I’m a Brit & visited Gordon Ramsay’s Times Square fish & chip shop – it was overpriced, but a taste of home
AS a British person living in New York City I visited Gordon Ramsay's new fish and chip restaurant in Times Square to get a taste of home - but one factor left a bad taste in my mouth.
The celebrity chef opened Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips in the tourist hot spot last month and it has been flooded with hungry visitors.
The restaurant is the fourth of its kind in the US, after Ramsay opened locations in Washington, DC, Las Vegas, and Orlando.
All in all, the Kitchen Nightmares star owns around 72 establishments across the globe.
The first thing I noticed about the new restaurant was the location - it was across the street from Times Square, meaning it was competing with many other famous restaurants.
It also means the restaurant has tourist-inflated prices, as establishments in the area pump up prices for tourists who don't know better.
The building itself is modest and unassuming, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows that display the diners eating inside.
After speaking with a few of them and learning they thought highly of the food, I decided to try some for myself.
Gordon Ramsay's Fish and Chips opts to keep a simpler menu, introducing flavor through a variety of sauces to mix and match.
They offer three options in terms of protein: fish, chicken, and shrimp, and each option is available as a sandwich, too. Fries are included and so are two sauces.
The sauces are Gordon's tartar sauce, curry & mango, Sriracha aioli, southwest ranch, Dijon mayonnaise, and cocktail.
I went with the classic fish and chips combo, and decided to try out Gordon's signature tartar sauce along with some mango curry, which cost a total of $17.99 plus tax (£15).
The fish was well-made but relatively bland, and very much needed the sauces to make it flavorful. Speaking of which, the tartar sauce held its own, while the mango curry didn't go well with the fish.
The chips made up for it by having the perfect, size, taste, and salt level - these could have been bought from a roadside vendor in London.
All in all, there were definitely pieces of the meal that compared to real English fish and chips, but for the top dollar prices they are charging, I would expect much more.