Review: Union Street Café by Gordon Ramsay

It’s not often that I get to spend quality time with my family but when I do, it’s usually over delicious food and wine. The restaurant of choice for this particular meet-up was Gordon Ramsay’s newest restaurant, Union Street Café. The name is slightly misleading, as to me, “café” insinuates a laid-back atmosphere with the possibility of French bistro style food. Union Street Café is quite the opposite.

Located on Great Suffolk Street, Union Street Café is actually an Italian restaurant and was originally rumored to be the brainchild of Gordon Ramsay and David Beckham (admittedly that’s why I booked), however, Beckham’s involvement turned out to be tabloid speculation. The handwritten menu, which changes daily, is written entirely in Italian and has to be translated by the knowledgeable and friendly staff. Chef Davide Degiovanni, who previously worked for the Four Seasons, is at the helm, making the food authentically Italian.

The menu is split into Aperitivos, Antipasti, Primi, Secondi, Contorni, Formaggi, Dolci, and a selection of ports to accompany dessert. Since a sharing style of eating is encouraged at Union Street Café, we started off our lunch for four by sharing the Sardinian artichokes, taggiasche olives and pecorino, along with the calamari and a pasta dish with rabbit. For my main course, I enjoyed the spigola with chickpeas, which was a bit more like a soup than I would have liked. For the dessert, we shared a few scoops of homemade hazelnut Gelato, inarguably the highlight of the meal.

While portions were surprisingly smaller than I had expected, every dish was packed with so much flavor and left you wanting more.

To top off the visit, Gordon Ramsay himself was enjoying his own lunch at the bar and even obliged our request for a photo. Ramsay didn’t seem happy about being pestered for photos, but he didn’t swear at me – so I consider myself fortunate.