Gordon Ramsay….

This blog is for my good buddy Chane!!! 

Chane is a self confessed addict of Gordon Ramsey…..so I thought I’d try to put together a blog with information about him, where he comes from, how he got this famous and maybe why he is so mean??

I hope to find a fact or two (I am not over shooting here) that Chane perhaps does not know about him?  Here’s hoping……

Gordon Ramsay (born November 8, 1966) is one of Britain’s highest profile chefs. He is one of only three chefs in the country to maintain three Michelin stars for their restaurant.

Gordon was born in Scotland but was brought up in England after his family moved to Stratford-upon-Avon (where Shakespeare lived). He played football as teenager for Oxford United F.C.’s youth side and was spotted by a scout for Rangers. He completed trials for the Scottish club and became a professional player at the age of 15. After suffering a knee injury that left him unable to regain full fitness he was released from the club. 

At the age of 19 Ramsay now turned his hand to cookery. He worked under Marco Pierre White and Albert Roux in London and Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon in Paris before becoming head chef of the newly-opened Aubergine restaurant in 1993. By 1996, the restaurant had been awarded two Michelin stars. In 1998 Ramsay opened his first own restaurant, the eponymous Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. The restaurant gained three Michelin stars in 1999, making Ramsay the first Scot to achieve the feat. From there his empire has expanded rapidly, first opening Petrus where six bankers famously spent over £44,000 on wine during a single meal in 2001, and then Amaryllis and later Gordon Ramsay at Claridges. Restaurants at the Dubai Creek and Connaught Hotels followed, the later branded under his protegee, Angela Hartnett’s, name. Ramsay’s company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings, continued rapid expansion under Marcus Wareing as Chief Patron.

Ramsay has published six books on cooking and also appeared in two fly-on-the-kitchen-wall documentaries – Boiling Point in 1998 and Beyond Boiling Point in 2000. The series revealed that Ramsay is a hot-tempered man in the kitchen; he was seen yelling obscenities at his staff and throwing equipment around. Food critic A. A. Gill, who was famously ejected from Ramsay’s Chelsea restaurant (along with his dining companion Joan Collins), has said that Ramsay is “a wonderful chef, just a really second-rate human being”.

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 two-week period. Hell’s Kitchen was a reality show, which aired on ITV, and saw Ramsay attempt to train 10 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 what became ‘water cooler’ television, ‘Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen’ saw the volatile chef give a variety of micro-celebrities a memorable tongue-lashing, notably former Conservative MP Edwina Curry and Coronation Street actress Amanda Barrie, who was actually moved to hit him after provocation. Ramsey branded the celebrity chefs a ‘bunch of whingers’ and complained to the press that most of the stars ‘hadn’t done a day’s work in their lives’

Gordon also enjoyed huge success in America with the television show Hell’s Kitchen USA. The American public loved him and in 2006, he took the Ramsay empire to America where he opened Gordon Ramsay at the London in New York.

The same year saw him gain further recognition with an OBE “for services to the hospitality industry” as well as receive the Catey award for ‘Independent Restaurateur of the Year’. The latter was an addition to his 1995 Catey gong for ‘Newcomer of the Year’ and 2000’s ‘Chef of the Year’, which made him only the third person to have won three Catey awards.

Ramsay’s success has been achieved through Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited, a company run in partnership with his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, which takes care of all his restaurants, media and consultancy work. However, the chef, who is majority shareholder in the firm, fired his partner in 2010, sparking a public row that threatened to tear the family apart.

Unhappy with his dismissal over alleged misuse of company funds, Chris and Greta Hutcheson severed their ties with Ramsay and wife Tana, prompting the chef to write an open letter asking his mother in-law to rescind the decision for the sake of the family. The row came at a time when Ramsay’s restaurants were facing pressure as a result of the global financial downturn.

Gordon lives with his wife Tana and children in South London. He regularly jogs home from work late at night after a long shift in his central London restaurants.

Five completely random and somewhat pointless facts about Ramsay!!!!

No.5 He needs special shoes

The only thing bigger than Gordon Ramsay’s temper are his feet. “They’re size 15 and wide as well,” he says. In fact, Ramsay’s feet are so large that he has to have all of his shoes custom made and he recently had to send his Bentley Continental GT back to the manufacturer because the pedals were too small to accommodate his oversized brogues. Although having big footsies may sound like a headache, Ramsay insists that it isn’t all bad. “My wife Tana never complains,” he jokes.

No.4 His biggest fear involves vegetables

Gordon Ramsay has never hidden the fact that he adores meat. “I love any meat, whether it’s white meat or red meat,” he proudly declares. However, you might not know that his love of meat goes hand-in-hand with his hatred of vegetarians, who he believes are missing out on one of life’s greatest joys. “My biggest nightmare would be if my kids came up to me and said ‘Dad, I’m a vegetarian,’” he confesses. 

No.3 He thinks chefs are crazy

Gordon Ramsay knows that many folks believe he belongs in a lunatic asylum. However, he’s quick to point out that he isn’t the only chef who’s off his rocker. “Chefs are nutters,” he says. “They’re all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.” With that said, there are certain chefs Ramsay believes are a little kookier than others, like Jamie Oliver, whom he’s dismissed as being a “one-pot wonder,” and his former mentor Marco Pierre-White, whom he’s called a “bully” and a “savage.” Ramsay has also attacked the trio of Ainsley Harriot, Brian Turner and Anthony Worrall Thompson, referring to them collectively as the “Teletubbies.” Although it’s unlikely that any of his rivals will ever assault him, Ramsay insists he’s ready to take on all comers. “I have a black belt in martial arts and I keep incredibly fit,” he says. “Provided nobody’s going to lob a knife in the back of my head, I can pretty much stand up and stand strong.”

No.2 He’s ridden a buffalo

It turns out his employees aren’t the only things that Gordon Ramsay likes to ride. This 43-year-old British man hopped on a buffalo for the first — and last — time in 2007 during an excursion to a Scottish farm. “I was making the very first homemade fresh buffalo mozzarella,” he explains. “But of course, before we could make the mozzarella we had to get the buffalos first. So, we ran after them on quad bikes and I jumped on the back of one of these things and started riding it. It got so fast, I couldn’t jump off. I finally fell off the damn thing.” The incident left him with a few nicks and cuts and one seriously bruised ego.

No.1 His children convinced him to have cosmetic surgery

There’s a reason Gordon Ramsay’s trademark brow isn’t quite as furrowed as it used to be. This caustic chef recently underwent cosmetic surgery at the urging of his children. “I’ve got four children, and they’ve become ‘Dad, why have you got so many wrinkles on your face when Clementine’s daddy has no wrinkles?,’” he says. It hardly helped that journalists had begun comparing his famously craggy face to a map of Wales or a deflated rugby ball. Ramsay finally decided to bite the bullet and undergo a noninvasive laser treatment after he was awoken one morning by his 8-year-old daughter’s attempts to squeeze coins into his facial folds.

There ya have it!!!  Did you learn anything new?  I have to admit I laughed pretty damn hard when I read that his 8 year old was trying to squeeze coins into his facial folds, especially as I have teased Chane about the fact that his face looked like one of those puppies who have to much skin and just create all those rolls……

Just incase you were wondering:

What is a “Michelin Star”?

The term “Michelin Star” is a hallmark of fine dining quality — which is pretty funny considering that Michelin is, in fact, a tire company. But the Michelin company launched its first guide book in 1900 to encourage road tripping in France, and started anonymously reviewing restaurants by means of a three-star system in 1926.

Michelin awards 0-3 stars on the basis of anonymous inspections by reviewers. The reviewers are supposed to concentrate on the quality, mastery of technique, personality and consistency of the food, not on interior décor, table setting, or service quality.

There are annual Michelin guides available for countries and cities all over the world, mostly outside the United States. (In the U.S., there are Michelin guides to New York, San Francisco, and starting in 2010, Chicago. The company discontinued its Los Angeles and Las Vegas Guides in 2009.) But since Michelin started in France, the guides are sometimes accused of having a bias towards French cuisine/style/technique, or towards a snobby, formal dining style.

Michelin Stars Defined:

• One star: A very good restaurant in its category.
• Two stars: Excellent cooking and worth a detour. First class cuisine of its type.
• Three stars: Exceptional cuisine and worth a special journey. Often extremely expensive, and with an extensive wine list.