If Cathy Bevins’ reaction is a barometer, Baltimore couldn’t be more excited for the arrival of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant at Horseshoe Casino.
“How are you, madam?” Ramsay asked the Baltimore County Councilwoman as he entered Gordon Ramsay Steak.
“I’m wonderful now!” she said.
Bevins was among the attendees at a media preview of the steak house, which opened Wednesday night on the first floor of the South Baltimore casino.
“I’ve been watching Gordon Ramsay for years — from ‘MasterChef,’ ‘MasterChef Junior,’ ‘Hell’s Kitchen,’ ‘Hotel Hell,’ all of them,” she said. “He’s so passionate and naughty, so I’ve been a fan for years.”
The restaurant, a spin-off of Gordon Ramsay Steak in Las Vegas, marks the Michelin-starred chef’s first spot on the East Coast. It replaced Jack Binion’s Steak at the casino.
While the restaurant will carry popular dishes from Ramsay’s Las Vegas restaurant, like beef Wellington, roasted bone marrow and rib cap, about 20 percent of the menu is sourced locally, said Jay Lattimer, vice president of food and beverage for the casino. Ramsay said those dishes — such as gnocchi with beef cheeks from Roseda Farm, sea bass and the “Bee’s Bollocks” cocktail, a twist on the classic bee’s knees using local honey — are not to be missed. He emphasized the crab cake on the menu is local, too.
When it comes to sourcing seafood, Ramsay said traceability is of peak importance to him.
“Customers need that level of security in terms of what they’re eating, where its from,” he said. “It makes the customers feel a little bit more at ease when they don’t have to worry about their fish coming from New Zealand, or their salmon coming from Australia.”
Prime beef cuts range from $52 to $95 on the menu, with American and Japanese Wagyu steaks running from $44 for an 8-ounce skirt steak to $30 per ounce for triple-seared Japanese A5 Wagyu beef (the highest grade possible). Fish dishes run $36 to $42, and sides cost $8 to $13.
Samantha Love will serve as the restaurant’s executive chef.
It’s been 20 years since Ramsay opened Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London, and he said he aims to achieve the same consistency at his Baltimore steak house.
“Same maître d’. Two head chefs in 20 years. That’s the kind of success I’d like to replicate here in Baltimore,” he said.
Ramsay said he hopes to provide an escape from the record levels of violence in Baltimore.
“What I’d like to do is establish a little bit more of, I suppose, a go-to safe haven here,” he said. “You can come and indulge and have some fun. That’s the pleasure of dining out.”
Ramsay is the latest celebrity chef to join Baltimore’s dining scene. Giada de Laurentiis also plans to open a restaurant at the Horseshoe Casino in 2018, and Todd English will open a restaurant at Live Casino & Hotel in Hanover next year.
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