Petrus by Marcus Wareing is now open

[ulterior epicure]

Educate me: So Petrus is actually Gordon Ramsay's restaurant, but Marcus Wareing is cooking there?  And what am I to make of this?  What's going on?  I'm very confused. 

Lastly, is Petrus any good, currently?  I'm trying to decide between Petrus and Tom Aikens.

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Petrus is until the 15th of this month operated by Gordon ramsay holdings withMarcus wareing as chef patron. A few months back, marcus did an exclusive deal to take over completely from GRH and work directly with the berkley hotel (so essentially carrying on doing exactly what he was doing before just without GRH's involvement) google waitrose food illustrated or some of the newspaper headlines from early august to see the story break and get acrimonious... In my opinion Petrus is a brilliant restaurant and would highy reccommend it, especially over tom aikens which is a great dining experience but really not comparable.

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I see. So, by the time I arrive in December, it will be completely a Marcus Wareing enterprise? I will have to monitor the menu over the next few months.

Not having been to either, can you please digest (pun intended) the differences between Wareing's style (or the food at Petrus anyway) and Aiken's?

Edited September 1, 2008 by ulterior epicure (log)

[Matthew Grant]

In a nutshell Wareing cooks very good French influenced food and is a talented chef supposedly constrained by working for Gordon Ramsay, we'll see if this is true once he goes it alone, I believe he can get three stars.

Aikens is the enfant terrible of British cooking famous for stabbing a chef in his brigade before disappearing and working for Andrew Lloyd Weber as his private chef. Now he owns a restaurant where each dish takes a gazillion ingredients and he throws them at the plate after cooking (well that's how it looked to me anyway).

[Andrew Chalk]

Now he owns a restaurant where each dish takes a gazillion ingredients and he throws them at the plate after cooking (well that's how it looked to me anyway).

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Beautiful synopsis up until that last claim. On my visit I was struck by the visuals on the plate but would describe it as more Vincent Van Gogh than Jackson Pollock.

Overall I love the place and would describe it as flamboyant presentation style backed up by quality ingredients and careful dish development. Lunch is a relative bargain.

[ravelda]

Nice Synopsis Matthew - although I would add that Aikens seems to have tamed down his dishes over the past 12 months and is now a little more focused and traditional in what he sends out.

Personally I quite like both places, although if I had to pick between the two, on a good day Petrus would likely win. Interesting to see that Aikens has had to close down his chippie Tom's place as residents complained about the smell of chip fat claiming it had caused a 50% reduction in the value of their properties (oh, the heart bleeds!).

As an aside, he never stabbed a chef, he branded him with a red hot palette knife - the stabbing claim was more recent and related to an incident where a chef in his kitchen had to go to hospital to have stitches in his back-side after he apparently managed to slip and land his arse on a skewer being held by a fellow chef (not Aikens apparently, he was according to the reports in his office, not in the kitchen at the time of said incident).

[Matthew Grant]

Sorry, I forgot it was a branding, I knew it involved a knife of some kind

If he has toned things down I might have to try and get back there myself.

[BertieWooster]

Aikens is the enfant terrible of British cooking famous for stabbing a chef in his brigade before disappearing and working for Andrew Lloyd Weber as his private chef. Now he owns a restaurant where each dish takes a gazillion ingredients and he throws them at the plate after cooking (well that's how it looked to me anyway).

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Morning after eating at the FD, sharing our table at breakfast was a young chef from Keller's place in New York, doing the rounds of UK restuarants avec girlfriend. Very nice and chatty he was till he said he'd trained at Aikens. I made the required joke about whether he'd survived and got a very stuffy response. 'Tom is one of my closest friends, we're staying with him...' etc. How passionate these followers get...

[howardlong]

Aikens is the enfant terrible of British cooking famous for stabbing a chef in his brigade before disappearing and working for Andrew Lloyd Weber as his private chef. Now he owns a restaurant where each dish takes a gazillion ingredients and he throws them at the plate after cooking (well that's how it looked to me anyway).

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Hear, hear! Something I've been saying fo a long, long time. We know that Aikens can cook, but he cannot seem to stop himself from doing exactly what you say. It irritates me in two ways. Firstly, I want to be able to taste what the main ingredients are. Secondly, and for me just as important, I want to be able to have a darned good go at matching a wine.

Howard

[muichoi]

Precisely. It's a cuisine utterly without culture.

[rmillman]

We ate at Petrus last March after eating at Fat Duck and St. John.

We had two dinner tasting menus but asked the kitchen if they could vary any of the platings/courses so we could try a larger variety.

They delivered with one set being the menu as listed and the other being the same main ingrediant but presented differently. It was done very well with flavors and temps of dishes being spot on (turnde out Marcus was not even in the kitchen and his sous was in charge). One dish with scallops and white chocolate was an magical pairing.

[Jon Tseng]

They delivered with one set being the menu as listed and the other being the same main ingrediant but presented differently.  It was done very well with flavors and temps of dishes being spot on (turnde out Marcus was not even in the kitchen and his sous was in charge).  One dish with scallops and white chocolate was an magical pairing.

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That sounds interesting. More like what you expect a *** kitchen to be capable of.

I do wonder if Fat Duck could manage the same thing at the drop of a hat. I do worry that its full stagiares cooking production line degustations ("open n02 tub. drop in lime tea foam quenelle. remove quenelle. repeat 100 times per service").

J

[chrisp]

We had two dinner tasting menus but asked the kitchen if they could vary any of the platings/courses so we could try a larger variety.

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That was very bolshy of you, if I may say so! Glad it turned out well - and yes this does suggest a kitchen very much in control.

[nikkib]

We had two dinner tasting menus but asked the kitchen if they could vary any of the platings/courses so we could try a larger variety.

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That was very bolshy of you, if I may say so! Glad it turned out well - and yes this does suggest a kitchen very much in control.

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i dont think its bolshy at all - at RHR they pretty much make you have individual tatsing menus, i think it showcases a kitchen at its best

[ulterior epicure]

...at RHR they pretty much make you have individual tatsing menus, i think it showcases a kitchen at its best

I don't understand this statement. Individual tasting menus as opposed to what?

[nikkib]

...at RHR they pretty much make you have individual tatsing menus, i think it showcases a kitchen at its best

I don't understand this statement. Individual tasting menus as opposed to what?

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as in everyone at the table has different preparations of each dish so the "main course" might be squab for one person, veal for another etc etc no two dishes are replicated at the table

[ulterior epicure]

...at RHR they pretty much make you have individual tatsing menus, i think it showcases a kitchen at its best

I don't understand this statement. Individual tasting menus as opposed to what?

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as in everyone at the table has different preparations of each dish so the "main course" might be squab for one person, veal for another etc etc no two dishes are replicated at the table

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And that's the standard m.o. at RHR?

[nikkib]

pretty much - well it used to be - i haven't eaten there this year. They offer you the choice. Last time i went the three of us all had different dishes for every course - a terrine of foie gras for one person, one had a ballotine of foie gras and smoked duck and one had pan fried foie etc - really impressiva and allowed for different preferences and dietary req's to be taken into consideration. I manot a big fan of a main course of meat on a tasting menu as i find it too rich so i had another fish dish which was lovely.

[rmillman]

I found it very nice to have different presentations at each course. It seemed like the Sous was really trying to complement what Chef had clearly laid out as a planed progression of flavors. I wonder if he would have been able to do it if Chef was there (I am sorry but I cannot remember his name).

When my wife and I eat at places that have only a single set tasting, we always ask if something like this is possible so that we can get a wider range of flavors and combinations for our enjoyment, somethimes it is a "yes, we would love to, others are less able to meet this request due to the contraints of the kitchen (no issue either, we just really enjoy all levels of dining).

BTW, our meal at Fat Duck this trip was very much enjoyed and I cannot thank them enough for squeezing us in based on a late cancellation. The profiles of each of the courses was well thought out and the protein components of each dish was done to perfection.

[nikkib]

the head chef at Petrus is Alan but their sous is an amazing kiwi girl called chantelle - would imagine they were both in if Marcus was off, but rest assured alan is an immensley talented chef as well

[howardlong]

the head chef at Petrus is Alan but their sous is an amazing kiwi girl called chantelle - would imagine they were both in if Marcus was off, but rest assured alan is an immensley talented chef as well

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You are correct. On Monday, at the Chef's Table while Wareing was at the London Restaurant awards, Alan was running the joint. Very hands on, making up plates at the pass, in a very calm and controlled kitchen.

It's not my favourite kitchin for a Chef's table: there is no hands-on, and it's too cramped for everyone in the party to be able to hear what's being explained. But the way the table itself is set up is well conceived. I'm glad I don't have their aircon bill.

H

[nikkib]

have you eaten at the maze chefs table howard? That is great and you can see pretty much the whole kitchen, we got to cook scallops too!

[howardlong]

have you eaten at the maze chefs table howard? That is great and you can see pretty much the whole kitchen, we got to cook scallops too!

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Nope, I have always treated Maze as a bit of an oddball to be honest. I don't know how to treat it really, with the tapas thing going on. Plus it has always been rubber stamp Ramsay recipes on the four or five occasions I've been there. Well executed food. With Ramsay stamped all over it.

A superlatively tolerable place to read the Sunday papers in my book, but that's about it in my experience.

Clearly Jason Atherton groupies think otherwise. Perhaps I should try again!

H

[ulterior epicure]

Plus it has always been rubber stamp Ramsay recipes on the four or five occasions I've been there. Well executed food. With Ramsay stamped all over it.

Can you please clarify what you mean by this?

[howardlong]

Plus it has always been rubber stamp Ramsay recipes on the four or five occasions I've been there. Well executed food. With Ramsay stamped all over it.

Can you please clarify what you mean by this?

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Sure: there was never anything I can remember on the plate that made me think I was anywhere other than, for example, Claridges or the old Savoy Grill. There was no real identity. But if the formula works, and gets punters in, I can understand the temptation not to change something if it ain't broken.

Very accomplished, sure, but there is zero "wow" factor for me I'm afraid.

Regarding service, you are guaranteed a crew dressed in the Ramsay way such as the ladies with fitted suits and tight trousers, male maitre d's with dark hair full of products. The most obvious difference? You don't get a table cloth.

Cheers, Howard

[Gary Marshall]

pretty much - well it used to be - i haven't eaten there this year. They offer you the choice. Last time i went the three of us all had different dishes for every course - a terrine of foie gras for one person, one had a ballotine of foie gras and smoked duck and one had pan fried foie etc - really impressiva and allowed for different preferences and dietary req's to be taken into consideration. I manot a big fan of a main course of meat on a tasting menu as i find it too rich so i had another fish dish which was lovely.

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i didn't know they did this, i remember bourdain going to french laundry on tv with a table of 4 (naturally all well known) but all getting a completely different tasting menu which i thought was cool.

[ulterior epicure]

pretty much - well it used to be - i haven't eaten there this year. They offer you the choice. Last time i went the three of us all had different dishes for every course - a terrine of foie gras for one person, one had a ballotine of foie gras and smoked duck and one had pan fried foie etc - really impressiva and allowed for different preferences and dietary req's to be taken into consideration. I manot a big fan of a main course of meat on a tasting menu as i find it too rich so i had another fish dish which was lovely.

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i didn't know they did this, i remember bourdain going to french laundry on tv with a table of 4 (naturally all well known) but all getting a completely different tasting menu which i thought was cool.

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I find it terribly distracting. Inevitably, you end up envying half of the courses my dinner mate(s) get, and they, likewise. I'd rather be able to eat and discuss collectively without having to be passing dishes around and feeling like you got the corner of something which was already smaller than your thumb.

Edited September 6, 2008 by ulterior epicure (log)