I was excited to try Gordon Ramsay mostly due to the Guy Savoy lineage, given my adoration for Guy. So, when we ended up in London, we jumped at the opportunity to go. The headline should be: “the student still has a lot to learn from the master.”
Nothing was bad, really. All the flavors were solid and dishes were well composed. There wasn’t a single thing that wowed us (like Guy’s colors of caviar or even the buffalo ricotta Caramelle from Don Angie 2 nights prior that made my fiancé yell “oh my god” in the middle of the restaurant).
But when I’m paying £1200 for dinner at a ***, I want to say “oh my god” at least once. I didn’t, and the whole meal was playing it safe (English Peas? For spring? Groundbreaking). The service was inconsistent, excellent at the beginning when the dining room was half full, but borderline neglectful once it filled up. We were also mysteriously charged for several cocktails that we never ordered, and it somehow took 20 minutes to take them off the bill. Small issue but not one that should ever happen in a ***.
We went with the wine pairings since we ordered the big mystery carte blanche menu (sea bass and chicken) and I figured it would be hard to pair. Was pretty generous with 5 glasses, all French except for a sweet wine from the Stellenbosch for desert. Somm was excellent, approachable and helpful.
Any universe in which this is a *** and Guy is a ** is a very upside universe indeed. Guy Savoy Paris (and even Las Vegas) is on a completely different level of sophistication.
Oh, and please replace the carpet.
by millie678
12 Comments
NGL your food photos actually look very good until the bread service then it’s potatoes, fish, and chicken. It looks a lot more set lunch than Carte Blanche to me.
Quoting from what someone else said once, the Michelin guide is quick to give stars away sometimes and even slower at taking them away. It’s almost safe to assume that it’s still 3 stars due to the name unfortunately.
None of those look good
Ouch. Sorry to hear that you didn’t enjoy your experience there!
Trouble with Michelin guide is.. yeah, they are very slow to take away stars. A lot of the old 3-stars are very interested in keeping their 3 stars, so they generally cook very… ‘safe’ food, and you won’t necessarily see much innovation or strokes of genius that you may get from a younger, up-and-coming establishment that is really going guns-blazing, hunting down accolades, hence why I don’t personally enjoy my meals at the grandfathered-in 3-star restaurants either haha
This menu still looks firmly stuck in the 90s, if i’m honest. None of this looks worth over 300$ to me.
“Providores”?
Okay, apparently it’s an accepted spelling, but seems pretty archaic. I’m just a pedant with a weird kink for finding typos on fine dining menus. To shame me, bro.
Great review. Thank you for sharing.
The older names hanging around the top of the list in the UK are very frustrating. RHR, The Waterside Inn, Le Manoir, could all have a star removed (Waterside should have two removed imho)
Core is excellent, however, and run by Claire Smyth, a RHR alumnus, so the Guy Savoy lineage sort of continues there.
Sounds like 2 stars is the sweet spot.
Same with whats going on in many London restaurants. Poor ingredients more suited to a gastropub than a 2-3 star but sky high prices more suited to Paris and proper luxury ingredient sourcing. I get excellent seabass are 3 for a tenner, and the chicken is not even Bresse. My last meal at a 2 star (Athertons place) was Chalk stream trout (pedestrian, with little flavour) and some English lamb. We sent my brothers back to a long piece of gristle running through it.
Bro that’s a *** level rip off
I suppose they already added 20 % gratuity for your convenience.