After Eleven Years Unchallenged, Is Ramsay Teetering?

An upheaval at the top end of the London restaurant world, revealed today, sees Gordon Ramsay’s unchallenged dominance shaken for the first time since 1997. This emerges in the survey conducted for today’s publication of Harden’s London Restaurants.

Over 8,000 regular restaurant-goers took part in this 17th annual survey, which was conducted in association with Rémy Martin Fine Champagne Cognac.

For the first time since 2000, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay failed to pull off a ‘hat trick’ in the poll. In recent years, that restaurant has not only won the vote for ‘Top gastronomic experience’ but has also achieved the ‘Highest food rating’ and the ‘Highest overall rating’ (which combines ratings for food, service and ambience). This year Restaurant Gordon Ramsay retained only the first of these three ‘trophies’, and then only by a much-reduced margin.

The highest overall rating went to Marcus Wareing’s Pétrus, which although a Gordon Ramsay group operation, appears to owe its particular popularity to Wareing’s hands-on involvement. Also hard on Ramsay’s heels was William Drabble at Aubergine. The food ratings at both Pétrus and Aubergine came within 1/100 of a point of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay.

Bruce Poole’s Chez Bruce, in Wandsworth, emerges for the first time as the survey’s highest-rated destination for food, although his aims, at half the price of those restaurants mentioned above, are rather different. Chez Bruce also retains – for the third consecutive year – its poll position as Londoners’ Favourite Restaurant’.

Peter Harden, co-editor of the guide, observes:

“Until this year, the survey has always been very clear in recent times that you found the best overall food in London at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, and that restaurant was clearly London’s best overall too. Neither is true any more.

Gordon Ramsay’s huge international reputation has been built on the strong foundation of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, which until this year has simply not been challenged as London’s best restaurant by far. This foundation is suddenly looking very shaky”.

Co-editor Richard Harden adds:

“With Gordon spending so much time on television, both in the UK and the US, various aspects of his empire are beginning to show signs of stress. It is not only at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay that standards have declined, but also at his other ‘name’ restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s, where the survey now finds the cooking to be mediocre.

“And it is not just in New York that newly-launched Ramsay restaurants have been getting a rather rocky reception: survey respondents have greeted his Knightsbridge newcomer La Noisette as a fully-fledged Kitchen Nightmare.

Perhaps most worrying, however, for ‘brand Gordon’ is the fact that regular restaurant-goers are simply losing interest, with his three most notable restaurants sliding down the list of places people talk about most. Failing some major re-direction of Gordon’s energies back to his London restaurants – and away from America, TV studios, and pubs – this is beginning to look like the end of the era of Ramsay’s unchallenged dominance of the high-end culinary scene.”

Trends

1) Carbon Footprint Impacts On Restaurant Tastes, And Helps Power Rise Of ‘True Brits’

Concerns for global warming and the effect of carbon footprints are starting to reflect in restaurant-goers’ choices. This is most apparent in the success of restaurants dedicated to local sourcing such as Konstam at the Prince Albert and Acorn House, both near King’s Cross.

However environmental concerns also appear to be contributing to the more general popularity of a style of cooking that’s less ‘Modern British’ (a term falling out of favour) than simply ‘British’. Traditional British cooking is now becoming trendy, breaking out from the gastropub sector, which has nurtured it for the last decade. Furthermore, it is being adopted by serious restaurants at all market levels (except temples of haute cuisine). Examples which have opened in recent times include Canteen, Great Queen Street, Magdalen and Scott’s.

Revival Of Grazing

The grazing trend, which seemed to have faltered in the last two years, now seems stronger than ever. It is, for example, the preferred style of two of the biggest successes of the year L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Barrafina, (and also of the current press favourite of the moment, La Petite Maison).

Mayfair Back In Fashion

Resurgent Mayfair is becoming re-established as the prime location for restaurants with ‘destination’ pretensions. This autumn will see London débuts of one of the world’s most celebrated chefs, Alain Ducasse at the Dorchester, and the re-location of one of England’s best restaurants, Claude Bosi’s Hibiscus, from Ludlow to Mayfair.

Ten Top Openings

The entries for the top ten most notable recently-opened restaurants are set out in the Appendix.

Prices Rise No Quicker Than Retail Prices, Except At Very Top End Of Market

The average price of dinner for one at establishments listed in the guide is £38.78. Prices have on average risen by 3.0% in the past 12 months – for all practical purposes at the same rate as retail prices. In dearer (£50+) place generally, prices are up just 1.9%, but the 20 most expensive places of all (£80+) have succeeded in inflating their prices by 4.4%.

Record Openings And Closures

More London restaurants have opened in the past 12 months than ever before. The latest edition of the guide records 158 openings of note in this period. This figure is some 13 per cent higher than last year (136) and smashes the former record figure of 142 noted two years ago.

Closures are also rising. After being relatively ‘flat’ – at around 67 closures in each of the past two years – restaurants have been shutting down at a much faster rate in the past year – up by a third at 89. The guide expects the rate of closings to rise further in the next 12 months.