, and Michelin doesn't often get it wrong. That said, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay didn't even make The World's 50 Best Restaurants list in 2010. It didn't even make the top 100. Whatever it did or didn't receive, it wont receive a visit from me again.
