Gordon James Ramsay

Is a celebrity chef, television personality and entrepreneur. He has been awarded a total of twelve Michelin stars, and is currently one of only three chefs in the UK whose restaurant is rated at three Michelin stars. He is famous in the UK for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food such as Hell's Kitchen and The F-Word. He is best known in the United States as the host of FOX's Hell's Kitchen, which premiered in May 2005, and of Kitchen Nightmares, which premiered in September 2007, based on his successful British show Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

Upon his return to London in 1993, Ramsay was offered the position of head chef at La Tante Claire in Chelsea. Shortly thereafter, Marco White re-entered his life, offering to set him up with a head chef position and 25% 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 led to his leaving the partnership in 1997.

In 1998, Ramsay opened his own restaurant in Chelsea, Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road, with the help of his father-in-law, Chris Hutcheson. The restaurant gained its third Michelin star in 2001, making Ramsay the first Scot to achieve that feat.

From his first restaurant, Ramsay's empire has expanded rapidly, first opening Petrus, where six bankers famously spent over £44,000 on wine during a single meal in 2001, then Argan cafe in Glasgow (which he was later forced to close) and later Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's. Restaurants at the Dubai Creek and Connaught Hotels followed, the latter branded with his protégée, Angela Hartnett's, name. Ramsay has now begun opening restaurants outside the UK, beginning with Verre in Dubai. Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo and Cerise by Gordon Ramsay both opened in Tokyo in 2005, and in November, 2006, Gordon Ramsay at the London opened in New York City, winning top newcomer in the city’s coveted Zagat guide, despite mixed reviews from professional critics.

In 2007, Ramsay opened his first Irish restaurant; "Gordon Ramsay at Powerscourt" opened at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, Ireland.

Television

Ramsay's first foray in television was in two fly-on-the-kitchen-wall documentaries: Boiling Point (1998) and Beyond Boiling Point (2000).

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 season 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.

His most recent series is a food-based magazine program titled The F-Word; it launched on Channel 4 on October 27, 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. Each series also features a series-long project of raising animals to be used as the main course in the series finale. In the first series of The F-Word, Ramsay mockingly named the turkeys he raised: Antony, Ainsley, Jamie, Delia, Gary and Nigella--all in reference to other famous celebrity chefs. During the second series, Ramsay named the two pigs that he was raising after Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine who found the naming highly amusing. 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. During the third series, Ramsay reared lambs that had been selected from a farm in North Wales and he named them after two Welsh celebrities, Charlotte Church and Gavin Henson. The series became one of the highest rated shows aired on Channel 4 each week.

During one episode of The F-Word, Ramsay cooked in Doncaster Prison in Marshgate for its inmates. He challenged prisoner Kieron Tarff to an onion-chopping race, which Ramsay lost. The chef was so impressed by Tarff that he offered him a job at his restaurant when he is released (in 2007).

Food views

On the second series of The F-Word Ramsay showed a softened stance after learning about intensive pig farming practices including castration and tail docking. On the programme, Ramsay commented, "It's enough to make anyone turn fucking vegetarian, for God's sake. And I've always sort of knocked vegetarians and vegans for missing out on the most amazing flavour you can get from meat. But you can see why so many people change instantly."

Some controversy arose during the third series of The F-Word when journalist Janet Street-Porter, contending that horse meat should be eaten more widely in Britain, attempted to serve horse steaks at Cheltenham horse races. She was prevented from doing so by police, who deemed the stunt 'highly provocative'. She subsequently served the meat from a private property, garnering the approval of most of the consumers shown in the programme. The conclusion of both Street-Porter and Ramsay was that horse meat merited a more prominent place in Britain's national diet. In the wake of the stunt, representatives of animal rights group PETA protested by dumping a tonne of horse manure outside Ramsay's restaurant at Claridge's in central London.

Restaurants

United Kingdom

• Restaurant Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road (three Michelin stars), Mark Askew (executive chef), Clare Smyth (head chef)
• Pétrus at the Berkeley Hotel (two Michelin stars), Marcus Wareing (executive chef)
• Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's (one Michelin star), Mark Sargeant (executive chef)
• The Boxwood Café at the Berkeley Hotel, Stuart Gillies (executive chef)
• Maze, (one Michelin star) Jason Atherton (executive chef)
• Foxtrot Oscar
• Maze Grill, Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square (Opening March 2008)
• Gordon Ramsay's Plane Food at London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 (Opening March 2008)
• York and Albany, Regents Park, Angela Hartnett (executive chef) Opening April 2008
• Murano, Mayfair, Angela Hartnett (executive chef) Opening June 2008

Pubs

• The Narrow
• The Devonshire House
• The Warrington

International

• Gordon Ramsay at The London (two Michelin stars), New York, Josh Emett (chef de cuisine)
• Maze by Gordon Ramsay at The London, New York City
• Verre at the Hilton Dubai Creek, Dubai
• Gordon Ramsay at Conrad Tokyo", Tokyo
• Cerise by Gordon Ramsay, Tokyo
• Cielo by Angela Hartnett, Florida, Christopher Eagle (Head chef)
• Gordon Ramsay at the Ritz-Carlton, Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, Ireland
• Maze by Gordon Ramsay at The Hilton Prague Old Town, Prague, Czech Republic, Phillip Carmichael (Head chef)
• Gordon Ramsay at The London, West Hollywood (Opening April 2008)
• Gordon Ramsay at The Trianon Palace, Versailles near Paris (Opening March 2008), Simone Zanoni (head chef)
• Gordon Ramsay at The Pulitzer Hotel, Amsterdam (Planned for 2008)
• Gordon Ramsay at The Atlantis Sentosa Resort, Singapore (Planned for 2010)