Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips, Orlando, Florida

Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips serves an Americanised version of the traditional British dish – we went to try it.

The restaurant is within a relatively new attraction, shopping and dining area called ICON Park. This is centred around a 400 feet-high Ferris wheel – this used to be known as the Orlando Eye and is now ‘The Wheel at ICON Park’. The park is situated along the busy International Drive area.

The entrance doors are modelled after British telephone boxes.

Inside was much smaller than we expected. The place feels just like any fast-food joint.

There are only a few seats inside, but more on an outside terrace. We each chose a Fish Combo (US$14.00) – three pieces of cod, chips, and choice of two sauces, but upgraded the chips to ‘dirty chips’ for an extra $3.

The sauce choices are Tartar, Curry & Mango, Sriracha Aïoli, Southwest Ranch, Dijon Mayonnaise and Cocktail. We went for Tartar and Curry & Mango.

The combo menus don’t include a drink. We went for two speciality shakes (US$ 6.99); one biscoff and one sticky toffee.

Total was US$53.21 including tax.

We took our meals to the outside terrace. Again, it feels like any other fast-food joint, except for the poster of Gordon Ramsay.

I’m sure many British people would prefer that Gordon Ramsay opened a traditional chip shop and perhaps that was the original plan, later altered by focus groups. We didn’t expect good ol’ fish and chips, but we did expect good food.

The fish was delicious. The fries were good, more like the fries from Wendys, but with the added ‘dirty’ ingredients. I couldn’t taste any truffle in my chips. The sauces were nice but a little too mild. The napkins were really good quality.

The shakes were excellent – my sticky toffee shake reminded me of the sticky toffee pudding that I enjoyed at Gordon Ramsay Hell’s Kitchen in Las Vegas.

Even though all the individual items are good, they don’t work together. If we were to return, we’d have fish, regular chips and a fountain soda or beer. They have chip shop vinegar and that needs to go over everything.