'Am I a TV chef? Am I fuck! I’m a real chef'. Gordon Ramsay talks to Cara Houchen, editor of The Staff Canteen.
He’s probably the most famous chef in the world so the opportunity to interview Gordon Ramsay doesn’t come around very often. Was I excited? Yes. Was I nervous? Very!
Gordon Ramsay
I think we all have a preconception of how Gordon will be in person, he has a reputation which precedes him, and his TV persona is what he is known for. But this is just a small part of who he is, as I found out, he is passionate about his restaurant staff and still humble in terms of Restaurant Gordon Ramsay’s achievements.
He’s the first Scottish chef to achieve three Michelin stars and he and his team have maintained that accolade since 2001.
“Without your team, you’re nothing,” explained Gordon when I met him and his chef de cuisine Matt Abé at his eponymous restaurant. It’s been 20 years in the making and he says it is built on a team ‘dedicated to absolute perfection’.
“It’s not an overnight success,” he continued. “And keeping that team together and inspiring them to push even further – that’s the key.”
Nurturing his chefs’ talent is something Gordon is very passionate about, he believes ‘clipping their wings’ is detrimental.
He said: “You can’t suffocate talent, it’s the worst thing you can do. Matt has the most amazing palate and if I was to blindfold him and put 25 ingredients on a spoon he’d identify every one. He’s a refined diamond…..he was a rough diamond ten years ago!”
And he should know, he has worked for some of the best chefs in the world who do not begrudge him his success and he is happy to carry that on and help his chefs to do the same.
“This industry is a bitch to work in! You have to sacrifice your social life and relationships until you get to a certain level.
“So, you have to be less possessive with your chefs. A lot of chefs hold on to them because they don’t want them to take their ideas….I have been the most unselfish fucking chef anywhere on the planet, if they are as successful as me – brilliant, job done, because there’s a little bit of me alongside them.
“Just like Marco (Pierre White), Guy Savoy and Pierre Koffman did with me.”
He describes Pierre Koffman as ‘Pierre the bear’ and an amazing chef who has an ‘amazing grandad following now’ but that wasn’t always the case. Gordon opened Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 1998, as his first solo venture and the location previously housed Koffman’s Michelin starred restaurant La Tante Claire where Gordon was head chef.
“He was a fucker in here let me tell you,” said Gordon. “He busted my arse but I never complained about it because I loved what he taught me.
“And in terms of Marco, if you thought I was tough to work for, you should have stood alongside him!”
He added: “When I walk into this kitchen now and all the young girls and young guys are excited to see me, and I’m excited to see them, I think ‘shit, if you’d have been here 25 years ago!’.
"I was standing outside, opening scallops and it was pissing down with rain. The French boys were in the kitchen laughing their heads off and what did Koffman do? He threw me a big fucking smelly duffle coat. But I opened them, 180 of the fuckers.
“I had to prove my worth. I wanted to show you can be taught, you can develop a palate and you don’t have to be French to be a fucking great chef!”
Out of the kitchen, Gordon’s TV career catapulted him into the lime light and he says he ‘does TV to help fill the restaurants’.
“Am I a TV chef? Am I fuck! I’m a real chef and there are a lot of real chefs on television – this is not Ready, Steady, Twat or fucking Can’t Cook, Won’t Cook. This is the real deal.”
He explained: “We are in 129 countries with viewing figures in excess of 275 million every summer. I haven’t got just one restaurant to fill anymore so I work very closely with that media presence to help fill them all.
Gordon Ramsay and his chef de cuisine Matt Abé
“I get a hard time for doing TV. People question how I can do TV and do everything else but it’s because I’m fucking organised and I work fucking hard.
“All that crap I take about ‘he should be in his kitchen’ and ‘he should be there 16 hours a day’, that is all bullshit – judge what is on the plate not the face. My team goes to hell and back to achieve that level of quality on a daily basis and I’m behind that team.
“When I went to pick up my last Ferrari, I didn’t ask if it was Enzo who stitched the fucking wheel!”
Gordon appears to have achieved everything a chef could hope for, is it possible for someone so successful to still have goals?
After thinking for a minute, he said: “I want to keep this restaurant stable, keep producing amazing talent and keep pushing the boundaries.
“In five years we want to still be at the top.”
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He added: “When I walk into this kitchen now and all the young girls and young guys are excited to see me, and I’m excited to see them, I think ‘shit, if you’d have been here 25 years ago!’.
