With The Ritz Restaurant in the running for Restaurant of the Year at The Good Food Guide Awards 2025, in partnership with OpenTable, we’ve been dipping into the archives to trace its story of influence in British dining.
From ‘indulgent, obese luxury’ in the 80s, to its omission from the Guide in the 90s, and the stabilising arrival of John Williams as executive chef in 2004, we bring you up to the present day where The Ritz’s old-school opulence offers a glorious backdrop to an all-round exceptional experience.
The Good Food Guide 1984
'If Michael Quinn is to achieve his stated ambition of becoming the greatest chef this country has produced, then he is not going to achieve it at the Ritz without the help of some rather stroppy customers capable of sorting out the mystery of what happens to some dishes between kitchen and table. If ever a place cried out for some cantankerous, crotchety, fastidious eaters to lend the chef a hand, then it is here. Of course Quinn can cook, but you would be forgiven for overlooking the fact when they can't even find you a decent bit of warm bread. It is, perhaps, not a British thing to do, but, as you are not allowed to wear jeans even for a glass of Perrier in the bar, and as there is no compromise on the bill, there is every justification for everyone who can afford it joining a crusade to turn the Ritz into the classy restaurant it masquerades as.
'A prettier dining-room in which to hold out for the best of British cooking you will not find. The pile on the carpet feels a foot thick. The sense of space in the towering room is exciting in itself, and the mirrors everywhere deceive the eye and brain about what is reflection and what is window. The artificial blue sky painted on the ceiling deceives as well, and you are inside, and part of, a 17th-century painting. It is terrifically pink: an architectural Madame Pompadour. The simpler dishes have been noticeably best: asparagus soup. Dover sole, and chicken breasts with two béarnaises - one flavoured with tomato - garnished with turnips and carrots. Another day there was an exemplary pastry case of wild strawberries, shaped like a heart, filled with the fruit, the top half open like a grand piano, surrounded by a white cream sauce with a pattern drawn on it in strawberry juice. Sorbets are in the same class.
'The quartet and dancing at weekends smack more of Neasden than the QE2'
'Quite what anyone is supposed to make of the crazily luxurious terrine of mullet, turbot, scallops and salmon bound round with spinach, a Pouilly-Fuissé jelly and a brioche is not clear: the overall impression is one of indulgent, obese luxury. The trio in the evening and quartet and dancing at weekends smack more of Neasden than the QE2. Would-be nit-pickers are recommended the two-course lunch of a starter and sweet for £10.50. The wine list is possibly one of the two best in London, certainly for range, though the mark-ups are as tall as the pillars. Not much is uncorked for less than £10. Carafes are £4.50 but that is only a half-litre, old boy. More reports, please.'
The Good Food Guide 2005
The Ritz's dining room is a chunk of living history - surely the best place (just so long as you're wearing a jacket and tie) to soak up a little nineteenth-century ambience, or is that eighteenth-century? It is certainly rich and luxurious. The splendidly high-ceilinged room is the setting for the cooking of new chef John Williams, who allows old favourites to sit comfortably with newer ideas.
'Start with a ballotine of wild rabbit with quince chutney, or Caesar salad with bacon lardons, prepared at table. Soups can be as luxurious as lobster bisque with Armagnac, and the grill offers up fillet of sole Normande and steak Diane (another one prepared at table). Meat main courses include noisettes of lamb Edward VII. Rosemary-infused fruit crumble with a chestnut ice cream is a contemporary-sounding finish.
'Prices may not aid the digestion - but this is the Ritz, for heaven's sake'
'The menu is not much smaller than a gatefold LP and contains plenty of background reading material, should you tire of staring agog at the surroundings. Prices may not aid the digestion - but this is the Ritz, for heaven's sake. Wine mark-ups are what one might expect, but the list opens at about £20 and provides plenty of interest - although most of the action tends to be centred in France.'
The Good Food Guide 2025
'As with bungee-jumping or a trip to Venice, dinner at The Ritz is one of those experiences that every life should ideally embrace at least once. There is nothing in either hemisphere that looks like the hotel's dining room on a balmy day, with the sun pouring in off Green Park – unless it be the evening scene, when gilded Poseidon lolls on his pedestal, sparkling chandeliers twinkle and the silverware gleams like honesty in a sinful world.
'In the distant past, the cooking idled amid pedestrian Anglo-French cliché, but under John Williams MBE, it began a steady ascent toward global greatness. Needless to say, the style of service is an exercise in arts that have been cheerfully abandoned elsewhere, and yet there is genuine warmth within the impeccable propriety. Prime materials from the home nations – organic Cornish beef, Lakeland lamb, Scottish lobster – furnish a menu that is supple enough to be parlayed into five- or seven-course ‘epicurean experiences’ for those reluctant to tear themselves away.
'To start, there's Dorset crab dressed in crème fraîche and adorned with Imperial caviar, or you might plump for roast quail cooked in verjus and crunchy with hazelnuts. The delicacy of timing is exemplary throughout, from wild sea bass with artichoke and lemon to truffled veal fillet with chestnuts, but equally sharp judgement distinguishes the miraculously tender roe deer and its aromatic garnitures of smoked beetroot and juniper.
'Tableside service was what there was before open kitchens, a chance to see the finishing touches being applied to dîner à deux servings of Dover sole or beef Wellington, followed perhaps by crêpes Suzette – an Edwardian culinary bloop that stuck. Otherwise, look to chocolate soufflé with vanilla Chantilly, chestnut Mont Blanc or the distinctly daring port-roasted figs in orange and olive oil.
'If you're after a spot of wine as well, the Ritz can oblige. Perhaps start with a larger-than-average glass of the ‘Champagne of the month’, before setting about the main list. French and Italian classics form the solid, lottery-win foundation, but there are excellent selections from South America and Australasia too.'
View the full shortlist for The Good Food Guide's Restaurant of the Year 2025 here
