Gordon Ramsay Restaurants Global’s 100th restaurant sits on the 59th floor of 22 Bishopsgate, the same tower that already houses Lucky Cat. It opened on May 6th and features in Netflix’s Being Gordon Ramsay, a docuseries filmed during the build-up to launch. The room has floor-to-ceiling glass on all sides and a 360-degree view across London, that would be enough alone.
The bar is worth arriving early for. A Hibiscus Negroni with hibiscus-infused Campari, a Running of the Bulls with tequila, lime, Red Bull peach, agave and grapefruit soda. We had classic Palomas – it was warm, they were cold, and from up here you watch the sun travel the full length of the horizon rather than just catching it drop. Sitting at the bar until your table is ready means you don’t miss any of it.
The tasting menu is the way to order. Oysters with habanero vinegar first – cold flesh, the vinegar heat sitting separately at the back of the throat a few seconds after swallowing. Chicken and caviar nuggets – gone quickly, but not forgotten, even now. Lobster and prawn toast follows with tobiko mayonnaise and salted egg yolk, confusing the table that this was just what is considered the ‘snack’ portion of the menu.
Soft Parker bread rolls arrive with whipped salted butter to introduce the starters. Stonebass crudo with thinly sliced cold grape, pickled chilli and a deep aji amarillo dressing – the grape is sharp against the fish, the amarillo comes in warmer and later, a separate sensation entirely. One wagyu meatball follows, enormous, in roasted tomato sauce under smoked provola.
The stunning piece of meat that is a Duroc pork chop arrives thick-cut and barely contained by the plate, with black garlic and walnut puree and jus gras, a bottle of red open beside it and the city entirely dark below. Smoked applewood mac and cheese with a bacon crumb, creamed spinach with nutmeg cream sauce and paprika fries because there wasn’t enough food, apparently. The portions are serious.
The Meyer lemon cheesecake looks exactly like a lemon sitting on the plate. You crack the shell and find cheesecake underneath with strawberry and basil compote for every bite. Sticky toffee madeleines come after.
22 Bishopsgate now holds two of London’s most interesting restaurant openings – Lucky Cat below, Bread Street Kitchen above – both accessible in the same building, both looking out over the same city from different floors. As a combination, and as a landmark for what Gordon Ramsay Restaurants has built across a hundred locations worldwide, it’s a hard one to argue with.
