Gordon Ramsay Read online

  Neil Simpson has been an award-winning journalist for nearly 15 years working for the Daily Mirror, Sunday Telegraph and Mail on Sunday. His books include biographies of Jonathan Ross, Billie Piper, Jade Goody and Lorraine Kelly, plus the best-selling Paul O’Grady – The Biography.

  CONTENTS

  Praise page

  Title page

  INTRODUCTION – GOING GLOBAL

  1 THE FIRST ****ING NIGHTMARE

  2 PLAYING FOR RANGERS

  3 HARD SLOG AND BAD LANGUAGE

  4 DEATH THREATS

  5 STARTING AGAIN

  6 JOAN COLLINS? YOU’RE OUT

  7 WHERE’S DAD?

  8 THE FAMILY SECRET

  9 MICHELIN STARS

  10 ON THE OFFENSIVE

  11 BACK TO WORK

  12 NIGHTMARES AND ACCUSATIONS

  13 WELCOME TO HELL’S KITCHEN

  14 GORDON VERSUS EDWINA

  15 HAPPY FAMILIES

  16 MEETING MOMMA CHERRI

  17 GET READY, AMERICA

  18 NO LIMITS

  Copyright

  INTRODUCTION

  GOING GLOBAL

  The swimming pool was as gloriously blue as the sky. Palm trees fluttered just slightly in the Los Angeles breeze. Gordon Ramsay was floating across the crystal clear waters on a vast blue-and-white inflatable chair, holding a cocktail glass and smiling broadly for the camera. It was the tongue-in-cheek highlight of an exclusive photo shoot for the Times newspaper back in rainy old London. But this was pure California, and Gordon was in his element.

  ‘Ramsay and America were always going to get along. There’s nothing the US respects more than a self-made man and few have taken control of their own destiny as emphatically as Gordon Ramsay,’ said Times reporter Chris Ayres who interviewed Gordon in the afternoon sun in August 2008. He saw a man more tanned, more toned and just a little bit blonder than normal. But he saw a man just as driven, ambitious and determined as ever – not least because Chris reckoned Gordon had arrived in the US ‘with all the subtlety of a 40-megaton nuclear weapon’.

  When Chris met him, Gordon was scandalising American television viewers with his language, his anger and his honesty on the US versions of Hell’s Kitchen and, ultimately, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. He was being photographed with David and Victoria Beckham and other A-list celebrities at the beach, at dinner and at football games. But, most importantly of all, in the summer of 2008, Gordon was working full-time to make a success out of his latest multi-million-dollar LA restaurant.

  Gordon Ramsay at The London Hotel in West Hollywood had opened three months earlier. It was the latest part of Gordon’s vast global push of book launches, merchandising deals and television programmes. The huge workload meant Gordon’s name was known in almost every part of the world. By the time he climbed into that LA pool and smiled for the photographer there were almost as many Ramsay restaurants than there were hours in the day. He had more Michelin stars than there are days in the week. You could read his cook books in 14 languages including Finnish and Lithuanian. You could hear him swear on TV screens in both hemispheres.

  But in the summer of 2008, when Gordon Ramsay at The London finally opened, the focus was very firmly on the food. It needed to be, because the restaurant hadn’t been given a very warm welcome. One top critic had called the LA menu ‘half-hearted’. Another, Jonathan Gold, the first food writer to win a Pulitzer Prize, said the restaurant’s design was ‘a kind of steam-punk take on a seventies disco lounge’ and said his cod had been ‘over-cooked’.

  Perhaps Gordon should have been ready for the criticism. For his introduction to LA had always been full of surprises. He loves telling the story of the night he ordered room service at the iconic Chateau Marmont hotel on Sunset Boulevard. It was when he first came to LA to scout out restaurant locations, long before he became famous on US television. ‘Oh my God! What happened to your face?’ screeched the room service waitress the moment she clapped eyes on him. Gordon jokes that she almost dropped the food tray in shock. ‘What do you mean?’ he had asked her. It turned out that she had never seen someone in LA with such deep wrinkles on their brow. In her mind, the only possible explanation was that Gordon had just been thrown face-first through a car windscreen.

  Back then, Gordon had enjoyed laughing off the comment. One year later, when his still-wrinkled face was famous and his restaurant was open, he was ready to tough out the food critics as well. He knew his food was far from ‘half-hearted’ or ‘over cooked’. He certainly hadn’t dumbed-down his menu for the famously shallow residents of La-la-land. Over in the stunningly beautiful West Hollywood dining room his customers could start with ‘slow braised octopus fingerlings, potato foam and olive toast’, they could have ‘poached rabbit loin, confit beet salad, anchovies and caper vinaigrette’ alongside a ‘broiled black cod, pig’s tails with Kumanoto oysters and celeriac puree’. If they had room for dessert they could try ‘chilled coconut tapioca with passion fruit, candied ginger and milk chocolate, star anise sorbet’. It was bold stuff. And, whatever the critics said, it did the trick. Shortly after opening, the new restaurant was taking 600 calls a day from people desperate for reservations. It was serving nearly 150 guests a night. Forget everyone who wanted Gordon to fail. He had finally cracked America. Just as he had cracked pretty much everywhere else.

  His American dream had begun nearly two years earlier in New York. Opening Gordon Ramsay at The London Hotel in that city had been tough – emotionally, physically and professionally. It had taken a delayed opening, many bad reviews and one replaced head chef to get things right. But when all this had been done, Gordon felt he had succeeded. He got proof within the year when he was awarded not one but two Michelin stars. So did he rest on his laurels and take a well-earned break? Does that sound like Gordon Ramsay? No. Having taken Manhattan, squeezed in a new restaurant in Prague and finished the plans for another in Heathrow’s new Terminal Five, he was ready to take on Paris.

  Gordon hit that most snooty and food-obsessed of cities in typically fiery style. ‘He’s a rat, evolving in a festering pot of manure. I jump on his head and kill him,’ is what reporter John Arlidge remembers Gordon screaming out in the week the chef opened Le Trianon in France. For good measure, Gordon was apparently stamping his feet repeatedly ‘as if killing vermin’ when he shouted out the words. The target of all this anger was a celebrated French food critic who had given the new restaurant nul points even before it had opened. Francois Simon had instead done a mini-tour of Gordon’s London restaurants. He hadn’t been particularly impressed. Going to a Ramsay restaurant, he said, was ‘like going to the dentist and finding that the dentist’s secretary is pulling out your teeth.’

  Gordon was furious. ‘I’ve been caned and I haven’t even opened yet. You can kick me in the nuts when I’m open. But before? How is that possible?’ he asked when he first heard that Simon had given him a bad review. But as the words sunk in, he accepted that he could hardly have expected anything less from the French establishment. Taking haute cuisine to France was never going to be easy. Especially when your new restaurant is in Versailles, the most glittering real estate prize in Paris.

  So what did Gordon do to beat back against those critics? He did what he always did when the heat was on. He got back in the kitchen. He cooked up a storm. He checked up on every last detail of the menu, the service and the complete dining experience in that most stunning of Parisian settings. ‘There’s not a day or a minute that goes by that I’m not thinking about it,’ he said of the Trianon’s opening. ‘Of course I’m nervous but then I shit myself with every fucking opening. I’m not so cocky to take it for granted that it will be a success.’ And that was even more true in Paris. ‘Ask any chef and this is where they really want to succ
eed,’ he said of the city. ‘This is serious, this is significant so the heat is on. This is the one I’ll be judged on. Paris is personal. This is the cradle of haute cuisine. I want three Michelin stars here.’

  He certainly didn’t take any easy options there, just as he wouldn’t do in LA. One thing Gordon has never done is compromise. So forget crowd-pleasing French food. Instead he imported Scottish lobster and langoustines, Aberdeen Angus beef and British hand-dived scallops. ‘When I learned to cook in France chefs used to buy British produce and take the labels off. Well, we’re going to stand British and proud. When they ask me why I’m not using the scallops from Brittany I will say, “Because I know I can get better.”’

  Gordon also vowed to teach French diners a thing or two about what they could eat – not least the carpaccio of octopus he served with some fish dishes. ‘The French are so arrogant, they’re not interested in that kind of Japanese accenting. They say, “Fuck off! We don’t want anything raw.” Just wait till they try it. It’s the same with golden caviar from the albino sturgeon. They all cringe about it, but you’ll see.’

  Everyone around Gordon knew he was taking a huge gamble in Paris. The economics of running a successful restaurant there were brutally tough. Failure was a very real option. And the pre-opening criticism of Francois Simon was followed up by some more attacks when the first paying customers arrived. One critic suggested that Gordon might bring mad cow disease to France with his imported ingredients. Another said the restaurant served: ‘karaoke cuisine or, in the language of Gordon Ramsay, bullshit’. But the sheer force of Gordon’s personality won over the public, if not the so-called experts. The snooty French critics might say they didn’t like eating his food. But soon they would have to eat their words. Shortly after opening, Le Trianon was solidly booked for four weeks in advance. At one point the restaurant had to stop taking advance bookings altogether to try and clear the backlog of demand. Then Gordon got the most important recommendation of all – from chef Guy Savoy, one of Gordon’s all-time culinary heroes. Savoy had come for dinner just after Le Trianon had opened. He loved everything about it – especially the ‘English with a twist’ dish of Granny Smith parfait with bitter chocolate and champagne foam. ‘The food is magnifique. Simon is rude about everyone and he is wrong about Monsieur Ramsay,’ Savoy said of the critic who had been unimpressed with Gordon’s restaurants even before the latest one was open. Flying back to check up on his other restaurants in London, Gordon was finally able to relax about a job well done. But there were still a few clouds on the horizon.

  For years, Gordon has prided himself on instilling extreme loyalty in his staff. He runs a tight ship, holds his colleagues close to his chest and supports them in everything that they do. Reporter Fiona Sims, who profiled the chef for Caterer magazine in the midst of his recent global expansion, said this was one of the first things she noticed about their long conversations. ‘Ramsay dishes out the credits constantly,’ she noted. When she pointed this out to him he said shared credit was vital to his success. ‘We support each other through the whole company, from the kitchens to front of house to the office. That’s the secret to all this – achieving that level of consistency through nurturing talent. Each and every one of my chefs, from Mark Sargeant to Marcus Wareing, Mark Askew to Jason Atherton – they’re all responsible for producing talent. When I look at the talent that’s coming through now, Claire Smyth, Gemma Tuley, Angela Hartnett, I think “wow”. But you should see what’s coming through behind them.’

  What he didn’t see coming was the fact that one of his inner circle was about to rebel. In 2008 he had a spectacular (and very public) falling out with Marcus Wareing, his long-standing protégé, business partner and friend.

  Marcus dropped the bombshell in a no-holds-bared magazine interview. He said Gordon made him feel ‘constrained, confined and trapped’. He called his former mentor a ‘celebrity chef’ (the worst insult you can throw at Gordon) and twisted the knife further by saying he was ‘not really part of the industry now’.

  The attacks were all the more dramatic because Marcus and Gordon had always been so close. They had worked together pretty much 24/7 for two full years when they first opened Aubergine at the start of Gordon’s career. Marcus had asked Gordon to be the best man at his wedding. But how quickly friendship had fizzled out and died. ‘If I never speak to that man again in my life it wouldn’t bother me one bit. Wouldn’t give a fuck,’ Marcus said. ‘I admire Gordon. I learned a lot from him. But would I lose any sleep knowing he wouldn’t be there? No chance.’

  At first Gordon tried to laugh it all off. Then he and Marcus suggested they had resolved their differences and may one day work with each other again. But the magic had gone. And professional crises were about to replace personal issues in Gordon’s increasingly high-octane life. There were rows over the lateness with which his company accounts were filed with the authorities in London. Then there was an even bigger row with his former employers at the five star Connaught Hotel in London. Long negotiations over a new contract there had broken down and in 2007 Gordon and his right-hand woman Angela Hartnett were replaced by – of all things – a young French rival. So Gordon fought back – by opening a £4 million hotel of his own. He and Angela set up The York & Albany in London’s Regent’s Park. They created a menu of modern European cuisine with an Italian emphasis. Plus a whole new attitude. ‘They’re all “lord and lady” pompous,’ said Gordon of his former bosses at the Connaught. ‘Their staff walk around with their heads up their arse.’ Not so at The York & Albany. Sure, there would be the finest of fine dining. But, on request, the staff there would also put together picnics for guests who wanted to eat al fresco in the park. Gordon, in particular, thrived on the challenge of doing something other than just food. But he accepted he was on a very steep learning curve. ‘We’re not hoteliers,’ he said in a rare moment of humility. ‘We’re still learning. We know it’s going to be a rough ride. We know the hotel critics will say “stick to what you know”. And then I’ll get slagged off by food critics because I’m not here every night rolling every bit of pizza dough. But we’ve been through all that before – here, in New York, in LA and I’m still standing – strong as a fucking ox.’

  Through it all, Gordon remained as volatile as ever. Reporter James Steen recently interviewed the chef for the Waitrose food magazine. He says Gordon certainly hadn’t toned down his act. ‘In person he swears more than he does on TV,’ he said. ‘The chef doesn’t “pepper” his speech with foul language. It’s actually the other way round. Minus the effing he would be mute.’

  Steen recalls one hilarious moment when he was in the restaurant bar waiting to continue the interview. ‘Ramsay appears from the kitchen, stops in the middle of the room and belts out nine f-words in as many seconds. He is swearing at no-one and nothing.’ Later on, as a joke, Steen mentioned this to his host and asked Gordon if he felt he could describe himself as sane. ‘Of course I couldn’t’ was Gordon’s immediate reply.

  Maybe that was why he decided to speak out against none other than Prince Charles.

  The row began when Gordon described the Prince’s Duchy Originals products as over-priced, boring and badly made. The fact that many of the items were processed (Gordon said this was done to give them a longer shelf life) was particularly controversial. ‘I am upset with him. When I looked at his Duchy food I was gob-smacked, amazed and dumbfounded at what I discovered. Why would anyone pay that much money for one of his pies? I tried them. Just because it has a stamp and his royal crest everyone thinks it’s fine but the number of sodiums and the sugar content is embarrassing. I don’t think that the Royals should be producing food like that.’

  The comments triggered a rare backlash against Gordon. Criticism of him came in thick and fast. ‘How much of Ramsay’s £60 million is he giving to charity?’ asked one reader on an internet site. ‘HRH produces excellent food which puts much money to charitable causes. Gordon just buys Aston Martins,’ wrote another. Pri
nce Charles, of course, remained tight-lipped.

  However hard Gordon works, and however much controversy he generates, he can rely totally on one simple fact: his family are full-square behind him. Tana’s support mattered even more when stories of Gordon’s alleged affair hit the papers in late 2008 – of which more later. His kids matter just as much. He repeatedly says they are what his life is all truly about – though his tough love approach to parenting is as unique and unusual as ever.

  Recently he talked of the day Tana told him that their daughter Megan had been rejected for the school swimming team. Did Gordon rush to comfort her? Not exactly. ‘I said: “That’s great”. At the age of nine that fear of rejection makes them hungry the next time the trials come round. So we’re going back into the pool on Saturday and Sunday and she’ll train again. The fact that she got rejected makes me feel a lot happier because you don’t get it handed down on a plate.’

  He was just as tough – and just as proud and emotionally engaged – with his other children. He remembers the time his eight-year-old son Jack bowled him out when they played cricket (using an upended skateboard as a wicket) in their 150-foot back garden in south London. ‘I’ve bowled out Gordon Ramsay, I’ve bowled out Gordon Ramsay!’ Jack shouted, dancing around the garden. That created a minor ripple of worry on Gordon’s already well creased brow. ‘I wanted him to say: “I bowled dad out.” I want my kids to see me as dad, for god’s sake, not a television personality,’ he admitted afterwards. More importantly, though, he wants them to see him as the one who will always be right there for them.

  ‘Every day I ask Jack: “Who’s your best friend?” And Jack says: “It’s you, dad.” And I’ll ask again. “Come on, who’s really your best friend?” And he says: “It’s you”.’ For a man who never got the love or recognition he craved from his own father, Gordon is determined never to break the strong relationship his own children have with him. He will turn down work if it means missing key events in their lives. He will never have them written out of his professional diary. ‘Like many chefs I’m selfish on the personal front,’ he admits. ‘But on Saturdays and Sundays I am devoted to my family. If I miss football on a Saturday morning Jack charges me a fiver. I’ve missed it just four times,’ he said recently.