Ramsay ready to run Claridge's restaurant – and make changes
Chef Gordon Ramsay is to take over the running of the restaurant in Claridge's hotel in London, although he will not be cooking there himself full time.
It is expected to be announced shortly that the three-Michelin-starred chef has signed a deal with the Savoy Group to run the restaurant. There will be no change to Ramsay's own restaurant in Chelsea.
Ramsay will put one of his sous chefs in charge of the revamped restaurant at Claridge's. It is unclear where this leaves Claridge's hotel executive chef John Williams, who last week declined to comment.
The hotel's general manager, Christopher Cowdray, said that no formal announcement was expected until the beginning of next month. He also insisted that negotiations were still being conducted "with a number of parties", and denied suggestions that a letter was to be sent out to staff in a few days announcing the arrival of Ramsay.
Nevertheless, it is understood that Ramsay has already been to New York to look at architects' plans for changes to the restaurant, which will include putting in a new door opening directly on to the street.
It is not the first time that the Savoy Group has brought in an outside chef to run a hotel restaurant.
In 1998, Pierre Koffmann moved La Tante Claire from its old site in Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea (now Ramsay's restaurant) to the Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge. A year after Koffmann arrived, the Berkeley's executive chef, Andrew Turner, left the hotel.
Koffmann brought three Michelin stars with him to the Berkeley but has since been downgraded to two.
Outside the Savoy Group, London's Landmark hotel also attracted a highly rated Michelin chef when two-starred John Burton-Race moved there last year from his restaurant, L'Ortolan, in Berkshire. The old Landmark restaurant's head chef, Andy McLeish, found his position untenable and left.
Other chefs previously in the running to take over Claridge's restaurant included Michel Roux of Le Gavroche (Caterer, 7 December 2000, page 5).
