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Ramsay's Best Restaurant

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It's the competition for the best French restaurant in Britain between Winteringham Fields in Lincolnshire vs. La Garrigue Bistro in Edinburgh. Winteringham Fields has head chef Colin and sous chef Lavette in the kitchen and Colin's wife as Front of the House. La Garrigue has Jean MIchel as chef/owner in the kitchen, Ganny as sous chef and Julie as Front of House.

Winterinigham Fields got the 30 simultaneous diners pressure test first. It served 2 amuses bouches to the diners while no orders are taken in the first 30 minutes, which put tremendous strain on the kitchen once those orders arrived. The appetizers were Cornish Brie with mustard, ham hocks terrine and John D'Ory with ham and olives. Ramsay noted that the kitchen was being overshadowed by the service, as there were far too many waiters around (total 1 wait staff for every 2 diners) and the results were chaotic. Entrees were lamb with polenta, chicken cannelloni with foie gras and lobster risotto with lobster bisque. It took the full 2 hours before all diners were fed, but the diners were highly impressed by the quality of their dishes.

La Garrigue specializes in rustic French cuisine. The appetizers are twice baked Rocquefort souffle, pan-fried scallops and rabbit briere. Entrees include saddle of rabbit, black pudding and apples. Ramsay noted that Jean Michel is not communicating with his kitchen staff when he is focused on finalizing dishes; Ganny is handling that role. Ramsay also believes that he does not really have control of his kitchen through leadership (that is always a Ramsay concern in the last 2 episodes of any Hell's Kitchen season). Food sits on a hot plate for 2.5 to 3 minutes, which is something Ramsay abhors. Dessert is a special brioche Pomplidou with apricots. Ramsay observed that he checked the dish going out of the kitchen but did not taste it. The apricots were off, so dessert was returned by all diners with complaints. That plus some delays in entrees caused not all diners to be served in 2 hours, a big no-no. Ramsay said that the food was very good and the service friendly, but overall the total experience was not up to his standards.

Ramsay sent secret diners Simon Davis into La Garrigue and Sarah Durdin-Robertson into Wntteringham Fields. They both came away with positive experiences that did not show major differences between the two restaurants, although there was some sort of air conditioning problem when she was there and a minor food issue at the end. So that left the cookoff in Petrus, with Winteringham Fields going in with a significant lead in my opinion. The common protein is fish.

Jean Michel tried something totally different, with an emphasis on haute cuisine. The meal was poached John D'Ory, langoustine cake, deep-fried oyster and lobster bisque. Colin countered with red mullet in a complex boulliabaisse sauce with Mediterranean salad. Jean Michel's hand was shaking while he plated the sauce.

The 20 select diners with major French cuisine experience found both meals to be superb. Ramsay expressed major kudos to Jean Michel for raising the level of his cuisine (something akin to going for broke to make up for the deficiencies of Ramsay observations at La Garrigue). However, Colin's dish was also delicious and Winteringham Fields was declared the winner.

TexasLady:
I hope they re-air these shows, for whatever reason they did not record for me.  :(

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TexasLady,

I know where these videos can be found, but unfortunately they are not accessible by anyone in the United States. This is the same sort of discrimination our brethren in Asia suffer on Elimination Station and similar CBS Amazing Race-related restrictions.

TexasLady:
Darn it! Maybe they will rerun them, the BBC has a tendency to rerun programming. It doesn't seem fair does it to keep other countries from access to the shows.

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Copmeting for best North African restaurant are MoMo in Mayfair, central London, and Azou in the Hammersmith section of West London. MoMo has 26 tables and Azou seats a total of 35 people. Head chef David of MoMo is British and his sous chef  is Philippe. Azou is owned and run by head chef Chris, a  native of Algeria, and wife Chris.He works in a tiny kitchen with a half-refrigerator and one burner on his stove. Ramsay feels that the winner will be the one best able to produce layering of complex spices and flavors.

Ramsay's bus of 30 hungry diners descended on MoMo for a limited 3 choice appetizer/3 choice entree meal. Things went very well in the kitchen, but the Front of House activity was chaotic. There is an overall FOH manager and then sub-managers under her for each different type of food, but this results in huge overlaps of responsibility with some not knowing that orders have already been taken by others.

Azou's focus in on Moroccan, Algerian and Tunisian cuisine.  Appetizer items for Azou included bourek, crisp pastry filled with marinated minced lamb, herbs & spices, and brik, a Tunisian specialty of crisp thin pastry filled with potato, egg & tuna.  Entrees were 3 tajines, mixes of chicken or lamb with spices and vegetables. The ordering system for Azou was done with written orders and without any no computer-based systems because FOH Chris wanted to stick to traditional ways.  Ramsay was negatively astonished by this. She actually made a mistake in mixing up the order for a table.  Head chef Chris was a control freak and one-man band in the kitchen. He wanted to do everything himself and leave his sous chef and underchef standing around watching. Ramsay's feedback told him he was burning out and could get away with it for that evening but not long term.       

For both restaurants, the diners were very satisfied with the  quality of their meals, citing delicious food.

Simon Davis went into MoMo undercover and he found the same thing that Ramsay did, that 2 FOH sub-managers wanted to take this order after it had already been given. He found the pigeon dish dry but Ramsay checked it out later and decided that the problem was insufficient pigeon in this dish. Sarah Durdin-Robertson went undercover at Azou and went into her "I want to change my order after it was already cooked" routine. She did not get customer-oriented handling of that from the Azou wait staff. Ramsay recommended that they fix that.

I felt it could go either way as the final cookoff at Petrus using lamb.  The usual diner group of North African cuisine experts was assembled and they raved about the food from both chefs. Ramsay could have called it in favor of either one. He chose Azou.

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