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Gordon Ramsay
Post-makeover, Gordon Ramsay’s original restaurant is looking spick, span and modern with milky stretches of opalescent wall, mirrored corners, silk blinds and groovy sputnik lights, the edges softened and soundproofed with smart geometric carpet. A small but comfortable lounge area has at last replaced the diminutive perches to which you were made to ‘retire’ when tables were turned. Maybe table-turning is a lesser problem now that bookings are taken two months ahead instead of just one. In fact, there were a few empty tables: a sight impossible to imagine in the past. Booking is still a lengthy telephonic performance followed by an intimidating email on which to sign your life away. There’s a truly staggering charge of £150 per person for no-shows (GR innocently calls this new form a ‘booking confirmation’, but make no mistake, it’s a written contract between you and the restaurant). Lunch, à la carte, prestige and vegetarian menus all follow typical Ramsay form with a parade of perfectly sculpted proteins garnished with daisy-fresh, brightly coloured vegetables that to some extent match the seasons. Baby violet artichokes were flavour of the month and turned up in four or five dishes, including delectable pan-bronzed, line-caught sea bass. Cornish lamb was beautifully tender and beguilingly good-looking; ditto the precise oblong of chicken and foie gras terrine with port reduction. Desserts are equally winsome: toffee soufflé delightfully marrying banana ice-cream. Yet everything except appetisers and petits fours seems too careful, too prescriptive, too tame, as if all the ingredients have been somehow moulded into a corporate template. For the money (the three-course set meal costs £15 more than last year, and the four-course £20 more) we want thrills as well as shipshape discipline.
Time Out Eating & Drinking Guide 2008
Services:
Booking: Booking essential
Child facilities: Children admitted
Dress code: smart; jacket preferred; no jeans or trainers
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