Brand Ramsay riding high

Do you know the way to Turnham Green? (Just squeeze 'em very hard.) So goes the old joke about this quiet corner of West London, which has been chosen by Gordon Ramsay as the latest venue for his rapidly growing empire. Yes, he's at it again. Blink and there's another restaurant or gastropub bearing the Ramsay name. Like some kind of out-of-control soufflé, his rise seems unstoppable.

Maybe one day in the future we'll talk about 'going for a Ramsay' in the same way that some people used to talk about McDonald's back in the Eighties. Or waking up with a hangover, perhaps drool: 'I could murder a Ramsay.' With restaurants in London, New York, Tokyo and Prague, plus a high media profile, no wonder the world is Gordon's oyster. And who wouldn't be prepared to shell out for a taste of the great man's expertise?

The Michelin-starred one is part of a growing campaign to make dining out cheaper and more accessible, and so I took the romantic novelist (suffering from a bad case of writer's block) to the newest Ramsay gastropub to see whether the menu was inspirational enough to shift it for her.

Past pretty bijou shops, The Devonshire is situated at the grottier end of a long road bearing the same name (oh, tedium). Outside, the sign was creaking in the wind, Treasure Island-style, and the moment you step into the restaurant, you are swallowed up by a dark brown gloom amid regimented lines of tables.

Severe and bare, it reminded me of an old-fashioned school room, which is probably appropriate since celebrity chefs are no longer content to simply provide good food. They want to tell us what to eat and, more importantly, what not to eat. They are the public voices of our gastric conscience and they wield incredible power; even supermarkets tremble to their will.

(Personally, I wish most of them would just shut up and run their restaurants, or write better books with great recipes in them.)

This has been a cheap refit. The overhead lighting is harsh, the chairs uncomfortable and the few black and white Getty photos that adorn the walls are too far away to be seen properly. Returning from a trip to salvage her wind-ravaged hair, the novelist pronounced the loos to be 'the antithesis of luxury'. Oh, dear. But at least the room was warm. To be honest, it reminded me of a restaurant in a large suburban hotel - only without the colourful addition of the salad cart at its centre.

If the menu looks very familiar, that's because it is. It seemed indistinguishable from the dishes at The Narrow, where I ate a few months ago. Predictability seems to be the keyword.

The chicory and walnut salad with pear and Stilton was possibly the only light starter and my guest enjoyed it, though she said that eating Stilton after Christmas always feels as if someone is using up the leftovers. Pressed ham hock was interesting and almost worth ordering - simply for the homemade piccalilli that accompanied it.

The only really 'girlie' main course was stone bass with savoy cabbage and pickled cockles. This would have been OK had it not been for the fact that it arrived in a bowl of thin, yellow gruel and looked completely unappetising. My steak and kidney pie was marginally less exciting than one from Fray Bentos - though there was no shortage of kidneys - but the mash was very school dinnery. Only the puddings really excelled. I had a wonderful, creamy light cheesecake and the pear and almond tart was delicious.