Ramsay loses top spot in London restaurant guide

Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef whose dominance of British gastronomy has helped him become a global brand, is being challenged for the top place in London's restaurant scene, a survey claims today.

The poll, conducted for Harden's London Restaurants guide, shows that Ramsay's culinary empire has fallen out of favour in the survey's main categories for the first time since 2000.

Ramsay's eponymous Chelsea eatery usually takes the number one vote for "top gastronomic experience", "highest food rating" and "highest overall rating".

But this time, the restaurant failed to pull off the hat- trick, retaining only the first of the three accolades by a much-reduced margin.

Peter Harden, co-editor of the guide, said the tough-talking chef's slide could be because he was "spreading himself too thinly".

Ramsay is currently filming his new American television series, Kitchen Nightmares, and is opening restaurants in Paris and Tokyo, as well as maintaining the contracts of numerous top-end restaurants in London. In the UK, he has been succeeded on the ITV show by his fellow chef Marco Pierre White.

Mr Harden likened Ramsay's predicament to that of the precarious position of the last Roman emperor "just before the barbarians piled in".

The highest overall rating in the survey, which judges restaurants on food, service and atmosphere, was awarded to Marcus Wareing's Pétrus.

Harden's said that, despite being part of Gordon Ramsay's group operations, the restaurant appeared to owe much of its astonishing popularity to Wareing's hands-on involvement.

Bruce Poole's Chez Bruce, in Wandsworth, south London, emerged as the highest-rated destination for food. It retained its position as "Londoners' favourite restaurant" for the third consecutive year.

Mr Harden said that until this year, Ramsay's dominance on the London restaurant scene had been undisputed. "Gordon Ramsay's huge international reputation has been built on the strong foundation of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, which until this year has simply not been challenged as London's best restaurant by far," he said.

"I think there is a tension between doing the right thing as a businessman and the right thing as a chef.

"A businessman is concerned with spreading the brand name while your stereotypical chef is driven by the love of spending his life in a kitchen, rather than in front of the television cameras."

Many of the 8,000 people who took part in the survey, branded Ramsay's new Knightsbridge eaterie, La Noisette, a "fully-fledged kitchen nightmare".

The chef has also recently extended his reach by buying The Narrows pub in London's Docklands.

The top five contenders

* 1 PETRUS

Chef: Marcus Wareing

Harden's says: Classy, plush and opulent

* 2 GORDON RAMSAY

Chef: Mark Askew

Harden's says: Flawless cuisine; exorbitant prices

* 3 LE GAVROCHE

Chef: Michel Roux

Harden's says: Old school in the best possible way, with "extra-terrestrial" prices

* 4 AUBERGINE

Chef: William Drabble

Harden's says: Cuisine is "divine", within a thousandth of a point of Ramsay's

* 5 THE RITZ

Chef: John Williams

Harden's says: Once lacklustre food has improved. "Still no more romantic room in London"