After eighteen years with Gordon Ramsay, the Sydney-born chef cooks under his own name at 43 Upper Brook Street, in a redesigned basement that holds two Michelin stars and a six-seat chef’s table.
For more than half a century, the basement at 43 Upper Brook Street was Le Gavroche. Two generations of the Roux family ran it from 1967, and it changed how Britain cooked. It is now Bonheur by Matt Abé, and in 2026 it earned two Michelin stars.
The Le Gavroche basement, redrawn
Bonheur is a French noun for a state of deep happiness, which the restaurant reads as a harmony between pleasure and purpose. The rooms have been redesigned from the ground up. Guests take a drink in a small cocktail bar before going down the stairs to the dining room.
Below, colours and shapes taken from Abé’s native Australia lighten the old basement, with a touch of art deco. Burgundy velvet banquettes curve round pale tables under panels of fine-grained timber. Clusters of dried flowers and fungi in rust, cream and ochre run across the walls.
The tables are set well apart. The staff wear tailored jackets, and the food comes on handmade plates, which the house counts as part of the room.
Eighteen years with Gordon Ramsay
Abé began cooking at 16 in Sydney, under Matt Moran at Aria, then moved to Vue de Monde in Melbourne. He came to London in 2007 to work for Gordon Ramsay and rose from chef de partie to sous chef at Claridge’s. Two years later he joined Restaurant Gordon Ramsay on Royal Hospital Road, where he trained under Clare Smyth.
He became its chef de cuisine in 2013 and chef patron in 2020, and it kept three Michelin stars for eight consecutive years under him. He has mentored the UK Bocuse d’Or team and chairs the judges of the National Chef of the Year. Bonheur is the first restaurant to carry his name.
The Dream menu
Abé’s cooking is classically rooted and seasonal, with a lighter French hand than at his old kitchen. The Dream menu opens with an oyster royale under caviar, buttermilk and dill, then an Isle of Skye scallop with carrot, clementine and yuzu kosho. Cornish monkfish comes with violina pumpkin and hay.
The main course is 125-day-aged Cumbrian Blue Grey beef with potato, parsley and smoked bone marrow, from a breed Abé has helped to rear for five years. A dish called the Golden Egg, with vin jaune, bay and vanilla, leads to a pecan praline with Pedro Ximénez, coffee and cocoa nib.
The shorter Journey menu runs from a quiche Lorraine of smoked ham, leek and Gruyère to Aynhoe Park fallow deer and a Trou Normand of quince and calvados. There is also an à la carte, and everyone at a table eats from the same menu.
Petit Bonheur is the chef’s table, set inside the main dining room but designed apart from it. It seats up to six, takes the Dream menu, and Abé and his kitchen team bring each course and explain how it was made.
The general manager, Matthew Widdowson, came to hospitality from the US Air Force and opened The Five Fields, where Abé was a regular guest. The head sommelier is Eric Zwiebel MS, Best Sommelier of the UK in 2004. His list runs from grower Champagne such as Egly-Ouriet and Jérôme Prévost to Assyrtiko from Santorini and Pinot Noir from Gippsland.
Lunch Thursday to Saturday 12:00 to 14:15; dinner Tuesday to Saturday 18:30 to 21:45. Dream menu £225, Journey £195, à la carte £165; Petit Bonheur £1,350 for the table. Smart casual, no sportswear.
Bonheur by Matt Abé, 43 Upper Brook Street, Mayfair, London W1K 7QR.
Discover more at bonheurbymattabe.com