Gordon Ramsay at the London- Maze lunch

To combat the gloomy, rainy day, Mark and I decided to have a spontaneous lunch at Maze at the London Hotel. Maze is the more casual dining area that is adjacent to formal dining room of the infamous Gordon Ramsay restaurant. Even though Mark and I both love Ramsay and watch all of his BBC shows (we're not big fans of the American Hells Kitchen or Kitchen Nightmares), we've never had much interest in eating in the formal dining room, because the critics all seem to agree that the food is just 'good' and nothing spectacular. But Mark met a colleague at Maze last week and really enjoyed it, so he suggested that we check it out.

First off, the room is a bit strange. The colors are quite nice, but the lighting fixtures, mirrors, and random glass walls are just plain weird. It felt much too busy, and fussy. The bathrooms felt overly masculine (in my opinion) and cold. The bathroom I used was much dirtier than it should have been.

The service started off poorly. We waited a very long time to order, and even longer for bread. Mark told me that the bread was amazing, so I was ready and willing for some doughy goodness. It arrived long after we ordered our lunch, but it was quite tasty. The service picked up a little bit after this. Our appetizers arrived and they were quite beautiful. I had the salad of confit fennel and beetroot, fresh ricotta and pine nuts (instead of the candied walnuts which make my mouth feel funny...slight allergy?). It was beautiful to look at and tasted fine, but felt a bit heavy for a spring salad. Mark and I have been enjoying ramps for the past couple of weeks, so I was hoping that there would be a more seasonal salad. I have never met a beet I didn't like, but it is a wintry root vegetable. The flavors were all a bit bland as well, a touch of acidity would have gone a long way.

For my main, I ordered risotto with fennel and veal cheek. I ordered this figuring Gordon Ramsay has risotto on every menu I've seen, and does it on all of his TV shows, etc. So it must be good, right? Well...it didn't live up to my expectations. The fennel garnished on top of the dish was lovely and flavorful, but the veal cheek was just fatty and mushy. Hardly any flavor at all. The rice was just a pile of sad bland mush, that had little bits of mushroom. As I ate the dish it did get a little better, some of the veal juices were seeping into the rice. But overall, a very disappointing experience. Bottom line is it was 'fine' and nothing more.

We were tempted to get dessert, but that risotto felt like a huge rock in my stomach. If I had a delicious and satisfying main course I probably would have been more tempted to order a dessert. We just did coffee/tea, and we were given some chocolate truffles and salty caramel bark to end with. These were the best part of the meal! The truffles were lovely dark chocolate, bursting with salty caramel flavor when you bit into them. The bark was tasty too, but I mostly focused on the chocolate. My coffee came in an enormous pot that they left on the table, and Mark's tea came in an equally large pot. It looked a little ridiculous. Don't get me wrong, the more beverage the better, but it really did look out of place. At least the tea was real loose tea in a sachet, and not a bag of tea dust.

It was a pleasant, comfortable lunch, but the food did not satisfy. If Maze is supposed to pique the diner's interest in trying the main dining room, it fails. But if you just take it as a pleasant place to have a comfortable, expensive lunch, it's fine. But for $28, I'd take my money and run to Jean-Georges for their 2 course lunch! Even though it's the same price, it feels like a bargain, especially compared to this.