Chef Gordon Ramsay

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Gordon James Ramsay Jr. OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a British chef, restaurateur, and television personality. Born in Scotland, Ramsay grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon. Ramsay's restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars in total and currently hold a total of 7.[1][2][3] His signature restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea, London, has held three Michelin stars since 2001. First appearing on television in the UK in the late 1990s, by 2004 Ramsay had become one of the best-known and most influential chefs in British popular culture.[4][5]
As a reality television personality, Ramsay is known for his fiery temper, strict demeanour, and frequent use of expletives. He often makes blunt and controversial comments, including insults and wisecracks about contestants' cooking and restaurant facilities. He combines activities in the television, film, hospitality, and food industries and has promoted and hired various chefs who have apprenticed under his wing. Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the American series MasterChef, MasterChef Junior, and Hotel Hell, and the American versions of Hell's Kitchen and Kitchen Nightmares. In 2015, Forbes listed his earnings at $60 million for the previous 12 months, and ranked him the 21st highest earning celebrity in the world


Head chef

Upon his return to London in 1993, Ramsay was offered the position of head chef, under chef-patron Pierre Koffmann, at the three-Michelin-starred La Tante Claire in Chelsea. Shortly thereafter, Marco Pierre White reentered his life, offering to set him up with a head chef position and 10% share in the Rossmore, owned by White's business partners. The restaurant was renamed Aubergine and went on to win its first Michelin star fourteen months later. In 1997, Aubergine won its second Michelin star. Despite the restaurant's success, a dispute with Ramsay's business owners, who wanted to turn Aubergine into a chain, and Ramsay's dream of running his own restaurant led to his leaving the partnership in July 1998.[23][24] He has described the decision to set out on his own as "the most important day of my entire cooking career; the most important decision of my life".[25]
In 1998, Ramsay opened his own restaurant in Chelsea, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, with the help of his father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson, and his former colleagues at Aubergine.[26]The restaurant gained its third Michelin star in 2001, making Ramsay the first Scot to achieve that feat.[27]
After establishing his first restaurant, Ramsay's empire expanded rapidly. He next opened Petrus, then Amaryllis in Glasgow (which he was later forced to close), and later Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's. He hired his friend and maître d'hôtel Jean-Philippe Susilovic, who works at Petrus and also appears on Ramsay's US TV show Hell's Kitchen. Restaurants at the Dubai Creek and Connaught hotels followed, the latter branded with his protegee Angela Hartnett's name. Ramsay has opened restaurants outside the UK, beginning with Verrein Dubai. Two restaurants, Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo and Cerise by Gordon Ramsay, both opened in Tokyo in 2005. In November 2006, Gordon Ramsay at the London opened in New York City,[28] winning top newcomer in the city's coveted Zagat guide, despite mixed reviews from professional critics.[29]
In 2007, Ramsay opened his first restaurant in Ireland, Gordon Ramsay at Powerscourt, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Powerscourt, County Wicklow.[30] This restaurant closed in 2013. In May 2008, he opened his first restaurant in the Western US, in The London West Hollywood Hotel (formerly the Bel-Age Hotel) on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. The contract expired in 2015, closing the restaurant.[31]
On 9 August 2011, Ramsay opened his first Canadian restaurant, Laurier Gordon Ramsay (at the former Rotisserie Laurier BBQ) in Montreal.[32] In February 2012, Danny Lavy, the owner of the restaurant, announced the restaurant was disassociating itself from Ramsay, citing a lack of involvement and understanding on Ramsay's part.[33] The restaurant closed in 2013.[34]

Awards

Opened in September 1998, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay was Ramsay's first solo restaurant, located at Royal Hospital Road, London. In 2001, it was voted Top Restaurant in the UK in the London Zagat Survey and was awarded its third Michelin star.[35]
He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 honours list for services to the hospitality industry, but almost missed the award when his plane was delayed.[36]
In July 2006, Ramsay won the Catey award for "Independent Restaurateur of the Year", becoming only the third person to have won three Catey awards. Ramsay's two previous Catey awards were in 1995 (Newcomer of the Year) and 2000 (Chef of the Year). The other two triple-winners are Michel Roux and Jacquie Pern.[37] In September 2006, he was named as the most influential person in the UK hospitality industry in the annual Caterersearch 100 list, published by Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine. He overtook Jamie Oliver, who had been top of the list in 2005.[38] Also in 2006, Ramsay was nominated as a candidate for Rector of the University of St Andrews, but lost at the polls to Simon Pepper.[39]
Ramsay's flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, was voted London's top restaurant in Harden's for eight years, but in 2008 was placed below Petrus, a restaurant run by former protégé Marcus Wareing.[40] In January 2013, Ramsay was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame.[41]

Gordon Ramsay Holdings

All of Ramsay's business interests (restaurants, media, consultancy) are held in the company Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited, which was run in partnership with his father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson. Ramsay owns a 69% stake, valued at £67 million in 2007.[42]
Whereas previous ventures acted as a combined consultant/brand, in November 2006 Ramsay announced plans to create three restaurants in the United States. These opened in 2006/2007 at:
In late 2006 Gordon Ramsay Holdings purchased three London pubs which he converted into gastropubs. These are: The Narrow in Limehouse, which opened in March 2007, the Devonshire in Chiswick, which opened in October 2007 and The Warrington in Maida Vale, which opened in February 2008. Both The Devonshire and The Warrington were subsequently sold in 2011 (The Warrington to pub company Faucet Inn).[43]
Ramsay acts as a consultant to numerous catering organisations, and was recruited by Singapore Airlines as one of its "International Culinary Panel" consultants.[44]
In May 2008, it was confirmed that Ramsay's protege of 15 years, Marcus Wareing, was going solo, having opened and operated Pétrus at The Berkeley Hotel on behalf of Gordon Ramsay Holdings since 2003.[45] With the name Pétrus owned by Gordon Ramsay Holdings, industry sources suggested it was likely to transfer to another restaurant in the group with the former La Noisette site identified as the most likely.[46]
In April 2010, Jason Atherton, executive chef of Maze restaurants worldwide, resigned to open his own venue in Mayfair.[47]
On 19 October 2010, the company Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited announced that Chris Hutcheson had left his position as CEO of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Ltd. Shortly after, Ramsay released a letter to the press describing how he had unravelled the "manipulative" Hutcheson's "complex life" after having him followed by a private detective. His father-in-law's "away days," wrote Ramsay, "were rarely what I thought they were." Company accounts show Hutcheson borrowed up to £1.5 million from Gordon Ramsay Holdings, of which he was chief executive, though he says he reported the borrowings to the company and paid the money back. Hutcheson said he had been "vaporised" and subjected to a "public hanging" by Ramsay, whom he described as a friendless egotist.[48] In April 2017 Hutcheson pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to hack into the computers of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited.[49]
In October 2012, Ramsay opened The Fat Cow in Los Angeles, US at The Grove, a shopping area that is also popular with tourists.[50] Ramsay explained his intention for the Fat Cow in a press release to signify the opening of the venue: "The concept for The Fat Cow came from my desire to have a neighbourhood restaurant that you could go to all the time to just relax and enjoy a terrific meal."[51]
In partnership with footballer David Beckham, Ramsay opened the Union Street Café in the Southwark district of London, UK in September 2013. The Italian cuisine of the Union Street Café, with a menu that is revolved on a daily basis, is overseen by Chef Davide Degiovanni.[52]
In October 2013, the Gordon Ramsay at The London restaurant in New York lost its two Michelin stars due to issues encountered by the Michelin reviewers. The guide's director Michael Ellis stated that he was served "some very erratic meals" and also experienced "issues with consistency." The loss follows the closure of another of Ramsay's restaurants in June 2013.[53]
In January 2014, Ramsay lost a high court case in relation to the "York & Albany pub." Ramsay claimed that his father-in-law had misused a 'ghost writing' machine to make a personal guarantor for the £640,000 a year annual rent of that pub. Ramsay tried to nullify the 25-year lease, signed in 2007. The judge said that Ramsay had known from the guarantee beforehand but that he had total trust in his father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson, and left the deal with him. The judge dismissed the case and ordered Ramsay to pay all legal costs and outstanding monies, in total more than one million pounds.[54]

Television

Ramsay's first documented role in television was in two fly-on-the-kitchen-wall documentaries: Boiling Point (1998) and Beyond Boiling Point (2000), but had appeared previously as a judge on a MasterChef-like series for young catering students in 1997, with his then restaurant partner.
Ramsay appeared on series three of Faking It in 2001 helping the prospective chef, a burger flipper named Ed Devlin, learn the trade. This episode won the 2001 BAFTA for "Best Factual TV Moment."[55][56]
In 2004, Ramsay appeared in two British television series. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares aired on Channel 4, and saw the chef troubleshooting failing restaurants over a one-week period. This series ran its fifth series in 2007. Hell's Kitchen was a reality show, which aired on ITV1, and saw Ramsay attempt to train ten British celebrities to be chefs, as they ran a restaurant on Brick Lane which opened to the public for the two-week duration of the show.
In May 2005, the FOX network introduced Ramsay to American audiences in a US version of Hell's Kitchen produced by Granada Entertainment and A. Smith & Co. The show follows a similar premise as the original British series, showcasing Ramsay's perfectionism and infamously short temper. The show completed its 13th season in December 2014, and Fox ordered the production of three additional seasons.[citation needed] In addition, Ramsay had also hosted a US version of Kitchen Nightmares which premiered on Fox on 19 September 2007. The show has now run six full seasons, with a seventh season being shown during 2014.
Ramsay at BBC Gardeners' WorldLive 2008
Ramsay has presented five series of a food-based magazine programme titled The F Word; it launched on Channel 4 on 27 October 2005. The show is organised around several key, recurring features, notably a brigade competition, a guest cook competition, a food related investigative report and a series-long project of raising animals to be served in the finale. The guest cook (usually a celebrity) prepares a dish of their own choosing and places it in competition against a similar dish submitted by Ramsay. The dishes are judged by diners who are unaware of who cooked which dish and, if the guest wins (as they have on numerous occasions), their dish is served at Ramsay's restaurant.
In July 2006, Channel 4 announced that it had re-signed Ramsay to an exclusive four-year deal at the network, running until July 2011.[57]The series became one of the highest rated shows aired on Channel 4 each week.[58] During one episode of The F Word, Ramsay cooked in Doncaster Prison in Marshgate for its inmates. The chef was so impressed by the speed at which a prisoner, Kieron Tarff, chopped vegetables that he offered him a job at his restaurant following his release in 2007.[59]
In 2010, Ramsay served as a producer and judge on the US version of MasterChef.[60] (A second season of the show began in June 2011, again starring Ramsay.) On that same show, he was joined by culinary judges Graham Elliot and Joe Bastianich. He starred in a travelogue about his visit to India, Gordon's Great Escape followed by a series set in Asia. He hosted the series Ramsay's Best Restaurant, which was the first UK series by Ramsay's own production company, One Potato Two Potato.
Ramsay joined several other celebrity chefs in the 2010 series, The Big Fish Fight, where he, along with fellow chef Jamie Oliver and a few others, spent time on a trawler boat to raise awareness about the discarding of hundreds of thousands of salt water fish.
In March 2012, Fox announced the coming of Ramsay's fourth series for the Fox network, Hotel Hell;[61] the series is similar to Kitchen Nightmares, except that it focuses on struggling hotels, motels and other lodging establishments in the United States.[62] Originally slated for debut 6 April 2012[63] and 4 June 2012,[64] the series debuted 13 August 2012.[65]
In 2012, it was reported that Ramsay was to be the producer of a drama called The Inferno, set in a New York restaurant.

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