Summary: I've been to several fine dining restaura...

Summary: I've been to several fine dining restaurants in London (Hedone, The Ledbury, Dinner by Heston Blumenthal, etc.) and all of them put Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester to shame. Mediocre quality ingredients, sub-par execution, and boring dishes make this restaurant outrageously overpriced. The food critics have it right, Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester is all show, with little to offer for those seeking a truly impressive meal.

I ordered three dishes; the foie gras, saute gourmande, and the duck.

The foie gras was served almost cold and had the texture of a cheddar. What little flavor it had was wholly unappetizing. After having foie gras at Hedone, which was served just warm with the texture of a thick flan, and brilliantly combined fresh berry flavors with deep, smokey, savory flavors, I was terribly disappointed. This dish should be removed from the menu altogether. I only ate it to avoid being rude.

The Saute Gourmande was a serviceable dish, that could have been great, but the lack of high quality ingredients and underwhelming execution held it back. Much higher quality mushrooms and lobster can be found in other London restaurants. There's no excuse to use such average ingredients considering the reputation and price of Alain Ducasse at The Dorchester.

The duck was the best dish they had to offer, and yet, it was uninspiring at best. It was a fairly good quality piece, and it was cooked expertly (which is what you expect at these restaurants), but there was nothing impressive to it. The spiciness of the duck, as well as the sauce, were nice, but the primary flavor remained the duck itself. As such, for the dish to be truly impressive, the duck needed to be of the highest quality. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and so it ended up being rather comparable to the duck I've had at vastly more affordable restaurants. The sauce and seasoning simply weren't good enough for me to call this dish anything but average.