Gordon Ramsay (19 page)

But keeping a low profile in the late spring of 2004 was never going to be easy. The expletive-filled first episode of Channel 4’s
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
had made more waves than anyone had imagined. Overnight, Tim Gray, the unlucky chef from Bonaparte’s, had become almost as famous as his foul-mouthed tormentor. And with the media frenzy over that first show refusing to die down, Gordon knew things were going to get a lot worse before they got better – because shouting down Tim Gray wasn’t to be his only onscreen role that year. Over the next three weeks, the chefs at another clutch of nightmare restaurants were going to be seen taking his blows. And then an even bigger television project was set to begin.

TWELVE

T
he rancid scallops, unconventional omelettes and bad attitudes of Bonaparte’s weren’t the only horrors Gordon stumbled upon when he went out to film that first series of
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
. And, fortunately for viewers, he was ready to tackle all the other disasters he saw in his usual brutal and uncompromising style. Critics said the next three shows in the series were ‘difficult to watch, but impossible to turn off’ because of Gordon’s kill-or-cure, cook-eat-cook approach – and nearly five million viewers a week agreed. At the end of the series, the programme was credited with triggering ITV’s ‘Black Tuesday’ – one of the worst ratings slumps in the channel’s history as more than one viewer in five chose to watch Gordon over any other terrestrial or satellite programme.

In the process, 37-year-old Gordon found himself turning into an unlikely heart-throb. He had been
horrified a couple of years earlier when a reporter wrote that he looked a decade older than he was and that he had the kind of face ‘that you once saw long ago on young First World War soldiers returning old from the trenches’. So he kept having the blond streaks put in his hair, he kept doing his afternoon workouts at the near-empty gyms in his London hotels – and he kept showing off the results. His television directors loved the fact that he seemed willing to take his shirt off in front of the cameras and change clothes far more often than seemed strictly necessary for the job in hand. And, of course, they loved the fact that he continued to speak his mind about everything they put in front of him.

‘Gordon needs to be handled with all the care of a truckload of nitro-glycerine,’ a spokeswoman for Channel 4 admitted when asked about his temperament. Unfortunately for them, however, she didn’t seem to have passed that warning on to Neil Farrell and Richard Collins at the Glass House restaurant in Ambleside, Cumbria. In 2004, this was to be the second restaurant featured in
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
. And it would end up making almost as many headlines as the first.

In his defence, many of the problems at the Glass House were not of owner Neil’s making. For example, the restaurant had opened just days before the foot-and-mouth crisis temporarily made much of the Lake District off limits. So his anticipated tourist trade wasn’t able to get to his restaurant and the locals had a lot more on their minds than trying out his unique garlic popcorn. With a frightening VAT bill outstanding and too many empty tables in the evenings, Neil was at crisis point. So he
reckoned he had nothing to lose by calling in the cameras. ‘I felt I had already been to hell and back, so why not invite Mr Hell himself?’ he said of Gordon.

And Mr Ramsay turned into Mr Hell within hours of arriving at the restaurant for the ten-day assessment and advice period. Having ordered two deep-fried duck cakes, Gordon was presented with what he described as ‘something looking like a pair of camel’s bollocks. A pair of dried camel’s bollocks.’ And worse was to come when he bit into the restaurant’s signature dish, nearly broke a tooth and then choked on a bone. Having been watching what else went on in the kitchen, Gordon was ready to let rip with some of his favourite language. ‘Some idle mother fucker had been too lazy to bone the duck properly. Then the dozy twat accuses me of planting the fucking bone. Then he started to make pesto. He ran out of pine nuts so he says, “Just stuff in almonds, the punters won’t know.” So he starts walloping in almonds. Then the fucking owner says my Caesar salad is crap. We are in the middle of service and he is fucking ranting on. So I tell him to fuck off.’

Which is when things got even more heated. ‘What happens next is I let rip,’ Gordon told Olga Craig of the
Sunday Telegraph
afterwards. ‘One hundred and eleven fucks worth of rip. I mullered him. We came close to blows.’ The squaring-up happened in the courtyard behind the kitchens, and production company staff ultimately kept the two from getting too physical. But the verbal battering went on. Head chef Richard Collins was close to tears most of the time and one of the kitchen porters with a phobia about raw fish was teased by Gordon so much that he quit.

Once more, it was great, passionate television. But, once more, some serious advice came as soon as the expletive-laden assessment period was over. And this time some worrying allegations were made as soon as the show was broadcast.

On the advice front, before the staff at the Glass House did anything else, Gordon demanded a massive clean-up of the kitchen. While the Ambleside restaurant had one of the cleaner kitchens he saw, he says a lack of basic hygiene was what shocked him the most about many of the others visited when researching and making
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
. ‘I was horrified, genuinely appalled by the standards I found.’ And, apart from the clear health risks in some restaurants, he said he couldn’t understand how chefs could have pride in their food and their profession when they were surrounded by rotting ingredients and grime.

Back at the Glass House, Gordon then argued that the menu Neil and Richard were offering was too long, too confusing and too unfocused for their target market. Do people who eat in country restaurants really need to pick from up to 90 different dishes at dinner? Gordon reckoned diners, the waiting staff and the chefs were all being overwhelmed by the vast amount of choice and suggested offering just six starters, six main courses and up to six puddings in the evenings. In typical fashion, he said they should also go for a simpler, fresher lunch menu of healthy open sandwiches. Inside the kitchen, Gordon reckoned he had found some real gems among the junior staff – and, as usual, he was keen to encourage them to step forward and make the most of their potential. Unfortunately, he reckoned that they could do so only if Neil sacked his
£25,000-a-year, Claridge’s-trained head chef Richard – something the owner threatened but never quite managed to do.

So does Gordon turn the Glass House around? The food is simpler, the kitchen staff are happier and the takings are up by a fifth when he returns to check on progress. But when the show is finally broadcast Neil has plenty to say about what happened – or didn’t happen – when the cameras had stopped rolling.

He accused Gordon and the producers of misleading him about the ultimate title of the series and refusing to let him see an advance copy of the show – a claim also made by Sue Ray of Bonaparte’s. And he says they also hyped up and exaggerated his financial situation to create a false sense of tension for the show. ‘Gordon Ramsay did a voice-over at the start of the programme and said I was in so much financial difficulty I had turned off my phone because I was being hounded by suppliers. But that was untrue. The reason I had turned it off was simply that I was with my family. I had told the production team that I don’t want to be disturbed at home. It had nothing to do with suppliers and I am not in any financial difficulty.’

Neil also raised doubts about the real reason why Gordon had been so keen for him to ditch his head chef – a man praised in
The Good Food Guide
for his ‘dazzling’ desserts and ‘clever’ use of wine while at the pre-Ramsay Claridge’s. In Neil’s view, the chef had simply been a ratings-boosting scapegoat. ‘They carefully edited the programme and portrayed the head chef as the weak link. But he and Gordon got on very well together. There was never a cross word between them off camera. I had no
intention of sacking Richard but it would have made good television. And that is the only reason they wanted me to do it.’

Gordon, of course, stood firm and continued to argue his case in characteristically blunt language. ‘He’s a slob who lacks inspiration. If I had a fat, lazy head chef like that who couldn’t cook for toffee, I would sell up and get out of the business,’ was his final word on the subject.

Neil, however, hadn’t finished. ‘As far as I am concerned, the whole thing is about making Gordon Ramsay look good,’ he said of the show. ‘I admire his ability as a chef, but as a person not at all. The whole thing was a nightmare and I couldn’t wait for him to go. We wanted to be on the show because we reckoned we had nothing to lose and I wanted to have Gordon Ramsay in my kitchen. But if I had known they had a pre-set agenda I would have had nothing to do with it.’

Media analyst Dr Cynthia McVey, who has spent years studying the reality-television phenomenon, said it is increasingly common for people to be angry after seeing themselves on the small screen. ‘People want to take part because they are genuinely excited about being on television. They may even see it as a path to stardom, but when people see the result it can be very different. People think they have control and then they find that they don’t.’

Wresting control back from Gordon Ramsay was something one other restaurateur tried to do in that first record-breaking series of
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
. ‘You have to find the courage to confront him,’ said Francesco Mattioli, the new owner of the formerly celebrated restaurant the Walnut Tree, in South Wales, who disagreed
with almost all of Gordon’s advice. ‘He can bombard you. Your head spins. But in the end I retaliated. I have great admiration for Gordon, but, let’s put it this way, he was doing his programme. This is my restaurant. I don’t take that rubbish from anybody.’

Gordon, of course, refused to accept that anyone could ignore his advice. When he came back to the Walnut Tree to check on progress, he found that Francesco hadn’t spruced up the menu, hadn’t cut prices and wasn’t performing much better. And, after trying to get his message across one more time, another big row developed. ‘I’ll fuck off home and you can continue struggling. Let’s leave it like that, you stubborn fucker,’ were Gordon’s final words before he did as he had promised.

As it turned out, the Walnut Tree wasn’t the only restaurant that Gordon couldn’t wait to rush away from as soon as the cameras had stopped filming. ‘The title of the series,
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
, was absolutely right. I still have recurring nightmares of some of the situations we encountered. I was mortified, really shocked on the customers’ behalf, because you should never, in a professional kitchen, take a customer for granted. It was all a big eye-opener for me.’ The bad attitudes he had first seen at Bonaparte’s seemed to have made the most impression on him. But the words he used to describe what he had seen there could usefully be applied to other failing restaurants across the country. ‘I find it hard to come to terms with people portraying themselves as senior chefs who clearly aren’t and putting people’s livelihoods at risk in the process. I didn’t think it was possible for chefs to be so far up their own arses that they are totally oblivious to
what the customers want, and so focused on satisfying their own egos that they are cooking what they wanted in the type of place where nobody wanted that sort of food. And, even if the customers had wanted it, some of these chefs didn’t actually have a clue how to cook it.’

What also appalled the famously hard-working, early-starting Gordon was the short hours that many of the out-of-town chefs seemed prepared to put in. ‘I discovered that too many of them roll into work at 10.30. But how the hell can you contemplate creating something special when you don’t get to your kitchen till then?’ he asked, genuinely amazed. ‘I had a work ethic forced into me from the very first time I worked in a professional kitchen. I learned that you can’t do this job with half your mind. That’s what seems hardest to get across to some of the tossers who think it might be glamorous and social to run a restaurant. It isn’t. It’s hard fucking work day in and day out and I can’t believe how many people haven’t woken up to that yet.’

So would he film another series of the show? ‘When I was first asked about a second series, I said I didn’t know if I could do that to my fucking palate. I value that like there’s no tomorrow. It used to be my left foot that I treasured and now it’s my tongue.’ But as it turned out Gordon decided his taste buds could survive another battering and he agreed to go back on the road for a new series of
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
to be broadcast in 2005. But before then he had an even higher-profile, higher-pressure challenge to face. It was time for him to enter
Hell’s Kitchen
.

THIRTEEN

‘W
e're going to be running a sophisticated venue, not a burger van on the A3. We won't be cooking fish and chips, steak and ale pie or a nut fucking risotto. It's going to be fine dining, exclusive, the best restaurant in London for two weeks.' Gordon certainly had the highest of hopes for
Hell's Kitchen
.

Television production companies had been deluging him with programme ideas ever since
Boiling Point
more than five years earlier. And, as the reality-television boom gathered momentum, they were keener than ever to find a way to use ‘the ogre at the Aga' – one of the few men in Britain who could always be relied upon to speak his mind. But what kind of show should they make?

Gordon and fellow chefs like Marcus Wareing and Mark Sargeant would often bounce ideas between them after their long restaurant shifts had ended. And Gordon in
particular had been keen to come up with something more serious than a standard celebrity-based reality show. Two key thoughts kept going round and round in his mind during these late-night conversations. One was of his own life story: the boy from nowhere who had been turned into an award-winning chef. The other was of Ed Devlin, the
Faking It
contestant who had also gone from zero to hero and proved himself as an effective and convincing head chef after just a few weeks of intensive instruction.