review of French restaurant The Ritz in Piccadilly by Andy Hayler in January 2025

I have written previously about the Ritz wine list, history and chef background. As usual, we went for a surprise tasting menu tonight (£193), but there is a wide range of menu options, including a la carte and a three-course menu at £89. This meal began with a little tray of canapes, the initial set all being tried and tested old favourites. Coronation chicken here is wrapped in a sugar tuile cylinder. Chicken is mixed with curry powder and salt, steamed and then chilled. This is then mixed with spices, coconut cream, mayonnaise, coriander, raisins and mango chutney. This is all wrapped in a sugar tuile seasoned with coconut, curry and espelette pepper, the ends being dipped in toasted breadcrumbs. The result is a lovely blend of flavours, the delicate tuile disintegrating on the tongue. A regular canape here is duck liver parfait with sour cherry and gingerbread, the richness of the liver nicely balanced by the sharpness of the sour cherry. Another old favourite was Ragstone cheese mousse with wood-roasted pepper and basil roasted on a sable base, the mousse smooth in texture and the base of the canape delicate.

A further array of canapes appeared next. A croustade of beef tartare with mustard emulsion and nasturtium was topped with a crisp shallot crumb cooked in foaming butter. This was absolutely lovely, the mustard at just the right level to cut through the richness of the meat, the pastry case delicate and the shallot crumb adding some balance. A tartlet contained smoked sea trout cured in a citrus salt and the gently smoked, diced and bound with lemon zest and juice, along with freshly grated horseradish, fresh dill and a dill pickle gel. This was then topped with trout roe and served in a crisp pate de brick case. This was a very good canape, the sea trout having so much better flavour than farmed trout, the pastry case light and delicate and the gentle bite of horseradish just lifting the flavour of the trout. The final canape was a particularly good one, lobster barbajuan. Traditionally barbajuan is a fritter stuffed with ricotta, Swiss chard and rice and is particularly popular around Monaco. This is a more luxurious version. It starts with a spiced lobster sauce Americane sauce (onions, tomatoes, white wine, brandy, fish stock, butter and pepper) infused with cardamon, star anise and fennel that is used to bind a lobster tail that had been gently poached and diced. The filling was finished with fresh tarragon, coriander and chervil, then wrapped in a traditional barbajuan pastry and deep-fried. It was then brushed with lobster oil and dusted with espelette pepper and spice of angels (fennel pollen). This was a really high grade set of canapes (18/20 average).

The first formal course of the meal was Dorset crab with crème fraiche and imperial caviar. White crab meat was mixed with brown meat, mixed with crème fraiche, lemon zest, lemon juice, salt and pepper. A chopped jelly was made from Granny Smith apple juice, fennel juice, Verjus and grape juice, finished with Imperial caviar. On the side was a little crab crumpet, made with sourdough, baking soda, sugar and salt. This was cooked on a hot plate and topped with brown crab butter, crème fraiche and more crab meat that was bound with brown crab and kombu. This was a lovely dish, the crab having excellent flavour, the mixture of textures lovely and the balance of flavours excellent with the acidity of the jelly and the natural sweetness of the crab. It was very pretty to look at too (18/20).

The next course was the signature langoustine a la nage, which I have written about previously. Scottish langoustines are delivered live to the kitchen, poached in butter and resting on a bed of cauliflower puree, baby Cornish vegetables and Bronze fennel, all in a herb nage. This is a near-perfect dish utilising very high-grade ingredients (19/20).

Cornish red mullet was next, pan-fried. A potato “risotto” was cooked in olive oil, garlic and saffron. Then there was a separate basil emulsion, Menton lemon gel and a bouillabaisse sauce. The latter was made from langoustine shells, lobster shells, the bones of red mullet and sea bass and infused with saffron, fresh basil and coriander. On the side was an aerated aioli style emulsion finished with spiced red pepper condiment and espelette pepper. The final garnish was fennel braised in Pernod and baby artichoke barigoule. Red mullet is a tricky fish, which can be sublime or just a muddy mess. Here it was superb, the artichokes going particularly well, the pepper condiment a nice touch and the sauce suitably rich and deep in flavour (18/20).

Agnolotti pasta came with Parmesan and black truffle. Pasta was stuffed with cream flavoured with Tallegio cheese, cooked in boiling water and then glazed in a truffle sauce with black truffle from the Pyrenees, Madeira and port. The pasta rested in a Parmesan foam using 36-month aged Parmesan. This was a wonderfully rich dish, the earthy aroma of the truffle enhancing the cheese flavour (18/20).

Chestnut-fed pigeon was the final savoury course, served a la presse. The pigeon used was from Jean-Jacques Boga, who has been operating since 1988 in the Amorique national park in Brittany. The birds live outdoors in roosts and are fed on corn and chestnut flour, with each parent bird feeding its offspring naturally. The carcass of the pigeon was fed into the silver press to extract the juices and blood, which are used to thicken a sauce that is flambeed at the table. The breast was served with superb new season white asparagus. The pigeon had superb flavour but for me the star was the white asparagus, which was absolutely superb, perfectly cooked and beautifully complementing the richness of the meat and its sauce (18/20).

Pre-dessert was diced fresh pear served with yoghurt foam, a scoop of pear sorbet and finished with a drizzle of eau-de-vie from Somerset. This was a simple but refreshing pre-dessert (16/20). The main dessert was very seasonal, featuring poached Yorkshire rhubarb and a vanilla custard tart. A ring of rhubarb was poached in ginger ale, orange zest and vanilla. In the centre was vanilla Chantilly, clementine sponge soaked in olive oil, ckementine compote and rhubarb compote all topped with a scoop of stem ginger ice cream and a raspberry flavoured sugar tuile. On the side was Madagascar vanilla custard tart, topped with poached rhubarb, rhubarb gel and a garnish of fresh herbs. This was a lovely way to complete the meal, clementine being a lovely fruit that combined well with the rhubarb, the fruit acidity cutting through the richness of the cream (17/20).

Coffee these days is from a company called Passalacqua from Naples, a not particularly distinguished Italian roaster around since the 1940s that uses commodity coffee, in this case roasted very dark. I drank an infusion instead, which was for me much preferable to a mediocre coffee. I have no idea why a fine dining restaurant would not use specialty coffee (coffees that are scored over 80/100 by qualified graders, the top 6% of coffee), given the care taken over all the other ingredients. Petit fours were dark chocolate and hazelnut praline, salted caramel, vanilla macaroon and raspberry pate de fruit, all very carefully made.

Service was lovely as ever; if I was to be picky then wine topping up could have been a touch better at times though it was mostly fine. The bill came to £343 per head including wine, the food element being £193 per person for the full tasting menu. The Ritz continues to deliver the best overall dining experience in London.

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