photo source: nytimes.com
Last week Brendan and I were lucky enough to eat at Gordon Ramsay’s Maze, a one-Michelin-star restaurant in Grosvenor Square, London. A few months ago we signed up to a website called Toptable; the idea being that you can book restaurants through their site (often at incredible prices), review the restaurant and receive points, which can be redeemed for free meals at selected restaurants. It’s free to sign up, so we thought we’d give it a try. We ate at the French restaurant Coq D’Argent in October, which we booked through Toptable and thoroughly enjoyed, so when I saw a deal for Maze, I couldn’t resist booking it! Brendan has been a long-time fan of Mr. Ramsay’s; myself not so much (I’ll take Jamie Oliver’s cheekiness over Gordon Ramsay’s rudeness any day) and when we ate at Plane Food in Heathrow’s Terminal 5 in 2008, Brendan had a great meal which he still raves about now. I had an overpriced, bland mac and cheese, and since then have been Gordon’s biggest skeptic. However, I’m a firm believer in second chances, and so went into Maze with an open mind, hoping to have a great experience.
As we were taken to our table, I was impressed with the decor of the restaurant; the vibe was modern and yet still cozy, with a visible Asian influence. We were seated at a small booth and brought some water along with our menus; we had booked a 3-course meal at £30, although on the early supper menu there was also an option for 4 courses at £36 or 5 courses for £42. We were slightly nervous that we’d have to stop at McDonald’s on the way home, but being that it was January and we really couldn’t afford this dinner anyway, we reluctantly opted for the 3-courses, as originally planned.
photo source: toastedspecial.com
As we were perusing the intriguing menu (including quail’s egg, pig head, veal shin, wood pigeon and egg nog ice cream), the sommelier stopped at our table to help us choose from the extensive wine menu (wine prices ranged from £22.50 to £2,900). I usually shy away from engaging with sommeliers, as I don’t know a lot about wine and don’t like to appear ignorant, but luckily Brendan’s not shy about striking up a conversation about wine, and we ended up ordering a 2007 Beaujolais – a fruity red wine that I wouldn’t have chosen without the sommelier’s help, but which matched wonderfully with our meals.
After much deliberating, we ordered our food and waited, enjoying our wine and good conversation, and the first course arrived shortly after ordering: I had chosen the ‘marinated beetroot, Sairass cheese, pine nuts, Cabernet Sauvignon dressing’ and Brendan ordered the ‘hake, piperade, white bean purée, cockles, bacon, fish soup’. I only had a small bite of Brendan’s hake and can vouch for its fresh, light, tangy flavour, but all my energy went towards my beetroot dish, which was simply divine! I think if I hadn’t watched Australian MasterChef so closely last year I might not have appreciated the amazing harmony of flavours and textures (and, also importantly, colours), that chef Alex Marks achieved. The Sairass (a sheep’s milk Ricotta) was light, creamy and almost sweet, whilst the nuts and thinly sliced beetroot offered a crunch, and the acidity of the dressing balanced the flavours perfectly. On this dish alone, I was almost a total convert to Gordon Ramsay and his restaurants!
photo source: online.wsj.com
The second dish was a bit disappointing, unfortunately. I ordered ‘roast wood pigeon, orzotto of Douglas Fir, walnuts, winter vegetable purée, cranberries’. Without the meat it could have made an incredible dish, but the pigeon was tough and bland; the orzotto (a risotto made from pearl barley; although don’t ask me what Douglas Fir has to do with it!) was the highlight of the dish, being rich, creamy and flavoursome, and the cranberry was also a nice accompaniment, but after the success of the beetroot starter, my second dish was simply mediocre. Brendan ordered ‘braised veal shin, sage and onion pesto, white onion risotto’, and although I can’t comment on the first two elements of the dish (I never got a chance to sample them, so I guess that’s a good sign), the risotto was to die for. I can safely say that was the best risotto I’ve ever tasted; it was so creamy and bursting with flavour!
For dessert, Brendan and I both chose the ‘rice pudding, mirabelle plum jam, marscapone ice cream, caramelized pecans’. I usually can’t stomach rice pudding (I am very particular about which foods should be sweet and which should be savoury), but the other option involved egg nog ice cream, and we all know how much I love anything involving egg, right?! All I can say is that I am now a rice pudding convert! This was not your regular run-of-the-mill, add-condensed-milk-to-leftover-rice job; this was thick, creamy, riddled with vanilla and without the nasty rice texture that has put me off so often before. And don’t even get me started on the marscapone ice cream, because I could take up another paragraph about it’s subtly sweet perfection!
We ordered espressos to finish off the evening, and the waiter brought us a tray of petit fours, which we were almost too full to enjoy…so much for the emergency McDonald’s run!! Overall, it was a fantastic night; the staff were wonderfully attentive without being pretentious (the sommelier even gave us a humorous but helpful tip: if a sommelier ever starts the conversation with ‘I have got the perfect wine for you’, just say no and don’t take his advice), the food was, for the most part, outstanding, the wine delicious and the ambience just right. The only down side was paying the bill at the end of the night, but for a Michelin-star restaurant, it probably doesn’t get much better value than this!
photo source: pigpigscorner.com
A note on the photos: although I do love taking my camera everywhere and using my own photos on this blog, there are times (such as a romantic date at a Michelin-star restaurant) when lugging a DSLR around and popping the flash like I’m the paparazzi just doesn’t seem right. But I am very glad that other people felt OK with it so I could share their pics with you!
Sounds amazing – what a great experience!