Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley

Walking into The Berkley immediately you feel like a bit of a celebrity. The restaurant itself is nice as well. The lighting is good and it feels elegant yet quite intimate. But still you do get a little bit the feeling that you are in a hotel restaurant.

There is a range of different tasting menus to choose from as well as à la carte. We went for the “Seasons of Britain“ menu paired with British wines – partly because this one included Marcus’ famous custard tart.
And British wines? Well, let’s see. If they serve them here, they can’t be too bad.

On the menu it looked like “Seasons of Britain” only included three courses, but as always there’s an amuse bouche, a pre-dessert, lovely bread, so we surely didn’t walk out hungry.

The first full course was lobster and broccoli. I was really looking forward to that, we haven’t had lobster on any of the menus so far. And it was nice, but not quite as fantastic as I had hoped. We’ve had crab or langoustine at some of the other places that were nicer in consistency and flavour. A good dish though, with broccoli cooked in three different ways and a nice sauce – soft flavours that allowed you to still taste the lobster.

We then had the grouse with truffle, kale, Pink Fir Apple potatoes and bread sauce. Very strong flavours, the grouse was quite gamey, but I really enjoyed it.

I’m becoming a big fan of kale as well. Overall just a really lush autumnal dish.

And now it was time for dessert, the moment I’d been waiting for, the custard tart.
What we got though didn’t look like a tart at all. Oh, a pre-dessert! Horlicks, honey, whiskey. Really lovely. An ice cream filled pastry in whiskey foam and little pieces of honey jelly. Made me look forward even more to the famous custard tart.

Then it came, the tart, accompanied by a glass of British sparkling wine. The consistency was absolutely perfect, the custard dissolving as soon as it touched your tongue, a beautiful pastry. But the best British dessert? Nah. I thought it was a bit bland. It might be though that I’m not British enough for it. I’d never had custard tart, I didn’t really know what to expect, I didn’t have memories of eating grandma’s custard tart as a kid. My partner had those and thought it was divine.

Overall the food was very good, but will the night stand out amongst the others? Probably not for the food.
For the British wines? Perhaps. They were surprisingly good. The key word though is probably “surprisingly”. The expectations weren’t very high, but the wines were actually really tasty, especially the Ridgeview sparkling rosé that came with dessert.
What the night will definitely stand out for is the service. The staff was very friendly.
The lovely lady with the Champagne trolley, who seemed to like gin more than the sparkling she was offering and joined us in lamenting that the restaurant didn’t stock Hendricks or any of the really good gins.
The waiter that honestly seemed to want to know if we enjoyed the meal and then engaged with us in a conversation about all the other places we had been to and the ones that he would recommend.
The sommelier was a bit of a lecturer, but as we were having British wines, I actually thought this was quite interesting. And we even got a personal tour of the kitchen from the maître d'.
Marcus wasn’t around at that moment. But I bumped into Roger Federer on the way to the loo, which added the little celebrity factor that you expect when dining at The Berkley.

A bit of a blunder though came with the bill. They overcharged us by £80 and when questioned on it didn’t seem to understand their own bill, leaving us to explain the prices on the menu and do the math.
It ended up coming to £285. Not too bad.
And we left with four little bags of chocolate truffles.

Would I go again? Not sure. Maybe for the lunch menu which seems to be excellent value for money.

I am a great fan of the cooking of Marcus Wareing but despite this have not managed to get to the Berkeley until last night. The dining room itself is a rather subdued affair somewhat tucked away in fact but pleasantly relaxed. The service was super attentive without being overbearing my only reservation is that it becomes frustrating having a dish explained to you in an accent that is so strong as to make the explanation unintelligible.

We opted for the gourmand tasting menu with the fine wine selection which comes out at a whopping £330 per head and I have to say was disappointing for a number of reasons. Whilst all of the cooking was clearly done to a terribly high technical standard many of the dishes just did not work particularly in conjunction with the wines paired by the sommelier. Some examples of this were a cherry ale served with a starter that contained cherries and cheese that just did not work at all. A fantastic fois gras dish was paired with an awful walnut wine , I had no idea such a thing existed and do hope not to make its acquaintance again! An absolutely fantastic piece of beef was paired with raspberries and I have no idea how any chef could think this was a triumph of any sort. Desert was a smoked ice cream that was weird and not at all pleasant and a liquorice cake that was so strong I could still taste it hours later. All in all I felt that it was chef trying way too hard to be different and unusual and whilst everything was clearly superbly constructed it just did not work

The most disappointing aspect was the fine wine selection which contained cherry beer and walnut wine neither of which were fine at all and a rather ordinary Riesling. This was really overpriced and with the exception of a good Lynch barges utterly forgettable. In fact if I could mark this element for value it would only have got 1.

When Marcus and Gordon went their separate ways after a semi-public spat I feared the worst for Marcus – the old Petrus at the Berkley was simply sensational and I wondered whether Marcus would be able to sustain the high levels of cooking alongside running his own restaurant.

I need not have feared – Marcus still produces outstanding food and his tasting menus are as diverse and well thought out as ever. One standout dish I remember is seared scallop on a orange and cauliflower puree – the sweetness of the orange contrasted with the slight bitterness you get with cauliflower, and the richness of the scallop brought the two elements together to make a brilliant taste sensation.

However I have noted that there are times when the food isn't quite up to the high standards and I wonder whether the rest of his kitchen team can achieve the levels required when Marcus isn't in the kitchen. It is this slight lack of consistancy that is most frustrating, as you desperately want a supreme experience every time and sometimes it's just not there.

The service however is impeccable, with the very last detail considered and never over looked. You can't fault it at all. The bonbons at the end are divine too! The room itself is lovely and plush, although it is a bit surprising that you can hear quite clearly what a table on the other side of the room is talking about – not what I would have expected from a restaurant that surely has clients seeking privacy as well as great food.

Still, overall, it is excellent and worthy of its two Michelin stars. Whether a third will come is debatable…

I'm not sure why we hadn't been to MW@TB since the refit – it was fully booked for the reopening and I can only assume it just dropped off our radar. However the Hubby was bored of all of our favourites, and looking for inspiration. Well, inspiration he found: he described this as the best meal he'd had in years. It was all utterly delicious, but I do have some reservations. Did any of you eat at Tom Aitken's when it first opened? Well…

We booked a table at very short notice, and actually there was definitely capacity. The room is dark and moody, and full of wanna-be beautiful people. People were pottering about, and being shown the kitchen – the sort of food tourism I usually find irritating – but I was drawn in – what was happening behind that wall of wine?

I'm reticent to bow down before an effigy of Marcus because I'm uneasy about the endless exertions of the kitchen: this isn't food to scoff, this is food you're supposed to worship. The lovely Marcus has fallen foul of the Michelin Prostration Rule: the more desperately you want your Michelin stars, the more you have to prostrate yourself at the feet of fiddly little bits of twiddle and twaddle – all absolutely delicious in their own way, but there is something of the wafer thin mint by the time your reach the end of your meal. Marcus may have two stars right now, but if it went on effort, he'd probably be in a league of his own. Without doubt he has an excellent palate – but we all know that less is more.

Before I write-up a restaurant I sometimes check other reviews – not so that they can modify my opinion – but because the Giles' and AA's of this world are much better at documenting the little twiddly bits than me. Given how complicated the food is at MW@TB, I definitely checked them. I did note that despite saying that they thought Marcus was one of the best cooks in the UK, they both felt he was trying too hard.

The amuse consisted of a little mock cauliflower cheese: a cauliflower shot, cheese foam a parmesan breadstick. There was another amuse, but in the long line-up of food, it now passes me by…

I ordered the fois gras, which was beautifully presented. The terrine was very finely sliced, which gave you an opportunity to take it either as a tiny mouthful, or piled with the apple and parsnip milk powder*, a whole variety of combinations – or you could eat a number of slices together – in which case the terrine was very rich and perhaps cloying.

The Hubby had the lobster, which he loved, and which looked utterly beautiful. I did note, however, that the mushrooms listed in the menu were not those on his plate. The waiter detailed those in the dish, but you wonder if Marcus had chosen the poetic ‘hen of the woods’ because of how it reads on the menu, rather than his ability to source it. I did steal one of the alexanders as I'd never had one before and it was rather nice.

As a main course I had the venison: OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG.

OMG

It really was delicious. Best venison dish I've ever had, the previous being Koffman's Venison with chocolate sauce back in the days of La Tante Claire. The venison was perfectly cooked, rare, thinly sliced, melting. The liquorice counterbalanced the earthiness of the farro, and I vaguely remember posturing on the counterpoint of the lychee, though that taste now eludes my memory palate. The monk's beard was delicious – an iron strong cross between spinach and samphire.

The Hubby had the lamb, which he loved, but which I didn't try at all. Apart from the pink peppercorn yoghurt. I like pink peppercorns very much, and this tasted lovely, but apparently was not necessary for the dish stated the Hubby.

We were offered the cheese board, which was mind-blowingly pretty, I could smell it from across the room. However by this stage we both agreed there was going to be little room left if we intended to squish a dessert into a far corner of our appetites, and regretfully we didn't have any. Such a shame.

We were given some kind of little jelly pre-dessert, which was delicious. It may have been a take on a Mojito. It may have been an Old Fashioned. Again my memory palate fails me, but we immediately declared it was the only way to eat jelly.

For my actual elected dessert I had the peanut parfait with salted caramel and Valrhona – seemed rude not to. Gosh it was yummy. I'll have to ask the Hubby what he had, I don't think I even looked at this plate while I practically licked mine clean!

We were offered even more food after this – I have absolutely no idea how people also manage to navigate the petit four trolley which was laden, absolutely laden with goodies. Well, I say I don't know how, but in reality we did take a choccie each – out of politeness you understand. More salted caramel – crisp, melting, delicious.

I mentioned Tom Aiken at the beginning of this piece because MW@TB reminds me of Tom's early days… We ate there three or four times, but with increasing trepidation. There is a genuine limit to how much food one person can eat without being ill. Both chefs seem to be trying to fill us up with their talent and love, but there's only so much of a good thing one diner can take. As a result we stopped going to Tom Aiken, though I understand he's now limited his free culinary outpourings somewhat. Chaps, if you fill us up on all those little twiddly things, we can't try the cheese trolley, which would have earned you more money. We can't come as often, because our bodies literally can't take the assault. I'd like to eat here all the time, but I really think my palate would drown in all those little extras, and that clouds one's ability to focus on what really are brilliantly executed dishes – dishes we asked for – dishes we're paying for.

So – as a rare treat – fill your boots (and your pockets, handbags, and anything else you can find…)

*Thanks Giles – knew you'd ask what it was!

I was very much looking forward to coming back to The Berkeley having eaten here a couple of times when Marcus Waring was still in the Ramsay camp. At the weekends, the menu choice is one of three tasting menus increasing in length (and price), optionally accompanied by the sommelier's choice of wines or fine wines. We choose the middle Menu Prestige at £105 (including cheese) with the matching wines at £85 (or £195 for the fine wines). The service was attentive and the food came at a welcome pace – we arrived at 1930 and left at 2330 – and we never felt hurried.

Now to the food. Given fond memories of Petrus – for a period I felt it bettered Restuarant GR – I came away underwhelmed. Whereas I can previously remember only harmonious combinations on the plates, here I felt that most dishes had a jarring element that felt out of place, or overpowered the main ingredient. The foie gras in the starter lost an unequal battle against a number of sweet elements (cherries and caramelised milk) and the sommelier delivered the coup de grace with a thick, linctus like red dessert wine from Greece. This theme of the sublime being smothered by something startling reared it's head in several courses: a wonderfully delicate quail drowned by the smoky molasses taste of white beans cooked “Boston Baked bean” style, and pink canon of lamb, minus any saucing but colliding with a ricotta like cheese dollop.

It was all beautifully executed but ultimately nowhere near the brilliance and balance I have seen from MW before, and I was dining a the old Petrus in St. James back in the 90's.

It seems that these days, in the quest for three stars, restaurants feel the need to combine elements best left apart (for good reasons!) in order to attract attention. I blame Blumenthal.

Since striking out alone from Gordon Ramsay Holdings, Marcus Wareing’s cooking has flourished even further and his eponymous restaurant presents haute cuisine at its finest. The décor is dark and seductive and the service and food are impeccable. The Chef’s table, in its own luxurious space overlooking the kitchen, is ideal for a celebration with friends, family or business colleagues, and a great place to witness one of London’s best chefs in action.

The Chef's table at the Berkeley really has to be the pinnacle of a restaurant experience. Unlike other 'Chef's tables', this is actually part of the kitchen and as such you have a true sense of how one of the best restaurants in the World operate. It is an incredible backdrop.

Whilst the pace in the kitchen quickened, we witnessed first hand the theatre of a busy lunch service and were forced to drink heavily to keep up with the constant stream of courses arriving at our table as part of the nine or ten course tasting menu. As the afternoon developed, so too did the volume from our table due to all the Wine, yet we were annoying no-one, as we drowned out by the volume of the kitchen and isolated from the restaurant.

There is of course a time for the civility of the restaurant but the Chef's table is the place for a party, special occasion, in fact any possible justification to get together with some friends and see a Maestro and his Orchestra at work. Moreover, one who elects to invest his time in his kitchen and with his guests than in a television studio or advertising Milk.

Well done Marcus, long may you reign.

Pretty disappointing, food was good but not really 2 star quality, main course had a distinctly ‘frazzles’ tang. Service was fine but not exceptional, whole experience lacked joy and panache. Considering the bill I will be splashing out elsewhere next time.

In the rarefied atmosphere of michelin starred restaurants, it is the little things that make the difference between two and three stars. Marcus Wareing has garnered two stars and is clearly on the lookout for a third. The food is excellent, the service attentive without going overboard and the atmosphere the sort of subdued buzz that grand hotel dining rooms were built for. Well, actually, on the latter part the main room is like this; there is also a small anteroom with five tables. I am sure that on most nights this is fine, but when we went, there was a table of five (although is seemed like fifty) braying ingrates, doing their best collective impression of a walrus coloney. Only with more swearing. We asked to be moved to the main room, a service that was executed with the minimum of fuss and no drama, and the atmosphere there was the sort of buzz etc. and so forth.

But still, with all the individual elements in place, somehow it is missing that spark that makes a very good restaurant a truly amazing one.

At the weekends there are three set menus, with the second and third building on the standard “menu du jour”. In France, a menu du jour is of the €12 three courses and a carafe of wine type. Here it is the £80 entry level. No wines (unless you pay another £60 for the sommelier's matching selections). We decided to go with the wine list. List doesn't do justice to this tome, a homage to French wine, with smatterings of Italian and the odd Spainish inteloper. It is, as you would suspect, good at the higher price wines, including the 1961 Petrus at a mere £30k. Fortunatley, there are some lower priced wines, although quite how a Nyetimber is £85 here, when you can get the same wine in Canteen at £39 does seem strange. I understand that the hotel has a huge carrying cost as it has to have a wide selection, but how and why prices differ so markedly is always beyond me. Instead, we settled on a lovely Pommard. Not cheap, but as keenly priced as anything the half an hour trawl through the wine tome could come up with.

As for the food, it was, as you'd expect, almost to a point flawlesly executed. Although the menus are set, there are also a couple of specials on offer, and you can mix and match between the various set menus. So in reality, the choice is pretty broad.

Whilst perusing the menus, with a glass of Billecart Salmon rose from the champagne trolley, some nibbles appeared, the highlight of which was a foie gras mousse sandwich. They like trolleys here: as well as the standard cheese chariot, there was the champagne trolley, the digestif trolley and the chocolate trolley. There may have been more lurking too, but we missed them.

The amuse bouche was a creamy soup with the first of the nights foams, a rich nutmeg. For the first of our “real” courses, I went off-piste with a gorgeous tranche of foie gras and my wife had the marinated mackeral with a huge chunk of white crab meat and a smear of brown. The foie gras came with a rhubarb brioche and cranberry compote. I am not usually one to mix fruit with meat, but the cranberries cut the sweetness of the round of foie gras to perfection.

The second of the evenings foams arrived with the quail. Toast foam is a new one on me. A modernest twist on bread sauce, and a clever accompaniment to the lovely little quail breasts and white beans. I am not sure I'd necessarily have called it a foam, it was more of a cream, but foam (and smear) are very trendy these days. So foam it was. With a tasting menu like this, where all of the courses are pretty much the same size, it is not necessarily the case that the next course was the “main”, but the meat course was lamb, pink on the inside, accompanied by fennel, red pepper and an unadvertised sorrel leaf.

A shared plate of cheese was good, the pre-deserts an unncessary addition that, like the pre-amuse bouche (or even the actual amuse bouche), seems to have become de rigeur at restaurants with pretentions of three stars, and the pear tarte tartine that finsihed off the set elements of the meal absolutely gorgeous.

All in all, a wonderful restaurant, striving to be the very best. I hope Marcus gets his third star. Maybe I have become jaundiced by recent trips to Michel Trama, Olivier Roellinger and Michel Bras, but, at the moment, I am not sure that he has that certain je ne sais quoi that takes it to the ultimate level.

I have never written a restaurant review or any review on any site ever before but felt I had to after eating at Marcus Wareing.

Without a doubt the best dining experience I've ever had – prior to the meal I phoned ahead to let them know my girlfriend only ate fish and didn't want a “vegitarian menu” – they had no problems with this at all and when we sat down they had made a note of my call and explained what they would do to change each course on the tasting menu for her and if there were any problems they could change it.

All the food was unbelievable – in fact the weakest course was the cheese which anywhere else would have been amazing, however it was blown away by all the other food.

The staff were amazing – getting that mix of leaving you alone and being tentative exactely right

At £450 for 2 people it wasn't cheap but I think as a dining experience I would go back again and again – if nact we're already planning our 2nd visit.

This place deserves it accolades and many more – thank you to all the staff who made our night unforgetable.

Firstly, I would like to say that I have been a fan & huge supporter of Marcus & his cooking for many years. I would have said that Petrus was unquestionably my favourite restaurant in London & somewhere that I had experienced some truly memorable evenings & exceptional levels of cooking & service.

It is therefore that with a heavy heart that I must report a severe decline in standards since Marcus & Gordon parted company. My birthday dinner there recently was a huge disappointment. The food was totally unmemorable & ordinary (even though we ate from the tasting menu) & the service verged on rude. Whether Marcus not being there on that evening had anything to do with, I cannot comment. However, with a bill in excess of £400 for two I shall not be rushing back.

My husband & I are fortunate that we have been able to eat at some of the best restaurants and our visit to Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley pretty much tops it. I have rated the service as 10 as we commented on the night how spot on it was compared to somewhere like Claridges. At Claridges we seemed to have been interrupted every 5 minutes for things like topping up water, whilst at Marcus Wareing they realised that we were deep in conversation and just left us to get on with it. Its all about knowing your client – some people want the fuss and attention whilst others want to dine low key (we were in the latter, even though we were celebrating our 2nd wedding anniversary).

We've actually been there before under the Petrus umbrella (we got engaged that night), but think it is much improved (and it wasn’t bad then) with the Gordon Ramsay shackles removed!

It is expensive (hence why value for money is a 9), however if you have something to celebrate or are just rich then go for it – you wont regret it. I have also marked atmosphere as a 9, as it is a quiet restaurant (mainly couples) but we managed to have a crowd of people in the seated area behind our table. They weren’t loud, but just loud for the restaurant – hence we couldn’t hear each other until they were moved to their table.

Finally, the food. Fantastic – enough said!

I have been to Marcus Wareing a couple of times before and have to say that it is probably one of the few restaurants at this level, where, after a few cocktails and a little wine (!), I still always have clear memories of the delicious food!
This year I decided to celebrate a significant birthday by hiring the Chef's table. It's expensive but considering I was allowed 8 guests, and we had a nine course extravaganza, I didn't find it prohibitively expensive. It is after all a once in a lifetime experience.
We were extremely well looked after by all the staff, especially Alan the Chef and Michael our waiter. Marcus was a little more aloof but that's understandable considering his role (and our inebriation level). We still got to spend the night staring at him at work (in between all the eating). It's rare that you get to even see the chef, let alone watch them at work – especially in a 2 Michelin star restaurant!
I absolutely love the food at Marcus Wareing, I ate everything put in front of me, as per usual and all my guests did the same. We felt a little greedy but then, we won't be doing it again in a hurry so best to make the most of it!!
My only slightly negative comment is that we all felt that such a large group of people in the main dining room would have been very disturbing to other guests, it's quiet and much more suited to couples ..and quiet groups.
I'll personally be sad if Marcus gets a 3rd star as the prices will hike BUT I can't help but truly believe he deserves it…perhaps I can say I was there at the beginning…kind of!

I have to ask how the London hotel trade is continuing to charge such exorbitant prices for an overnight stay in these hard times? I tried to persuade my husband that we should avoid the late night train journey home for our recent wedding anniversary, however he point blank refused to spend £400 on a pokey little box room, and suggested we blow it on an exceptional meal instead. Marcus Wareing had long been on my radar, so I didn't hesitate in picking up the phone! And boy am I glad that I am married to such a prudent fellow (some would say tight!). We had the tasting menu, of course, along with nearly everyone else in the restaurant that night. But it was difficult to refuse, as it is probably the perfect tasting menu for our personal taste. The pan fried fois gras with apricots and almonds was a marriage made in heaven. We asked the sommelier to recommend a dessert wine by the glass to accompany it, and he helpfully gave us each half a glass of the two wines that we chose, so we could compare and contrast them. The roasted quail was the only item on the tasting menu that I wasn't sure about, but it turned out to be the highlight. Cooked to perfection, it had the texture of velvet and was accompanied by what I can only describe as a baked potato mousse, which tasted and smelt of the crispy oven cooked skin of a potato, but melted in your mouth like a foam. Unusually for a tasting menu there was a choice of main dish and dessert, which is very welcome, as I have never known a married couple who agree on desserts! And if someone had warned me about the chocolate truffle trolley that accompanied the coffee I may have saved a bit more room. The service hit just the right note with us, we hate to be followed to the toilet! The staff seemed happy and relaxed and not the stuffed suits you find at a certain Hospital Road establishment. And the wine list lived up to its reputation. I'm afraid I will never be able to justify spending a fortune on wine when you can get a tasty new world variety for £50, must have been married to that prudent fellow for too long! However, am confident that anyone could find something they liked on that list. I'm afraid I could not resist telling our friendly sommelier as we left – better than Gordon!

Great tasting menu, and quite unusually it has some options to choose from in terms of main and desert courses; they were even happy for you to switch the odd course with something, albeit a scaled down version, from the a la carte menu.

That said, although the food was very good, it wasn’t amazing; it is either restaurant fatigue on my part or the dishes were lacking a little imagination and flair. Perhaps even it was my expectations badly managed as I’d repeatedly seen ‘better that Ramsey’ on various reviews.

The other problem, and some of this will sound like nit picking but the devil is in the detail as they say, and especially so for a 2 star restaurant with apparent sights on a 3rd. We were left on the table for far too long before the arrival of the champagne cart arrived, no one unfolded our napkins for us, on toilet visits we were left to find and ask ourselves on their location instead of been escorted, doors weren’t held open when going in and out of the restaurant, as the meal progressed and they got busier the wine for each course arrived later and later and after the food arrived but the real sin in my mind is that no one could be bothered to ask if we wanted a desert wine to go with our puddings.

When spending £400+ on dinner for two, I really expect to be pampered and spoilt in terms of ingredients, cooking and service. Whilst the food scored well the service really was a disgrace.

(as a side note and I’m not sure if this makes a difference, but Marcus works Mon-Fri and we went on a Saturday?!)

Fantastic experience, cost in excess of £400 for 2, but we did have the tasting menu + with wines to match. Mind blowing food, met Marcus after the meal as he was sitting in the bar. We went for my husbands Birthday, great for special occasion. The end of the evening gets a bit fuzzy, but all happy thoughts…