Restaurants

The 8th choice by Annette was the 3 Michelin star Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, where we for the first time decided to go back to a previous restaurant, as we were celebrating our dinner no. 30 and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay was until now our Top Choice.

We were all so excited to be back at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay after 12 years and it started well with the door man, who obviously did his homework and acknowledge our reservation by welcoming me by name. Unfortunately that fell apart as soon as we then entered the restaurant – as the people in reception did not do their homework and now I had to tell who I was.

We then probably got the worst table in the restaurant. Actually I was very happy to get a window seat – but I do not expect a table where one person get put in the corner and can only get out if someone else is standing up as well. That is not a 3 star Michelin experience for me as I am expecting all seats at a table to be easy accessible. Instead it feels like the restaurant is just cramping in too many people.

12 years ago the restaurant had an amazing German Head Sommelier who immediately understood the price range we were after and had no problem recommending and telling stories about different bottles of wine – but this time we barely got any help. We are normal people who love nice food and don’t mind spending a bit of money on that – but we cannot afford to spent £200 on a bottle of wine. It took a while for the Sommelier to even come up with some suggestions for a red and then I was just shown 3 bottles from the same region in Italy all around the £200 mark. When I said that this was too expensive I was given one other choice from Australia – but barely got any explanation about the wine – also it would have been nice to have a few choices as I am still not convinced we had the best red within our budget. For the white we got no help at all and again the wine list was not easy to navigate – so we were struggling but no one offered us any explanation or told us anything about how we could navigate through the wine list. The Assistant Sommelier was slightly better to explain a bit about the wine when it was served to us – but overall the Sommelier experience failed and again definitely not what we would expect from a 3 star Michelin restaurant.

We all went for the Surprise menu and I enjoyed most of it, whereas some of my friends where struggling with a few of the courses. However what we didn’t like was that we felt extremely rushed and twice we had to ask the restaurant to slow the courses down. We are going out to have a lovely experience, which we pay a lot of money for and normally we spent 4-5 hours in the restaurant as we like to have proper time to enjoy the food and each other’s company. This time the room felt more like a train station with too many people rushing around and not with a nice relaxing atmosphere, where we could fully enjoy our meal like we did last time.

While booking the table the restaurant asked if we were celebrating anything special and I told them about our ‘Michelin club’, that we have been running since 2011 and that we were celebrating our restaurant no. 30 at our so far Top restaurant. This obviously was no big deal for them – but for us this is quite a thing and we thought they would have acknowledged that. Except for a welcome back – we didn’t see anything to say that they recognised the celebration we were having. I could have told them that we were also celebrating my 50^th from last month – but thought I would just mention one thing – obviously I mentioned the wrong one as they might have been more willing to recognise a birthday celebration.

Finally when we got the bill I think we all 4 nearly had a heart attack. I know the Surprise menu was £260 per person – but we didn’t go crazy on the wine – so it never occurred to me that the total bill would be over £1700 or more than £400 per person. I guess if the whole night had been amazing then it would have been different – but we just felt there was so many things that did not match that the restaurant is still holding 3 Michelin stars and it was way overpriced for what we got.

I couldn’t help raising a complaint about our whole experience with the restaurant the following day and wrote to them a pretty similar story to what I have said above. To be fair the restaurant did send me a nice reply and said they took my feedback very seriously. We also ended up getting our 15% service charge paid back to us – so a small compensation for a very disappointing night unfortunately. Afraid we won’t be back anytime soon,

Link to the restaurant…

For his second choice Carlos chose the 3 Michelin star Waterside Inn in Bray, Berkshire.

As usual we arrived early but unusually arrived by car. Bray is a lovely village and not a car park. We were told that we couldn’t leave the car overnight but after explaining we would be back early the next day to collect the car, the Parking Valet was good enough to park the car in the vacant space of one of the rooms of the hotel.

A great start to the early bird experience which continued when we went inside. The lounge area was very welcoming and we were shown to a table for drinks and a chance to see the menu. A nice traditional touch from a time gone by was that only the person that booked the table received a menu complete with the prices. We all selected the ‘Menu Exceptionel’ and waited to be seated.

This is where the experience became a little disappointing. The restaurant was very nice and I am sure the views of the River Thames are beautiful in the summer, but it was in no way a relaxing environment. The hustle and bustle from the waiter’s station situated in the middle of the room gave rise to a frantic feeling that was compounded by the quick succession of the first four courses. The courses slowed once we were on to desserts but the frantic feel of the room remained.

The food was very good by normal restaurant standards but this is the Waterside Inn and was therefore a little disappointing. There were no stand-out dishes to challenge the likes of the Foie Gras at Marcus Wareing or the Pork Jowls at The Ledbury.

The end of the evening was where we returned to a better experience. Ingrid did not enjoy the Golden Plum Soufflé and Alain Roux, who was working the room at the time, was horrified. After asking what could possibly be wrong with the soufflé he offered to cook another dessert more to her liking, a nice touch from the proprietor. He also arranged for Annette and Carl to take a tour of the kitchen.

Fabrice has been working the pass at the restaurant for number of years, yet the stress and responsibility had not dampened his enthusiasm. He seemed to enjoy the tour as much as we did, explaining the changes that were made to the kitchen a few years ago and the roles of the different stations. Both the kitchen and the tour were the best yet. Thank you.

It was a nice evening, but did not live up to expectations or the biggest bill we have received so far.

Link to the restaurant

After our last visit at a 2 star Michelin Restaurant that didn’t quite live up to our expectations, we decided this time to go to the top end and visit the 3 star Michelin Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road, London chosen by Annette.

Again we tested the restaurant by turning up 10 minutes early – but this time it was a completely different experience. We got seated at our table immediately – but even before the waiter left our table we were offered a drink and 4 G&T were on their way. Literally you felt right from entering the front door that you were treated special and that this was going to be a lovely night.

The guys picked 3 courses from the A la carte menu, whereas Ingrid and I picked the 7 courses Prestige Menu. The Sommelier was top class – so when we asked for recommendations, he started with repeating the food we ordered and then recommended wines, which would go well with all dishes. When we said we didn’t want to spent too much on the white wine – he was also extremely sensible and didn’t recommend any wines that were over £50 – but still excellent of course.

The food was an amazing experience where we started with 4 different tasters from the chef before we got to the food we had ordered. Not only were the food extremely tasty but the whole presentation was amazing as well. At the same time the whole atmosphere at the table was great where the waiters were not too posh to not say a joke or make a laugh. Since Ingrid and I had 7 courses and the guys only 3 – the waiters always turned up with extra plates for the guys so they at least could taste a bit of our food as well. Also when we started the desserts – all 4 of us got the pre-dessert from the menu even if the guys have not ordered this – so a nice extra complimentary from the restaurant. The whole food experience finished with 2 extra tasters from the chef, which were to die for (strawberry ice cream with white chocolate and a small silver tree filled with dark chocolates).

The whole evening was just perfect and even if Mr Ramsay himself was not present you have to admire that he has found such a great team of people, who 100% live up to the experience you expect from a 3 Michelin Star restaurant. It is not going to be easy to beat this experience – so thanks a lot to Ramsay for making this such a special night.

Link to the restaurant…