This is becoming a familiar pattern in our seemingly never-ending hunt for a good Caesar salad in the City. Nice restaurant. Lovely atmosphere. Big expectations. Initially promising results. And then… damnit, it all falls apart.

This is a Gordon Ramsay restaurant. It’s a popular haunt in the City for a nice dinner. Not wallet-busting, but fine and nice. It’s got a classy feel to it, and is staffed by people who seem to care about their jobs.

And the salad seemed promising, despite drawing ire from my fellow Caesar salad hunter for being billed as having pancetta and a hard-boiled egg. It wasn’t just slung on the menu as an afterthought. It was clearly something they’d put some care into, and when it was delivered, it looked to be a strong hand. It looked a good portion. It looked well mixed. The chicken was warm. The croutons were hand-made. The anchovies were fresh. It looked for all the world like a contender.

But nope. The tone of our conversation soured pretty quickly. The dressing, you see, didn’t seem to have any taste. None. And what’s a Caesar salad without that dressing? I mean, there was plenty of it, and it was well tossed in the salad (behave), but all of that is for naught if it doesn’t actually taste of anything. And the more we had, the more it became obvious that it was also far too creamy.

So, once we got past the lovely chicken and the lovely croutons and the lovely anchovies, we were left with wet lettuce. Wet, tasteless, lettuce.

Neither of us finished. Which is a damning result.

3/10

The search continues.