After something a bit more low key (and a lot more spicy)? Then check out Plaza Khao Gaeng.
Or, if you just want options, take a gander at our guide to the best restaurants in London.
What's the deal?
Gordon Ramsay. There is perhaps no other chef that looms larger in the mind of Brits. Archetypal celebrity cook, TV hothead, and restaurant magnate, Ramsay’s vast empire has been built on his fiery personality and marketing acumen. Unlike, ahem, some other A-list chefs of his stature, the restaurant arm of Ramsay’s kingdom isn’t completely predicated on a mass-market, fast-casual appeal – he may have some pizza joints in his arsenal, but he also has 16 Michelin stars.
Despite being so decorated, Ramsay doesn’t necessarily have the reputation as an exciting, innovative force on the British food scene – he’s more like a giant whale whose name offers some quality assurance to lunching City folk and tourists on a big, splashy night out. Such is normally the fate of a megawatt chef. But 1890 – his third restaurant at the timelessly tony Savoy – is a slight departure from his usual Michelin-bating haute London addresses. The bijou, 26-cover fine diner is inspired by a hero of Ramsay’s – Georges Auguste Escoffier, a pioneering chef (credited with popularising French cooking techniques) who came to work at the Savoy in the restaurant’s eponymous year.
Walking into the space – which is down a warren of furtive hallways – you can feel right away that this is a labour of love from Ramsay. The small, low-lit space is all Art Deco glam, with gilded accents galore and a cave-like feel that evokes a turn-of-the-century private member’s club. It’s a full-scale ‘experience’ as soon as you walk through the door, when smartly-dressed staff whisk away your coat and purse, pull out your chair, and regale you with an animated preview of the 10-course adventure you are about to embark on. Then the dashing sommelier saunters over to present you with wine pairing options: a lower-range, £90 option; an upper-end £210 option; and a head-spinning high roller option costing £1890 (yep, that’s per person).
The menu, priced at £110 per head, is an epic, sensuous journey into the combined gastronomic worlds of Escoffier and Ramsay. From the playful canapes (consider the lobster “cornetto”, erect in a soil of star anise and peppercorns) to the pretty, prim petits fours, this is big-ticket haute dining the way they used to do it. Expect plenty of twists, turns, and tasty dishes along the way (we didn’t imagine that the second course of tomato consommé would come in a teacup, with a side salad housed in a ceramic eggshell). The restaurant bills the experience as “relaxed fine dining” – we’re not sure that qualifier totally fits, but who needs relaxed when you’ve got Ramsay?
What should I eat?
You don’t get any choice in the matter here: all 10 courses are meticulously designed to constitute 1890’s grand oeuvre (there is, however, a veggie version). That said, there are definite highlights, including the gorgeous parker house roll – a perfect grid of nine honey-soaked, oven-fresh mini rolls baked with onion, black pepper, basil and mint.
The turbot véronique is 1890’s DNA on a plate – a delicate slab of fresh fish served with a saffron-yellow pool of caviar and champagne beurre blanc, it’s a lavish dish that stops just short of garishness.
A run of three desserts (plus petits fours) make for a very grand finale. The second of the bunch – a perfumey raspberry melba served over a wobbly orb of vanilla panna cotta – is best.
Why should I go?
For experience dining from a megawatt chef.