Not all, but a lot at The Ledbury is Head Chef and co-owner Brett Graham. He comes from Australian Newcastle in New South Wales and started his cooking career when he was only 15 years old. After three successful years in Sydney he joined the awarded London based The Square. The Head Chef and co-owner of The Square, Philip Howard, discovered the huge talent and nursed it further and eventually joined a partnership with Brett Graham and Nigel Platts-Martin to open up The Ledbury in 2005.

Brett Graham is only 32 years old and one of the best examples of a new generation of super chefs who probably will affect how we dine at the very best gastronomic restaurants for decades to come. His kitchen is a bit messy and noisy, but everything makes sense and the friendship and strengths of the team are obvious.

With this set of key talents it might sound like you are going to have at least some vegemite, but that is nowhere to be found in the cuisine. The cuisine is mainly French with international touches and most of the ingredients come from the United Kingdom. Well, a lot of the ingredients come from Brett Graham’s own garden, like a lot of the delicious vegetables and herbs, but also quail eggs if you are lucky.

It would be easy to spoil the fun of dining at a multi awarded restaurant like The Ledbury, something that unfortunately has happened to several others of the most awarded restaurants, but the feeling in The Ledbury’s dining room is joy and your dinner will be exquisitely presented.

The restaurant is open for dinner seven days a week and only closed for lunch on Mondays. Most of the time the restaurant is fully booked so it is busy, indeed. Even if you go for both lunch and dinner you will not go bankrupt thanks to the very reasonable priced fare. Just £95 for a tasting menu and £145 if you like to have wine pairing with that is far more inexpensive than many other top awarded restaurants.

The menu is changed regularly and we have had lots of courses over the time we have been to The Ledbury. Most of what we have had has tasted perfect or with minor flaws and the wine pairings have in most cases worked well indeed as well. Our favourites at the moment are the frog legs en beignets with a purée of Jersey Royals, buttered mousserons and broad beans, and the pork jowl roasted with spices, but there are many more delicious courses and hardly any will disappoint you.

The Ledbury is one of the best restaurants in the world right now. It seems like whatever the team of the restaurant does they do it right and they constantly improve themselves so we have probably not seen the peak of all the talent that comes from Notting Hill nowadays.

Written by Andy