Gordon Ramsay Runs London's Tallest Restaurant | Open to Close | Ep 1: Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High

London is now one of the most competitive, one of the most sought-after culinary landmarks on the foodie map. Competition is rife. There are phenomenal restaurants here and so I know I can bring something new, something exciting, but I understand what it takes to get this place to that level of detail that very few chefs can match. The experience needs to be like no other and so yes, it's daring, but that's how we tick. So we have a beautiful turbot here from Cornwall and we get them fresh in every single day, straight from the boat onto the plates and then we're just very gently removing the flesh off the bone. Obviously we want to be hitting those bones as we go down, but I think you treat every single one like it's your first time, you know. When I come in every day and I get to look at this backdrop, I've spent all my life working in kitchens, usually in a basement, but to be able to walk into this every single morning is just, you know, it's quite jaw-dropping. You're just seeing birds flying across and my personal favourite bird, a bit of a geek here, is a peregrine falcon, the fastest bird in the world. They do actually roost on the Tower of London, which is just down there. Not many kitchens out there, I don't think you get to witness that every morning. And yeah, you know, we come in, it's a very small team, very intimate. I generally sort of look after the protein. We have a sous chef, Michele, who's sort of doing a lot of the sauces and the stove work, and then Jean-Marco's currently in charge of the bread and the pastry. People that are working here, we are passionate about what we represent. Gordon Ramsay and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, I think, comes through in what we're doing and that's tailoring the experience and that's what, you know, I'm very proud about. We're sat in an extension of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. This is Gordon Ramsay High, 12 seats, one sitting a night. You arrive at 7.30 and you leave at 11.30. It's seamless because we connect not just the cooking, the experience, but we bring you into the kitchen. And then, of course, you've got the backdrops, one of the most stunning views over London. Opening Restaurant Gordon Ramsay back in 1998, for me, was the biggest risk in my life. We were a tiny little 10-table restaurant in the back of Beyond of Chelsea. We were cultivating this incredible sort of hard-knock school of talent. You're Paul Ainsworth, you're Claire Smith, you're Marcus Waring, you're Angela Hartnett. Finding the right chef is like finding the best quarterback. But for me, what stood out with James Goodyear was his creativity. When you hear about Gordon Ramsay, you know, he's interested in you and, you know, he's the biggest name in the industry. His reputation speaks for himself. You know, I wouldn't say I'm nervous, but, you know, you want to impress him. Overall, you know, an incredibly proud moment to be approached by him. Fantastic relationship with our suppliers. You know, they managed to, because we need such a small amount as well, we can get sort of the best quality, whatever's available on the day. So it's a huge team effort just to, you know, operationally run this site. There's a big journey from the bottom to the top. So there's a lot of trolleys the produce has to go on, a lot of lifts, and obviously we want our produce to be, you know, fresh as possible. So it's all about being quick. You know, another thing that we thought about heavily and discussed was the table. It's quite a unique chef's table restaurant that we have here. When we serve our food here as well, we're going to plate everything on our pass and then we're going to take the food round. We serve our guests and then every single course we come round and we present in this space here and tell everyone what they're going to be eating. And so we came up with this majestic idea of having an open plan kitchen, a unique table with your back to the kitchen. But as you can see, my chair swivels round. So you have the freedom of directly looking down on that stunning tower bridge and in between courses taking a breather, spinning around and absolutely having a bird's eye view on top of the kitchen. That makes the customer experience somewhat unique. You're driving alongside the chef. You don't depend on the view. The dining experience from when you arrive to the open plan kitchen for the warm, welcoming, standing, meeting, greeting the chefs and then pacing ourselves. An introduction to each and every course, a unique discovery of things they may not have tasted before and then understanding what kind of journey they're going to go on over the next three or four hours. We're doing our Parker House roll. It's a daily preparation. We basically do the mix the day before and we let it proof for 24 hours and then we start to portion it and shape it. What it is, is we've taken the bread that we serve at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. They serve this beautiful Parker House roll. This is a very sort of enriched dough, similar to a brioche. So it's a big shaping process. Gianmarco is a bread guy at the moment. I think he's one of the best out there. He's got special hands. He's a good fan. It's a bit challenging even because, you know, like the temperature and every day is different on the proving. Inside the bread there is all of the spring herbs. We have chives, dill, basil, marjoram, thyme and some crispy shallot. It's portioned. We give the first roll over here and now we give the final roll. You know it's just warm come out that oven. It's been glazed with some honey and clarified butter as well and we get some mold and salt and beautiful mignonette pepper and we serve it with a selection of butters as well. This is painful. I'm passing through the chicken puree to make a chicken mousse. This is gonna fill our morel mushroom for our main course, the duck dish. And we're gonna stuff it with this mousse. Inside this mousse we're gonna put some shiitake mushroom, shallot, wild garlic and ginger. So I'm gonna stuff it now, steam it for three minutes at 100 degrees, cool it down, trim it and serve it. We're just gonna reheat it in the steamer and brush it with some, we call it dashi glaze. We make this glaze out of soy sauce, dashi vinegar, a lot of Asian ingredients like berry umami. You know we are a separate restaurant, Restaurant Ramsey, but the philosophy and DNA of that restaurant runs through everything we do here. It's recognizable but, you know, if you dig deep down but on top the surface you see we're taking it in its own direction. I never like to stifle the growth of a young chef. This is a long-term game. This is not 100 meter sprints. You don't reach that level of perfection overnight, keeping in mind the reputation he has in his hands working alongside me. They're stunning. I just love the way they keep on straight on the top like that and then they go crazy. We get them from Celtic Seafair so yeah yeah we get a beautiful delivery twice a week. Yeah first thing I was always taught is never leave them in water right? They're like a sponge as you know. Have you ever dived with them? I haven't but when I was working in Norway we used to sort of get them from the fjords every morning. I dived with them. Yeah. My god was that cold. I swear to god I was in a dry suit, I swear to god. Yeah they're beautiful. So you're serving one? One portion currently. So I'm just going to seal these up and just have a little taste and then after this also we turn them into a mousse and we're going to do a little tortellini to try as well. Okay and was it seasonal? Incredibly seasonal. Just want to have a taste of that there. It's incredible and they're so firm. Oh my god. We're completely not oblivious to the fact that he's this global superstar and getting to know him as a person and as a chef it's just a source of knowledge. I thought I knew how to make tortellinis until I went to Italy and then I set myself with the knowledge and that the rest was history honestly. Yeah there we go. Come on let's go Ali. And there are so many varied ways right in terms of it's all about the manipulation of. James you can't hide that you've got to stick it next to mine. I didn't want to put it in front of you. You can. It's got to be dry. Yeah honestly and our young. There you go. It's got to stand up. Here we go. Beautiful. Spring herbs. Made a little spring herb puree. Nice. So you've got basil, dill, chervil, parsley. This kitchen is so beautiful by the way. It's not a bad place to come in every morning. I know it's just so beautiful. A six and eight or ten course tasting menu which is a favorite course. Having six kids is like asking me who's my favorite ******* child. Well it's the one that least pisses me off on that particular day. Food's about a connect. Food is about removing the intimidation and understanding just how refreshing a unique dining experience can be. The asparagus. They're hand-picked from Stratford-upon-Avon and when I say hand-picked I do mean hand-cut and the spears are breathtaking. Even the peel from the asparagus is delicious. We don't waste anything here. So we make a little sort of emulsion that we cook it in. It's got a little bit of cream, water and citric acid. So we just cook it whole. I'm just going to portion it down and we'll make a little emulsion tonight to reheat it in. What I love about it is it has almost like a consistency of meat. You know because it's so thick and juicy it's almost like cutting it into a steak. Ossietra caviar on there as well. You know it's a luxury ingredient and then we're celebrating it with spring herbs and then it's all about a lovely sauce viage. So we've got a but we've taken it and doing it our own way. We've taken blood oranges and grapefruits so amazing citrus fruits and we juice them and reduce that flavor down. This dish is not going to be on the menu very long but while we've got it on our menu just excited to serve it every single night. Evening guys. Evening chef. So guests are going to arrive as five couples. So when they come in obviously get their aperitif. Made them nice and welcome. So we'll do the first three canapes standing up as normal. Positions one and two we have Tess and Sam. Then on three and four on corner one we have Alex and Declan. I'll take one and two every time tonight and then between you guys I think it's probably best if they serve nine and ten. Make sure we welcome them in. Make a lovely evening. Yes. That's your service. Perfect thank you. So we are just creating a little showpiece for our showstopper main course which is our duck this evening. Not only are we chefs we're flower arrangers. Not 100% sure what all these are but they look really good. You know everything we do we want to showcase the best we can. So we have ducks that are especially grown for us and it's a duck that is less gamey than the sort of majority of ducks. The caramelization that takes place on the fats. Stunning. It's a cross between a Peking and an Aylesbury duck. Comes in our door and then we're just going to roast it whole on the and we glaze it in a little bit of maltose as well which allows you to get this sort of sticky glaze on there. A bit of sweetness to contrast all that fattiness on the duck. By the time it comes to our main course the duck is just perfectly pink. It's got its crispy skin and it's just ready to go. What we like to do is we show our duck to our guests. So we bring it out and once that's been roasted we're taking it back into the kitchen. We carve it down and we are currently serving it with morel mushrooms. So again it's singing of spring here. Morel mushrooms stuffed with a little farsi of chicken and wild garlic. So it's a bit of a showstopper. We're gonna have guests arriving in about one hour's time. So it's just final sort of touches that we're finishing off now. We like to personalize our menus as well so we have all our guests name on there. So everyone is aware of who's going to be coming. We know where they're going to be seating as well. So we sort of assign positions to all of our guests. Michele you ready? Yeah. Entering as a beautiful long corridor that's building up the excitement and then of course you slide back that door and you enter this incredible tiny space. The smoothness of the kitchen. There's no banging of glass and stainless steel. It's meticulously designed in a way that it absorbs all the sound. Changing the chef's jackets to a light cream so as not to reflect in the glass at night and spoil the view. Am I proud? Abso-*******-lutely. You're sat here today so you're most welcome. Food's on the way. Food's traveling. You're welcome to restaurant Gordon Ramsay. Hi. I'm just going to start with a few canapes this evening. Got a classic gougere. Nice and warm to begin. We top it with some sherry, bee pollen and thyme. Hello good evening everybody. How are you all this evening? So beautiful langoustines. They've just been wrapped in katafi pastry. Sabillon has been made with flavors of Mary Rose sauce. Classic take on a prawn cocktail. Recommend to pick it up by stick and dip it in your sabillon. This is amazing. Every time I step into the kitchen I'm in my happiest place. It's where I'm at ease because that's where it started. I didn't start cooking to go on TV. I started cooking because I had a passion and then it's the connect because you need to coach and you need to drive, you need to push. You know I'm just trying to take his legacy from restaurant Ramsay and take it in our own way. What's important to us is that we start telling our own story. You know we're going in our own direction but we want to be known for restaurant Gordon Ramsay High. I want to see them shine because it's not taking the limelight from them. It's about them getting to where I am. That's what I need to see. I have a platform and I want everyone to be on that platform. Then we're on that platform, guess what? The train leaves the station but when we're on that ride it's one of the most exciting rides of your life.