Mrs Ramsay's Chelsea salad

He is the superchef with three Michelin stars and TV programmes on both sides of the Atlantic. Now Gordon Ramsay's wife is bidding for fame as the designer of a dish to rival the Caesar and Waldorf.

Tana Ramsay hopes her creation, launched this week at the Brasserie restaurant in the Peter Jones department store, will become as successful as its transatlantic cousins.

The food writer created the £7.95 salad to mark the opening of the second-floor restaurant, which marks the final stage of a £107 million makeover at the Sloane Square store.

Like the Waldorf - which famously flummoxed Basil Fawlty when ordered by an American guest at Fawlty Towers - the Chelsea salad is a mix of fruit and nuts as well as conventional green leaves and cheese.

It consists of apricots and pine nuts with baby gem salad leaves and dolcelatte soft cheese, tossed in a dressing of freshly squeezed orange juice and olive oil.

Mrs Ramsay said she had wanted to design a salad that was easy to make and tasted fresh but at the same time had "a slightly naughty twist". She said her husband had declared it a great success but he had no input.

"As with any of the dishes I create, he leaves it to me. I do it my way and that is very different to his," she said.

"I would never, never negotiate on one of his recipes. We have very different approaches - mine is based on family cooking."

Mrs Ramsay said the ingredients of the salad were all "favourite things" that were readily available around the home.

Robert Allen, executive chef at Peter Jones, said: "In the restaurant business, good salad options aren't just for summer - they are enormously popular throughout the year, particularly among female diners.