Pétrus: Ramsay’s Game of Thrones restaurant is a decadent destination

​Our Famous London Restaurants series is a guide to the capital’s best-known restaurants with big reputations

The backstory If Game of Thrones was a restaurant, perhaps it would be Pétrus. Certainly few sites in recent history could boast such a feudal background.

The story begins in 1999, when the restaurant was first opened by Gordon Ramsay and his then protégé Marcus Wareing on St James’s Street, getting its name from the favourite wine of both Ramsay and Wareing.

It moved to Knightsbridge in 200, when Ramsay was lured by a space becoming available within The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge.

Perhaps a bad move. After five successful years when the lease came up for renewal the hotel decided to work with Marcus Wareing directly and controversially cut Ramsay’s company out of the picture.

The result of a legal battle that ensued has left Wareing running his own restaurant in its place — Marcus Wareing at The Berkeley — while Ramsay’s restaurant company has launched a new Pétrus nearby.

Since 2011 that new Pétrus has held a Michelin star.

What’s on the menu? As the name suggests, the food here has more than a few French touches — though British ingredients proudly take centre stage and there are a fair few flavours from further afield to be found, too.

What pulls all of these dishes together is a common thread of complex and intricate yet still delicate flavours. Think a plump Orkney scallop paired with kombu, bacon and sabayon; steak tartare with black truffle, cornichons and nasturtium; a rich loin of lamb with sweetbreads, salt-baked beetroot and black garlic; and moist and meaty turbot with an oyster, cocoa beans, girolles and lemongrass.

The cooking is spot-on and the ingredients top-notch, but you’d expect that. It is the restaurant’s interesting flavour combinations and avoidance of overly prissy or play-it-safe plates that set it apart from the fine-dining crowd. It’s different, developed and genuinely delicious.

The atmosphere When a restaurant has a vast glass wine ‘cellar’ containing vintage bottles of Pétrus as its centrepiece, it can only be described as downright decadent. That said there’s something incredibly relaxing and naturalising about the restaurant’s comfy chairs and beige-but-bright decor — plus the staff’s deliberate tactic of being friendly npt formal — that puts diners at ease rather than feeling like they should be on best behaviour.

Cheque out It doesn’t come cheap, and it’s not meant to. £85 for three courses or £105 for a six-course tasting menu. It’s another £80 for wine pairing.

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