London,

The Warrington

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Cuisine: British, Modern

93 Warrington Crescent, W9 1SY


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Larushka Ivan-Zadeh, London Lite

 

Description: The most satisfactory to date of the 'budget-Gordon' establishments, this huge Victorian boozer in Maida Vale appears the least effortful of the trio, and -- perhaps in consequence -- succeeds best; it struck us as effectively a large and smart -- but in some ways quite standard -- pub dining room, above a bar whose décor (original) is equalled by few in London.

Food:    Service:    Ambience:   

Phone: 020 7592 7960
Website: http://http://www.gordonramsay.com/thewarrington/

Open: Lunch served Mon-Fri 12noon-2.30pm, Sat-Sun 12noon-4pm, Dinner Sun-Thurs 6pm-10pm, Fri-Sat 6pm-10.30pm

Good for: Good food, Ambience.

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Gaudy rather than Gordy

 

Third pub venture: Head chef Daniel Kent's food is gently priced at the moment, which is keeping customers happy and the restaurant fully booked, but the cooking failed to impress our critic

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Strangely enough, the impoverished poet John Davidson spent the last 20 years of his life at 19 Warrington Crescent. It was there he wrote Thirty Bob a Week, his bitter ballad about trying to bring up a family in London on too little money, ending: "We fall, face forward, fighting, on the deck."

Now Warrington Crescent is Maida Vale at its most palatial: vast stucco mansions for the super-rich. This is architecture with a single message - begone, paups. Or words to that effect.

At its top, the grandiose Warrington Hotel (always a pub, never a hotel) was built in 1859, and revamped around 1900, with an Art Nouveau interior, all stained glass and fancy plasterwork, chandeliers and ornate standard lamps, mosaic tiling and naked ladies.

The Warrington used to have a Thai restaurant, Ben's, upstairs (a popular combination in boozers such as The Churchill Arms in Kensington Church Street). But back in 2006 Gordon Ramsay bought the Warrington for a reputed £5.2 million and the building has now been lavishly restored. Three weeks ago it opened as the third Ramsay gastropub in London, with a fourth, the York and Albany in Camden, on the way.

Downstairs, there's a corny bar snack menu - scotch egg and HP sauce, £3.50, pork pie and piccalilli, £6 - and for the moment, affordable beer (London Pride, Greene King IPA, Adnams Broadside all £2.90 a pint).

Upstairs, there's a huge and formal dining room, replicating the proportions of the street outside, with no pub atmosphere whatsoever. It features leathery banquettes in a peculiarly nasty sea-green, a stripy carpet, crowded tables and a dominant central command post. Even without music, it's very shouty.

And already the whole place is booked out for weeks ahead. If you ring for a table any time soon, they just say, no, no, no. We could only get in tiresomely late. It's been reported that the clientele have already included the likes of Kate Moss and crew, although the only face we spotted was Faria Alam. Maybe. Most of the customers that evening were, though, quite definitely what experienced field anthropologists can readily identify as braying tossers.

The service upstairs is highly polished, both friendly and professional, and the prices for now pretty gentle.

The most enticing of the listed starters, clams, Old Spot bacon and Aspall cider, £8.95, was unavailable. Purple sprouting broccoli with hollandaise, £5.25, came soft, in large quantities, served simply with a nicely lemony sauce.

Smoked eel with celeriac remoulade, £7.95, was a large square slab of fish slightly too dense and tough to cut easily with the knife supplied, accompanied by lightly blanched long strips of celeriac in a mustardy mayonnaise, accompanied by a few leaves. Both were OK, neither had any special flavour. Not much hard cooking here, then.

The main courses were, quite simply, poor. Braised Gloucester pig cheeks with swede purée, £11, were nothing like as good as a similar dish eaten recently at The Duke of Wellington in Crawford Street.

The swedey mash was fine, but the four pieces of meat were dry, having been long cooked without achieving the melting unctuous texture of this cut at its best. They'd also been overflavoured with oriental spices, a persistent tic in Ramsay's versions of traditional recipes.

Roasted haddock, clams and leeks, £12.75, was worse. The chunk of fish came skin side up, surrounded by five clams and a creamy sauce, with roundels of waxy potatoes flecked with chives.

But the haddock was (for once, with fish) actually undercooked - at the same time that the dish as a whole lacked freshness and appeal, smelling briney and slightly tired. My companion said she'd just as soon have had boil-in-the-bag cod. We didn't feel like finishing either of these platefuls.

Chocolate fondant with crème fraiche ice cream, £6, a warm pudding, not too sweet, was pleasant enough without being at all special. You'd have been happy if you'd bought it at Tesco. But then this is mass-market catering, connected to the big name only very tangentially.

These days, Gordon Ramsay is a businessman and a TV celebrity, not a cook, not here at least. The food is overseen by Mark Sargeant, previously head chef for Ramsay at Claridge's, now leading the group's expansion into pubs.

The belief that they're eating in a Gordon Ramsay-owned place clearly still excites many people but, when it's like this, it's a swizz.

You might as well get excited about eating any large food corp's product. You're dining with Gordon Ramsay in much the same sense that you're dining with Paul Newman when you open one of his pasta sauces.

With fizzy water, a couple of glasses of Chilean sauvignon blanc (£3.75) and a bottle of sound Corbières, Ollieux Romani, £18, the bill came to £83.64. More than 30 bob but, for now, cheap for this kind of place - as the happy crowds of locals revelling there appreciate. But we wouldn't go back.

The carpet downstairs is so ridiculously plush, by the way, it makes you feel a touch seasick just to tread it. Still, if you did fall face forward, you'd surely bounce.

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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