“This Wellington is bloody raw!” –Gordon Ramsay If you are going to yell at your Hell’s Kitchen contestants for not cooking the Beef Wellington correctly, then your Steak House better cook it perfect. This is the first thing I thought of after successfully making a reservation to Gordon Ramsay Steak at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas. Our concierge told us that this restaurant is generating a lot of buzz and reservations are hard to get. I was initially skeptical. 

Gordon Ramsay Steak exterior in the Paris Hotel Casino

Why the buzz around this restaurant? The name recognition of Gordon Ramsay and national television coverage from “Hell’s Kitchen” obviously pumped up attention around the restaurant. This type of publicity is typically short-lived unless a restaurant can live up to the hype. My personal expectations were extremely high, and nothing less than perfect food and service would result in a good review. After leaving that night, the Gordon Ramsay Steak team had blown away my expectations. From the bread to the service, every attention was paid to detail and the execution was near perfect.

Interior of Gordon Ramsay Steak Restaurant

Gordon Ramsay Steak stands prominently in the main casino at the Paris Hotel and Resort. One of the key architectural features of the restaurant is the tunnel leading from the Paris Casino  to the Gordon Ramsay Steak restaurant. This faux tunnel is supposed to represent the “Chunnel” from France to England.  The interior looks remarkably like the set for Gordon Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen” show with the open kitchen, dark woods and red accents. Another stand-out aspect of the restaurant is on the ceiling, which features a rotund dome  that is painted with the Union Jack and adorned with a complex neon light art that emulates the movement of Gordon Ramsay’s hands when he makes his signature Beef Wellington.

Ceiling of Gordon Ramzi Steak with Union Jack and Neon light signifying Gordon Ramsay’s hand movements when he makes Beef Wellington

Wine and Cocktails

Gordon Ramsay Steak had a particularly nice selection of high-end throwback cocktails. Their cocktail menu is laden with both gin- and bourbon-based cocktails that give a subtle nod to traditional English cocktails.   Here is what we ordered:

English Garden: This cocktail was smooth, like drinking cucumber water from a day spa, but strong enough to turn your Aunt Sally into a cussing sailor. It is made with Hendricks Gin, fresh lemons, basil cucumber, basil infused rock candy and celery bitters. This floral cocktail is shaken and served as a gin-based martini.  

The Drifter: This is a bourbon-based cocktail that accentuates both the flavors of the Paris LV Proprietary Knob Creek Barrel # 77 and adds spicy and juicy citrus notes by pairing it with ginger liqueur  falernum and lemon bitters. This cocktails uses Ice Spheres to ensure even melting, resulting in a consistent cocktail.

The interactive cocktail and Wine menus on an iPad. Of course you can always ask questions from your waiter or sommelier.

The wine menu was extensive and it covered every region and wine style. An iPad at the table provided us with the ability to sort by style, region and price point. We liked the fact that there was a good selection of wines in the affordable $30-50 price range, which results in a nice wine to pair with dinner. We ordered a very tasty wine in this price range.

Food

The food menu at Gordon Ramsay Steak is primarily a fine steak and seafood house, although there are several signature Gordon Ramsay dishes that have their roots in English cooking. The steak selection was very impressive angus, “American Kobe” and “Japanese Kobe.” The selection process for their steak cuts is intense, with a dedicate staff member selecting the best meat cuts from the source  and then butchering and aging the steaks for a minimum of 28 days in a Himalayan sea salt room.  Their was a note on the menu that all “Kobe” steaks were grade 9 or higher.

After picking through the menu for a few minutes, our waiter came out with what I have been calling “the wheel of meat.” The wheel of meat is essentially their visual menu of the steaks that  they are serving that night in their raw and beautiful form. Our waiter explained that the cuts on top, “with the deep red color” where the American and Japanese Kobe cuts. A couple of the cuts of meat that caught my attention were the American Kobe Rib Cap and the Royal Long Bone Chop for two.

Here is what we ordered:

Scotch Egg

Of course Gordon Ramsay wold have to do a Scotch egg — they are as English as fish & chips. Gordon Ramsay’s version was very impressive, with crunchy exterior and lush interior. It is made by boiling a quail egg for 1 minute and 10 seconds. The soft boiled egg is then very lightly coated with Berkshire pork sausage. It is covered with bread crumbs and deep fried golden brown. The sausage does not compete with the quail egg, but rather compliments it.

The scotch egg gets a perfectly runny center by pre-boiling the quail egg for 1 minute and 10 seconds.

Bread Basket

There were four types of bread presented to the table with butter and sea salt.  Technically we didn’t order bread, it is included as part of your meal. The first was a ciabatta-style roll with a solid  infusion of lemon and olive. There were also two takes on brioche pinwheels.  The first brioche was a Panchetta Fig Brioche, with a salty and sweet flavors. The Chocolate Mushroom Brioche was some of the best bread I have tasted. I never would have  thought that mushroom and chocolate flavors would pair well. Walnut and Stilton baguette was rich, but was amped by the butter and sea salt. Again, one of the best bread baskets that I have eaten at a restaurant.

It was hard not to eat this bread and I didn’t care that my steak was was huge. My favorite is the mushroom chocolate brioche.

Market Salad

A salad with complex flavors. Made with butter lettuce, market greens, crisp pancetta, shopshire blue cheese, dried tomatoes, and green goddess dressing. It was an impressive salad that was a pleasure to eat, nicely balanced with flavors that were bitter to cream and tart to sweet. The salad also had crunchy and smooth textures.

The Market Salad was very well balanced. We split the salad, so normally it is double the size.

Rib Eye Steak

This is my favorite cut of steak due to the marbling and overall flavor. I ordered this steak  medium-rare (pink throughout and slightly bleeding). Let me say that the chefs at Gordon Ramsay are masters of cooking steak. My steak had the perfect amount of char (50% of surface area of the steak) and a nice, bright pink center. One of the services that I liked is that they pre-cut the steak for me into large cuts to make eating the steak a little classier. This pre-cut was literally done seconds prior to presentation, as the juices were still very hot on the plate. This steak is evidence that perfecting the art of aging a steak results in amazing tenderness that cannot be accomplished without a perfected aging process. There were no leftovers from this 20 oz steak.

Beef Wellington

A classic continental dish that has made a strong comeback to mainstream restaurant culture, thanks to Gordon Ramsay’s obsession for perfection on Hell’s Kitchen. It is made by coating  fillet mignon  in a mushroom paste called a duxelle, thin layers of prosciutto and then tucked into puff pastry.  The wellington was served with a garnish of glazed carrots, potato puree and red wine demi-glace. Given the amount of yelling that occurs on Hell’s Kitchen over poorly executed wellington, my expectation for this dish were very high. Perhaps Gordon trained his staff properly, because they perfectly nailed the execution of this dish with medium rare steak and golden brown pastry. When I ate the wellington, I was giddy that one of my foodie bucket list items, “eat a Gordon Ramsay beef wellington,” was met.

Sides for Sharing: Mac and Cheese- “Cheesy Crack”

Since this is a proper steakhouse,  your steak order pretty much just comes with a high-end piece of meat (maybe a garnishment for signature items). But sides at a high-end steak house are often my favorite.  Gordon Ramsay Steak offered everything from Brussels sprouts to Foie Gras. We had to order the mac and cheese when I read that it was made with blue cheese, cheddar, Parmesan and truffle. When it came to the table, we learned that it also had sweet sugar peas mixed in and it topped with Parmesan bread crumbs. I have tried twice now to replicate this item, but have been unsuccessful. This mac and cheese had secret ingredients  that turned it into cheesy crack.

Desserts- Sticky Toffee Pudding

“This is a premiere steakhouse, but desserts stole the show”-Tom Holmberg

 Multiple foodgasms were achieved that night, although perhaps the best one came when I tried the sticky toffee pudding with the brown butter ice cream. The toffee bread pudding placed equal emphasis on the toffee, bread and seasoning. The sticky toffee pudding was good, although the brown butter ice cream accompaniment what stole my heart. Brown butter ice cream is very luxurious, and it has a flavor that I can only describe as buttery nuts. Brown butter ice cream is typically made with browned butter, cream, egg yolks, brown sugar and other items. The presentation was the best part of this dish — they actually fashioned the brown butter ice cream to look like a stick of butter with a butter knife stuck into it for good measure.

The sticky toffee pudding was great, but the brown butter ice cream shaped as a stick of butter was naughty fun

Coffee – The way it should be enjoyed

A clever presentation of coffee and slightly bourgeois in style!  Our coffee was French pressed table side and was presented with three chocolates affixed to teaspoons and labeled A, B, C.  If you are having images of Alice in Wonderland , so did I. These clever chocolate spoon presentation contained different types of liquers that were complimentary to coffee. The “A” spoon contained Amaretto, the “B” spoon contained Bailey’s (yes you guessed it) and the C contained (Kahlua….c and K are the same “hooked on phonics” pronunciation . You simply place the spoon in your coffee and let it melt the chocolate and liquer into your hot coffee. We had the whole pot of French pressed coffee, so of course we tried all three.

Service

One of the better elements of the dinner was the personable and efficient table service.  Our waiter took his time with us to explain the menu and had fantastic product knowledge as if he personally designed the menu.  He graciously accommodated every request and was supported by an assistant and restaurant management. The manager came by several times to chat about everything, from bourbon-based cocktails to emerging restaurant trends in Las Vegas. Thanks to the staff at Gordon Ramsay Steak for a memorable end to a great weekend in Vegas.

 My Final Thoughts

Gordon Ramsay Steak pleasantly blew away my expectations and provided one of the best steakhouse experiences that I have had in a while.  I think the key differentiator of Gordon Ramsay steak is the attention to detail, focus on quality ingredients and perfected ability to execute flawless dinner services. It is obvious that Gordon Ramsay has learned what makes a Michelin Star level restaurant. If you are making a trip to Las Vegas, Tom’s Foodie Blog does recommend Gordon Ramsay Steak. My dinner service received an extremely rare 4.5 out of 5 stars; with such high expectations, this is an incredible score. If you visit, let me know how your dinner went,good or bad.  

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Tom Holmberg

Food Blogger / Founder at Tom's Foodie Blog

Tom grew up in a cultural diverse neighborhood and a culturally diverse family, so he has learned to appreciate all types of food. "I am not a Chef, nor do I play one on T.V., but I have learned to appreciate food from years of eating and cooking." Tom also spent 10 years in the restaurant industry in various roles, from Prep Cook to server.

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