The other month we learned that angry chef Gordon Ramsay was going to move into the hotelier world with the York and Albany Hotel, a 10-room boutique fashioned from an old pub.
Of course, we expected a restaurant to come with it but now there might be two. From Bloomberg:
Gordon Ramsay Holdings's first U.K. hotel, in north London, will feature two restaurants run by Angela Hartnett, private dining, a cocktail bar and a delicatessen, Design Week said, citing the York & Albany's general manager.
The original plan was for the York & Albany to become part of Ramsay's pub group, Design Week said, and then the decision was taken to operate it as a hotel, with 10 suites. The Regency designs are by Russell Sage Studio, with custom-made silk fabrics, Design Week quoted manager James Partridge as saying.
Remember, last time we reported on this it was going to be Angela Hartnett's project from top to bottom. She's a friend and fellow chef of Ramsay, who will be the hotel's owner. York and Albany is expected to open sometime in later Summer.
It's official: Gordon Ramsay is taking over the world.
Ten Michelin stars, a bunch of semi-entertaining reality TV shows and a reputation for foul language seem to go to a man's head.
Because it's not just restaurants - this man's appearing everywhere. He's catching a plane at London Heathrow's new Terminal 5. He's taking over catering in hotels like the the Trianon Palace at Versailles near Paris and the London Hotel in New York and now Los Angeles.
And now he's moving into the hotel world proper with a 10-room boutique affair in London--The York & Albany.
Gordon Ramsay's opening a restaurant this Wednesday (26 March) at Trianon Palace, a grand old mansion hotel in Versailles just outside Paris.
Can you think of a more incongruous mix? The foul-mouthed Scottish chef in the tea-and-china tinkling mansion where the Treaty of Versailles was drawn up in 1919. At the entrance to the three-acre manicured park which contains the deceased French royal family's 17th-century Chateau de Versailles - think ladies-in-waiting, extravagant masked balls and feathery blancmange-shaped dresses.
The hotel's staffed by an army of stiff concierges and doormen - judging from the look of some of them, they've kept quite a few of the original staff. It's frequented by the snootier members of the French upper classes - think Marie Antoinette & co but slightly better-smelling.
But in another way, Gordon Ramsay at Trianon is not incongruous but an entirely appropriate choice: the Chateau de Versailles is a symbol of Louis XIV's absolute, brutal monarchy in the same way that Ramsay lords it over his kingdom-sized kitchens.
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by juliana
