Having a restaurant named the best in the world is arguably the highest honour that can be bestowed upon a chef. Even many of the most legendary names in culinary history, with their star-studded empires, have never had a restaurant top the list. Mauro Colagreco, however, is one of the few. In 2019 – the same year he was awarded his third Michelin star – he joined this most exclusive of clubs when his groundbreaking restaurant Mirazur, located in the south of France, was crowned the finest in the world by 50 Best. So, it was understandably a pretty big deal when the celebrated Argentinian chef announced he would be opening a trio of restaurants at the already hotly anticipated new Raffles London hotel at the redeveloped Old War Office earlier this year.

‘London’s always been a city that I’ve loved,’ Colagreco tells me as we sit down in Saison, his relaxed all-day restaurant inside The OWO. ‘For me, it’s the capital where you can find the best food from so many different countries, done in a lot of different styles. It was somewhere we’d been looking at for a while, so when this opportunity came up to open multiple restaurants in a venue like this, we practically said yes on the spot. We weren’t even sure what sort of food we wanted to propose at the beginning, but as we began to visit suppliers and travel around the UK more, the 'three concept' became more obvious.’

Mauro’s Table, Mauro Colagreco, and Saison see Colagreco bring his signature, vegetable-forward style to the UK for the very first time but the chef is clear that he isn’t in any way setting out to recreate Mirazur this side of the channel. ‘When I open a new restaurant, I see it as a baby rather than a clone,’ he explains. ‘There are always going to be plenty of similarities with Mirazur but as time goes by, each restaurant will gradually become its own. It’s important that restaurants have their own soul.’ And looking at his three newest concepts at The OWO (all of which opened at the start of October), each already has a distinct identity.

There’s the impressive glass-ceilinged Saison, where everything from breakfast and afternoon tea to a relaxed Mediterranean all-day menu is served. The eponymous Mauro Colagreco meanwhile, sees the chef showcase the level of refinement he’s best known for through a hyper-seasonal tasting menu built around British ingredients. And finally, there’s the even more exclusive Mauro’s Table – an immersive private dining experience offering an extended tasting menu inspired by the royal family’s Knotted Garden. Although each differs in its style, the ethos and approach to ingredients throughout is unmistakably that of Mauro, perhaps most notably the meticulous attention paid to championing biodiversity across all his menus.

‘For me, it’s never about taking the easy route,’ says Colagreco, who earlier this year was named UNESCO’s first ever goodwill ambassador for biodiversity – a role which involves him promoting and protecting lesser used varieties of fruit and vegetables and in some cases even working with farmers to help reintroduce species on the verge of extinction. ‘For the breakfast at Saison for example, we didn’t want to just do the classic tropical fruit salad with banana and pineapple, even though that’s what a lot of guests expect. Instead we use five or six different varieties of apples, some which are sweet, and others which are more acidic and crunchy. That’s a lot more interesting to eat and it also helps to promote biodiversity.’

Proteins, meanwhile, take a back seat particularly at Mauro Colagreco and Mauro’s Table. ‘It’s important to understand that we aren’t trying to be a vegetarian restaurant,’ the chef asserts. ‘We we just think about things in a different way. We don’t choose carrots to go with turbot, we choose turbot because it will go well with the carrots. There still needs to be a balance but I believe that you can play around a lot more with vegetables than proteins in terms of texture and colours particularly.’

Given the importance that Colagreco places on seasonal produce, and the fact that the menu at Mirazur is almost entirely constructed around the ingredients growing in the restaurant’s garden and the mountains surrounding Menton, you might think it would’ve been a shock to the system launching a restaurant slap bang in the middle of a city, in a totally new country. Yet it seems that quite the opposite was true for the chef. Not only did it create an enticing challenge for Mauro but it gave him the perfect opportunity to discover more about Britain’s bounty – something he was able to do plenty of when visiting producers across the UK in the lead up to opening.

‘It feels ridiculous to say it but as a Mediterranean chef who’s used to having a five-hectare garden and a warm climate for most of the year, I thought London would be really difficult for us,’ he says. ‘Then we came over during springtime and we were all like ‘wow what is this’ when we saw all the amazing produce like asparagus, and we thought it was just a good time of year. But then we visited again during summertime and also autumn, and my mind was blown by all the mushrooms. Luckily with this opening we had a lot of time to then go and research producers, meeting fishermen in Scotland and incredible farmers in the South, so we were finding the best versions of all these things. It ended up being one of the most exciting parts of the project.’

The result of all this research and careful consideration ahead of opening is a series of menus which all sing the praises of Britain’s natural larder. Autumn’s finest ingredients are currently being celebrated through dishes including Jerusalem artichoke accompanied by Cornish mackerel, glazed wild mushroom and hazelnut at Mauro Cologreco, while over at Saison the likes of spit-roasted rack of West Country lamb sits alongside pumpkin gnocchi and a cavolo nero gratin. Each dish title reads simply but you can be certain that there’s plenty more going on than initially meets the eye, particularly at the two fine-dining offerings, where former Mirazur chef Leonel Aguirre is at the helm.

It’s still very early days at Raffles at The OWO and Colagreco is keen to manage expectations, but as with any openings of this scale, particularly when a chef of such prestige is involved, there’s a bubbling excitement around the food at the Whitehall hotel. ‘London’s a very competitive city,’ he smiles, ‘so at this point we just need to learn and improve. Further down the line, we’d love to position Mauro Colagreco as one of the best restaurants in town if we can, but that’s part of a big journey.’ Only time will tell what impact the chef can have in London, but with a track record like his, it would be no surprise at all to see further accolades ultimately coming Mauro Colagreco’s way.