We went for the “menu degustation”. Some of the dishes were very good (eg. Beef Wellington, Panna Cotta).

Globally, however, we were completely dumbfounded that the Michelin awards 3 stars to this restaurant.

At the time of booking, the restaurant asked for payment by credit card of around £500 as an “advanced booking fee” since we were 5 people.

I suspect this is to build up the feeling of booking with a “low-cost airline” that one would expect from Michelin starred establishments.

We were literally rubbing elbows with the people on the table next door. I can understand that Mr. Ramsey likes to maximise the profits on his investment, but is that really what we should expect from a 3 star restaurant?

The service was incredibly slow. The staff were clearly too concerned about those who had come for the lunch menu and had forgotten about others like us who had foolishly opted for the “menu degustation”.

This meant that the poor waiters felt they had to fill up our glasses literally after each sip - which as a result was incredibly annoying.

The sommelier was completely disinterested and either didn’t feel like informing us about the wines, or perhaps didn’t know. In any case he was useless.

The “maitre d’hôtel” was not at all genuine, he should take smiling lessons. Furthermore, he told us that the chef could prepare for us a Beef Wellington with truffles as an alternative to the main dish in the menu.

Either they forgot the truffles, or the chap was telling tales. That said, the Beef Wellington was very good even without the truffles.

As they had forgotten about us, we were the last to finish our meal at around 4-5pm. It is often the case that when we treat ourselves to 3 star restaurants, meals wind up around 4-5pm so this is usually not a problem.

Here, however, it was made very clear that they wanted us to leave – they brought us the bill be

First let's cut to the chase - this place is expensive. If you're going to get the most out of it then you want to go for the tasting menu at around £110/head, which when you add decent wine to go with the courses is going to end up at somewhere north of £200 each.

That's a lot of money, so the place had better deliver.And it really does.We went with a group of 7 for the tasting menu, and arrived early (around 6.30pm) to make sure we had time to enjoy all 7 courses. This turned out to be lucky as with the array of amuse bouches, post-desert treats, and a chees course, it ballooned to something like 12 or 13 different dishes and we didn't leave until gone 11!

Possibly the most surprising thing is that although we had booked the set tasting menu, one of the group decided to be vegetarian on the night (no, I have no idea why!) and asked if he could change *all* the meat courses.

Without hesitation the Maitre d' Jean-Claude Breton planned a new menu specifically for him, asking him about what he liked, and detailing all the seasonal ingredients they had to make it with. His knowledge of the food was incredible, as was the Somellier's of the wine (I asked for a list of what we had drunk because some were so good!).

Anyway, onto the food. As I'm sure you'll be unsurprised to hear from Gordon Ramsay's flagship restaurant, every single course was done to perfection and tasted amazing. Without doubt the best food I've ever eaten. Enough said.Topped off with incredible service (at one point we counted 9 waiters around our table) which was attentive but never overbearing, the experience was unlike any other restaurant I've been to. And the £200/head bill seemed like good value for an experience I still remember vividly!

The man needs to maintain a high standard and he's done it again here. He overdoes the celebrity bit but you can't fault the cuisine.