I ate at Gordon Ramsay's new Boston restaurant; here's what it's like (2024)

If you manage to score a table at Ramsay’s Kitchen, the two things you should get are the jumbo lump crab cake appetizer and sticky toffee pudding dessert. You’ll clock in under $50 before tax and tip and you’ll get two of the best things you’ll eat while getting to say you ate at Gordon Ramsay’s new restaurant in Boston.

If you want to go all-out, get the beef Wellington as well. Sure, your bill will already clock in just over $100 for three items. But having eaten through a good chunk of the menu, I can attest that you get what you paid for.

Eating at a celebrity chef’s restaurant isn’t some magical experience. It’s just a restaurant. But what it can do is let you tap into the mystique of the world-famous chefs and Michelin-star restaurants that you see on TV. It gives you a little piece of that world and puts it on a plate right in front of you.

It’s an enticing offer. That’s why staff at Ramsay’s Kitchen say that dinner service is booked until April, and that they have superfans coming to the restaurant daily hoping to catch a glimpse of Ramsay himself.

What it’s like to eat at Ramsay’s Kitchen, Gordan Ramsay’s new restaurant in Boston

Unfortunately, before you can get to the food, you have to deal with the realities of trying to get to the table at a celebrity chef’s trendy new restaurant. The restaurant is part of the Mandarin Oriental hotel on Boylston Street, which means you’ll be forking over some extra money for parking as well if you’re driving.

If you do manage to get to the restaurant and score a table (you’ll have much better luck during lunch hours), you’ll be greeted by a sleek interior of cool blues, crisp whites and polished woods. You’ve also got looping episodes of “Gordon Around the World” playing in the bar, in case you forgot where you were.

The recurring theme in talking to staff about the restaurant was that they were simply excited to be there and working for a figure of the culinary world they all looked up to. I was there on a day that Ramsay was visiting the restaurant (for media interviews) and there was a buzz of excitement in the restaurant.

As for the menu, it’s more conventional than some of Ramsay’s more upscale locations. There’s no fancy tasting menu like there’d be at one of his fancy three-star Michelin restaurants in England. Instead, it’s a more casual menu that leans New England seafood background, with both Connecticut and Maine-style lobster rolls among the options.

The prices aren’t cheap. But they’re nothing worse than what you’d find at a steakhouse around Boston. You can get a $21 burger. Appetizers range from $14-28. Entrees start at $28, get up to $59 for the beef Wellington and cap out at $145 for a 42-ounce tomahawk steak.

So what does the food taste like?

Putting aside prestige and star power, the food at Ramsay’s Kitchen is really good. I tried a range of dishes that the kitchen put out while Ramsay’s Kitchen was open at lunch when the restaurant invited media to check out the new spot. Here’s what I tried:

Jumbo Lump Crab Cake ($27)

Out of all the things on the menu to knock my socks off, I was not expecting it to be the crab cake. But here we are. I’ve been crushed by this crustacean.

The crab cakes are all killer, no filler and explode with flavor from the crab meat. There’s an outer breading made from Ritz crackers and some light components mixed into the cake. But it all serves to make the crab flavor shine and pinch you into a dream of sweet, profound flavor from the meat.

It comes with a citrus herb aioli, but doesn’t need any sort of sauce. It’s brilliantly moist on the inside and crackles with flavor, with the slightly buttery outer coating adding some crunch.

Tuna Tartare ($24)

The tartare is served ensconced within a barricade of sliced avocado and accompanied by some sour cream and the best darned fried wontons I’ve ever had.

This is best consumed by using the fried wonton like a big, fancy chip to dip and mix up the ingredients. The heat from the chili-infused tuna is a great touch when mixed with the cool flavors of the avocado and sour cream. It’s a really refreshing, satisfying dish that’s way more fun than I’ve had with tuna tartare before.

Fish & Chips ($29)

The big, hearty pieces of fried haddock here really hit with a one-two punch of flavors between the airy, crispy coating and the flavor of the fish. You get a nice, satisfying golden crunch when you bite in, setting up the broad flavors of haddock that follow.

It’s hearty, but at no point does it feel heavy or oily. The batter remains light and crisp while the fish finishes clean with no off-flavors.

The “triple cooked chips” in this instance are more like a cross between steak fries and roasted potatoes. Regardless of what they’re called, these are absolutely killer potatoes. They’re beautifully seasoned, crispy on the outside and have a soft interior that sings with the natural flavors of the potato.

Beef Wellington ($59)

Well, here it is, one of Ramsay’s signature dishes. It does not disappoint.

Someway, somehow, each layer of this absurd concept feels like it belongs and serves to heighten the dish as a whole. It’s got the wonder and excitement of an amusem*nt park with the fine-tuning and balance of a professional orchestra.

The filet steak at the core is brilliantly cooked and serves as the carnivorous bedrock upon which this bonkers British pastry castle is built. You get a tiny bit of spark from the pepper seasoning and mustard that goes around the filet. The duxelles mushroom mixture that goes around that brings a layer of earthiness and nuttiness. The prosciutto that wraps around adds some bright, fatty, salty flavors. Then around that, you’ve got an herb crepe, which locks in the moisture of the inner components to keep it fatty and juicy as it cooks inside the puff pastry, which is wonderfully crispy and bready.

There are so many things going on in this dish that all work in concert. You can simply cut through the entire butter knife-tender Wellington and take a big bite to experience the full symphony of every layer doing it’s part in the carnivorous concerto. You can also stop and enjoy a beautiful solo from the filet or a small-band performance to appreciate the savory layers of the outer coating.

To top it off, you’ve also got a savory spread of potato puree served along with a red wine demi-glace sauce to complement the carb-wrapped showstopper. The demi-glace adds a beautiful complement of dry, ruby flavors to bring out the best qualities of the beef and bring some acidity to cut through the starches.

One last note: This dish has convinced me that potato puree is the ideal potato side to serve along with beef.

Bouillabaisse ($49)

This is the dish that Ramsay serves in the season 3 episode of the “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted” set in Maine and works as a two-stage stew. It’s less a pot and more of a treasure chest of cast iron and seafood. Unlocking its treasures involves a two-step process:

Step 1: Dig out the wonderful gems of seafood that have soaked in all the flavors of the broth. You’ve got clams and mussels, whose briny flavors meld with the savory, zesty elements of the tomato-laden broth. Then there’s the lobster, which really lands a haymaker of flavors with its own sweet notes getting heightened by infusion of the stew.

Step 2: Dip the toasted bread slices. This broth is gold, with the nuggets of the seafood lurking within the red, savory depths. The key is to get some shells out of the way and clear out some space to really get in there with the bread. That way, you scoop up all the good bits at the bottom to make it a sopping carb pillar that harnesses all the flavor powers of the Atlantic.

Sticky Toffee Pudding ($16)

This is one of the best desserts I’ve ever had. Hands down. It’s electric in its flavors, satisfying in its textures and keeps enticing you to take another bite.

The moist sponge filled with chopped dates is sweet, warm and chewy -- a stark contrast of the cool, light creme fraiche ice cream on top. Those both sit in the middle of a pool of English toffee sauce, which provides a sweet dance floor for all the flavors to mingle and shine.

The toffee sauce is what sugary caramel dreams are made of. The steamed date cake is wonderfully moist and crumbled when it hits your mouth. The ice cream up top is smooth and slightly tangy, providing a refreshing contrast to the other elements, but isn’t sweet itself.

As a result, the dish isn’t overloaded with sugar. Nothing gets overpowered. You can taste each of the individual elements, which all connect to make one singular sweet triumvirate of flavors that will blow you away.

Life’s a Beach Mocktail ($12)

(Ritual zero proof tequila alternative, liquid alchemist sour, pineapple, chili salt)

It’s sparky!

The chili salt rim adds a really fun spark of heat that blends with the sweet and sour elements of the drink. It finishes delightfully clean and refreshing without much in terms of tequila flavors.

Strawberry Chocolate Negroni ($18)

(Strawberry-chocolate infused Botanist gin, Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, Amaro Montenegro, Campari)

You don’t get sweetness from the infused gin. Instead, you get rosy herbaceous elements from the strawberry and bitter notes from the chocolate. You still get those notes of licorice from the vermouth, which creatures this intriguingly bitter drag of flavors when you sip.

Side note: Gotta love anything with an oversized ice cube.

Grin & Tonic Mocktail ($12)

(Ritual zero proof gin alternative, fever tree premium Indian tonic)

It’s piney without being overbearing and really doing a good job of capturing the flavors of the original drink. You get all the familiar piney juniper flavors, which go with the playful bubbly elements. The booziness isn’t there like it is with the co*cktail, but you still get the actual flavors

So, is it worth eating there?

If you can score a reservation and get there by walking or parking reasonably? Absolutely. The entrees are on the high side, but aren’t anything unheard of in a nice Boston restaurant. You can do a lot worse.

Ramsay’s Kitchen will have a capacity of 226 when its patio opens up in the warmer months. So hopefully it’ll be easier to get in once the hype comes down and the temperatures come up.

The final word

The intrigue of a celebrity restaurant will vary on how much time you’ve spent watching food specials on TV and YouTube. If you’re like me and watched a lot of shows hosted by Ramsay -- or even stuff like “Chef’s Table” or anything from Anthony Bourdain or Food Network -- there’s this sort of mystique that comes with celebrity chefs. After a while, you wanna eat that mystique.

However, don’t expect Ramsay to always be running around the kitchen and calling people “an idiot sandwich.” The chef, who’s known as a pretty nice guy outside his yelling-centric shows (and was nice when our Heather Morrison interviewed him), will be stopping by the Boston restaurant occasionally. But don’t hold on to any hopes of seeing him there if you swing by the restaurant.

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“I ate it so you don’t have to” is a regular food column looking at off-beat eats, both good and bad. It runs every other Thursday-ish at noon-ish.

You can send any praise/food suggestions to nomalley@masslive.com. Please send all criticisms and complaints about those darn media getting freebies to hmorisson@masslive.com. You can check out the rest of the series here.