Maze Resataurant, London

Gordon Ramsey has had a bit of a rough ride in recent months.  From his exalted position as potty mouthed, golden haired goldenboy of the TV restaurant makeover world, it has been rather a long fall from grace- to alleged adulterer, maker of bitchy remarks about other TV chefs and tabloid fodder.  It has certainly had a lot of people wondering if the sentimental life advice he dishes out on his kitchen nightmares would be better served applied to his own state of affairs.

Personal disasters apart, Ramsey is still a fine and very exacting chef and in my opinion the restaurant that demonstrates this above all others is Maze.  Set just behind Oxford Street on Grosvenor Square and a hop, skip and a jump from Claridges, this stylish food boudoir is tucked away up some stairs in a row of terraces.  The décor is all cut glass and cream leather banquettes and it has a very muted, sophisticated, grown up feel to it.  It was also a rather nice touch when I turned up there for lunch on Saturday to have Gordon Ramsey sitting in the little entrance bit chatting and gesticulating energetically to the poor man sitting across from him who frankly looked like he was trying to locate the nearest exit.

The menu at Maze is best sampled via the six course set lunch.  It may sound a little extravagant at £42 but most of us don’t indulge in this kind of fine dining every day.  Dishes include roasted Barbary duck, parsley root, English cherries, braised shin of veal, pea and broad bean risotto, aged parmesan, ‘prawn cocktail’, tomato fondue, lettuce ice, cocktail sauce and red mullet bouillabaisse, saffron aioli, croutons with deserts that include peaches, basil sorbet, gariguette strawberry jelly and ‘arctic roll.’

There’s also an a la carte menu and a tasting menu which allows you to taste a wider variety of smaller sized dishes, including roasted sea scallops with textures of apples, butterscotch and bacon (£10.50) and pliable chocolate ganache with dehydrated lime curd and walnut ice cream (£7.50).

Gordon might be leaving a bad taste in the public’s mouth right now but his food certainly doesn’t (www.gordonramsay.com/maze).

10 – 13 Grosvenor Square
London
W1K 6JP
020 7107 0000