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Gordon Ramsay’s new Restaurant 1890 at The Savoy is a masterful homage to a fine dining legend
By Michelle Johnson | 23 April 2022 | Food & Drink
French haute cuisine makes a comeback at this contemporary take on bold, classic flavours
The year is 1890, and the recently-opened Savoy Hotel is lauded as the first purpose-built deluxe hotel in the UK. Situated along London’s The Strand, it is a magnet for the rich and royal, established by theatre impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte with a view to dazzle the créme of society with luxurious suites, designer décor – and unbeatable cuisine.
The maître-chef, Georges Auguste Escoffier, is synonymous with the hotel’s culinary and star-studded legacy – he was famous friends with some of the world’s greatest performers, including actress Sarah Bernhardt and opera star Nellie Melba (for whom he invented the Peach Melba) – and, at The Savoy, the chef’s supper rooms made it fashionable for aristocratic women to dine in public for the first time.
Escoffier was a champion of French haute cuisine, famed for popularising and modernising the five ‘mother sauces’ – béchamel, espagnole, tomate, velouté, hollandaise and mayonnaise – as well as falling on his military background to formalise the brigade de cuisine – the kitchen hierarchy still used today.
Fast forward 132 years, and Escoffier’s presence is once again felt in The Savoy, thanks to one of our most prominent chefs célèbres: Gordon Ramsay. Launched this year, the intimate Restaurant 1890 is an homage to the famed French chef, from its refined, gold-hued décor to its sensational nine-course tasting menu.
Ramsay’s second Savoy restaurant (the hotel is also home to The River Restaurant by Gordon Ramsay) is helmed by executive chef James Sharp, previously of Ramsay’s Michelin-star restaurant Pétrus. With just 26 covers available across ten tables, this is more akin to a private dining event than a mere meal out.
The experience begins at the small private bar area outside the dining room, where cocktails – named for Escoffier’s famous friends – await. We opt for a classic old fashioned over ice, a perfectly balanced, light and smoky aperitif, as well as an off-menu mocktail that comes presented even more beautifully.
In the dining room, our table overlooks the Savoy Theatre – and the queues of theatregoers heading into an evening production of Dirty Dancing are the only sign that we are not in a bygone era. Sumptuous fabric and artwork are set off by art deco mirrors and finishing touches, as a trio of canapés – devilled crab, beetroot and horseradish, and smoked cheddar gougère – begins our tasting experience with flare.
From there, a roast chicken consommé is accompanied by Parker house roll – rich with onion and rosemary and finished with a sticky glaze – followed by a medley of sugar snap pea and rich tomato royale that our waiter rightfully describes as “spring in a bowl”. A seasonable asparagus with an unmistakably morish garlic hollandaise comes next, before a Turbot Veronique with champagne and caviar beurre blanc. Both paired with a beguiling white merlot (expert head sommelier Emanuel Pesqueira’s recommendation), these are my favourite dishes, thanks to the interplay of exquisitely fresh but simple core ingredients and powerfully complex sauces.
The main dishes are completed by a melt-in-the-mouth cut of Aberdeen Angus short rib with artichokes and sauce Bordelaise – there is barely the need for a knife with this heavenly tender portion of beef. Pesquiera offers an “adventurous” Cabernet Sauvignon, full of unexpected spice and raspberry notes, to pair. It is deep pink and delicious – a much lighter shade than I might have expected – and speaks to the sommelier’s impressive intuition for his guests’ individual tastes: a nearby table opts for a sherry-hued organic white wine as their pairing of choice.
A trio of seasonal desserts finishes the tasting experience – aged comté cheese, a sharp raspberry sorbet, and blood orange parfait paired with dark chocolate and cardamom sauce – before, finally, coffee with a selection of petit fours of grapefruit and juniper pâte de fruit, and salted caramel chocolate.
A worthy homage to the great Escoffier, Chef Sharp’s realisation of Restaurant 1890’s menu of complex flavours and peerless produce is wholly contemporary, succeeding in taking the lucky diner on a true culinary journey through London’s love affair with French haute cuisine. Add in the evocative setting and attentive team, and the result is time travel at its finest.
