KEY POINTS:
Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef whose dominance of British gastronomy has helped him become a global brand, is loosing his grip on London's restaurant scene, a survey claims today.
The poll, conducted for Harden's London Restaurants' guide, shows that Ramsay's culinary empire has fallen out of favour in the survey's main categories for the first time since 2000.
Ramsay's eponymous Chelsea eatery usually takes the number one vote for 'top gastronomic experience', 'highest food rating' and highest overall rating'.
But this time round, the restaurant failed to pull off the hat trick, retaining only the first of the three accolades by a much-reduced margin.
Peter Harden, a co-editor of the annual guide, said the tough-talking chef's slide could be because he was "spreading himself too thinly".
Ramsay is currently filming his new American television series, Kitchen Nightmares, and is also in the process of opening restaurants in Paris and Tokyo as well as maintaining the contracts of numerous top-end restaurants in London.
In the UK, he has been succeeded on the ITV show by fellow chef Marco Pierre-White.
Harden likened Ramsay's current predicament to that of the precarious position of the last Roman Emperor "just before the barbarians piled in".
"Cracks are beginning to appear in the columns," he said.
The highest overall rating in the survey, which judges restaurants on food, service and atmosphere, was awarded to Marcus Wareing's Petrus.
Harden's said that, despite being part of Gordon Ramsay group operations, the restaurant appeared to owe much of its astonishing popularity to Wareing's hands-on involvement.
Bruce Poole's Chez Bruce, in Wandsworth, emerged as the survey's highest-rated destination for food.
It retained its poll position as Londoners' 'Favourite Restaurant' for the third consecutive year.
Harden said that until this year, Ramsay's dominance on the London restaurant scene had been undisputed.
"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.
"I think there is a tension between doing the right thing as a businessman and the right thing as a chef. A businessman is concerned with spreading the brand name to the maximum while your stereotypical chef is driven by the love of spending his life in a stainless steel box that is the kitchen, rather than in front of the TV cameras.
"There is only so much time you can spend thousands of miles away from your key restaurants and expect them to remain as they were", he said.
Richard Harden, co-editor of the guide, added that the disappointing reception of Ramsay's New York eatery, which received poor reviews from the food critics when it launched, reinforced the thesis that the chef was losing his Midas touch.
Many of the 8,000 people who took part in the survey, branded his newly opened Knightsbridge eaterie, La Noisette, as a "fully-fledged Kitchen Nightmare.
"Ramsay has extended his reach to buying pubs - he recently bought The Narrows in the Docklands, and is just about to open The Warrington, a Victorian pub, while he is rumoured to have bought Devonshire House in Chiswick.
Meanwhile, the guide found that concerns for global warming and the effect of the world's carbon footprint were starting to reflect in restaurant-goers' choices.
This was 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.
The guide suggested that 'luxury grazing', or eating several small-portioned 'tapas' style dishes, was now all the rage.
The trend for grazing is the preferred style of dining in two of the biggest restaurant successes of the year, L'Atelier de Joel Robuchon and Barrafina.
Mayfair was found to be re-establishing itself as the prime location for restaurants with 'destination' pretensions.
A host of Mayfair debuts for some of the world's most celebrated chefs are imminent, including Alain Ducasse, who is launching a restaurant at the Dorchester, and the re-location of one of England's best restaurants, Claude Bosi's Hibiscus, which was formerly in Ludlow.
- INDEPENDENT
