Gordon Ramsay, star of FOX’s reality cooking competition Hell’s Kitchen, may be a big celebrity chef, but this has not spared him from receiving scathing restaurant reviews from one of Britain’s high-profile publications.
In Tatler magazine’s 2008 restaurant guide, two of the 41-year-old’s eponymous flagship London branches were given less than stellar marks. Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s has been criticized for having “duff” service, while Gordon Ramsay at Chelsea’s was shot down because it apparently lacked the “wow” factor.
“The real duff note here has to be the service, which can be inelegant,” the guide said of the Claridge branch. “We encountered a snappy Slav racing through the specials as though she [was] rushing to catch a train and other inexperienced staff who managed to embarrass both host and guests.”
As for the Chelsea branch, the guide said that it “continues to please but not to wow”, while “there’s something ‘by rote’ about many of the familiar dishes”.
Worse, none of Gordon Ramsay’s seven UK restaurants made it to the magazine’s 2008 “Hot List.”
The negative reviews are just the most recent in a string that has been hitting Ramsay’s various establishments since last year. Renowned restaurant guide author Peter Harden stripped Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Royal Hospital Road two of its three top awards this year, saying that the Hell’s Kitchen star has become too engrossed in his television career.
“It tends to be that people don’t dip down and come back up again. Maybe he has enough talent to do that but he may have run out of steam,” Harden said of Ramsay.
On the other hand, Tatler had better things to say about Ramsay’s other restaurants, including Maze in Grosvenor Square, which is under chef Jason Atherton. Things also continue to look up for Ramsay’s television gigs, with the fourth edition of Hell’s Kitchen premiering in April on FOX, and his other reality series, Kitchen Nightmares, returning with ten new episodes this year. He is also set to open his Paris restaurant some months from now, and is reopening Chelsea’s neighborhood bistro, Foxtrot Oscar, on Monday, January 21.
-Lisa Claustro, BuddyTV Staff Columnist
Source: thisislondon.co.uk
(Image Courtesy of BBC)
Staff Columnist, BuddyTV
