Restaurant Review: Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road, London.

As our time in London is coming to an end, my wife and I wanted to have one last blow out meal at one of the London institutions that we haven’t tried. Our final choices came down to Ramsay, Marcus Wareing, Ducasse at The Dorchester and the Greenhouse. We ended up going with Ramsay because we haven’t been to any of his restaurants before, so we figured we might as well try the flagship while we were still living here. It’s also a pretty short walk from our flat which helped the decision. The restaurant is tiny with about 12-14 small tables and is only open Monday-Friday so reservations are next to impossible at night, so we went with a lunch booking.

We both started out with a glass of the 2000 Bollinger Grande Annee that was showing really nice in its youth and I actually preferred it to the 1999 that I had last month. Paired nicely with the amuse of crispy frog legs with onion and parsley soup.

I started with pan-fried sea scallops with leek and pancetta ballottine, sage gnocchi and caper beurre noisette. A knockout dish both to look at and eat. Mrs. Glennk started with butter poached lobster tail with morels, truffles, swiss chard and herb farfalle. My wife loves lobster and orders it whenever she can and she proclaimed this to be her favorite lobster dish ever. We paired both courses with a half bottle of the 2007 Henri Boillot Puligny-Montrachet Clos de la Mouchère. Really nice wine that showed more of a citrus profile that paired perfectly with my scallops.

For mains, I went with the beef filet with a fondant potato, braised ox cheeks, bone marrow, root veggies and a red wine jus. It was as good as it sounds, just over the top luxury. Mrs. Glennk had a roasted filet of turbot with langoustines, linguine and wild mushrooms. Another knockout. We went with a half bottle of 2000 Sassicaia that was just delicious.

For dessert we both had nice apple tart tatin with vanilla ice cream and other various treats that they brought out.

I know Ramsay gets a lot of flak for not being in the kitchen, but that wasn’t an issue here. Overall a truly wonderful lunch. Service was flawless without being stuffy or intrusive and the décor was stunning. I can see why they keep their 3 stars each year based on our experience.

I would highly recommend this place if you are in London and would put it right up there with other great London restaurants we have been to like the Ledbury, the Square, Chez Bruce, Le Gavroche, Fat Duck, etc.

Cheers!