Gordon Ramsay (28 page)

The restaurant in question was a former television news studio on La Brea Boulevard in the LA suburb of Willoughby. Over the past two months it had been fitted out as the kitchen, restaurant and accommodation block for the show. On the driveway outside, the obligatory red carpet would be rolled out when the first group of diners arrived – their cars being valet-parked, of course. And Gordon’s own tough-talking reputation was being pushed to the maximum as the countdown to the first episode began. ‘He’s world-renowned – and he’s terrifying,’ said the billboards. ‘His show is dramatic, unscripted and he serves helpings of terror, tears, tantrums and triumphs. Ramsay will slice and dice his contestants. They will be tossed into the cauldron, working under Ramsay and fighting for survival.’ And forget the ‘Demon Eyes’ scandal in Britain when the Conservative Party was attacked for its posters which made Tony Blair look like the devil. The icily scary blue eyes on the massive promotional posters of Gordon Ramsay in America made Tony look like Bambi.

And Gordon was ready to let rip the moment the cameras were rolling. After a huge amount of internal debate, Fox had accepted that bad language was likely to
be part of the Ramsay deal. ‘It’s just as well because I can’t change the way I am or the way I work. I would have walked away right at the beginning if they had started any of that “Let’s tone things down” bollocks,’ Gordon said of the decision.

The other difference between the British and American versions of the show was the way they were filmed and broadcast. The British idea of two weeks of live daily shows had been rejected by the more perfectionist Americans. Instead, they wanted time to edit down the footage from a month’s worth of filming, before putting the well-polished result on screen. Instead of cooking every night, the Americans would be cooking every other day, if that. And there would be less real instruction in America. The amateur chefs would be able to focus far more on their own choice of dishes, however simple they were. The idea of trying to replicate Gordon’s more complex creations was dismissed. ‘We made it clear that this would not be a foodie show,’ said Paul Jackson, head of LA’s Granada America, which was producing what many saw as a ‘dumbed-down’ show for Fox. ‘In the British version, the splitting of some lobster ravioli became a major talking point. That is not what this show is going to be about.’

With the month-long filming schedule completed and the editing done, the first show hit American screens on Memorial Day weekend, the official start of the American summer, when huge numbers of people switch off their televisions and head outside or into the country. Ratings were decent, if unspectacular. But, as Gordon’s behaviour started to get talked about, Fox got the audience lift it had been hoping for. By the time the two-hour finale was
aired,
Hell’s Kitchen
was the top-rated show of the week in the 18–49 age bracket that television companies – and their advertisers – are desperate to attract. Gordon Ramsay had become a household name, of which a lot more later.

In the first episode, with its opening shots of the night-time LA skyline, Gordon started as he meant to go on. Having arrived at the restaurant, the 12 contestants had 45 minutes to make their signature dishes, which ‘Chef Ramsay’ proceeded to dissect. Andrew, a 24-year-old office assistant from Livingston, New Jersey, was first to step forward for the analysis. And very soon he wished he hadn’t.

Gordon tasted the pasta dish, grimaced, leaned to his side and spat the mouthful out into a bucket. ‘That is absolute dog shit’ was his initial conclusion. But the transcript shows there was another shock to come.

‘Have a taste,’ he challenged Andrew.

‘It could use some salt,’ the trainee chef replied.

‘You think you’re smart, yeah?’

‘I have my moments.’

‘And how long have you been cooking?’

‘Ten years.’

‘What a waste of ten years. Get back in fucking line.’

So there it was: the first f-word of the show. A massive shock for American television audiences. The country’s squeamishness about what goes on television has long surprised Europeans, who could never really understand why such a fuss was made after Janet Jackson’s ‘wardrobe malfunction’ at the 2004 Super Bowl. That one brief flash of Jackson’s flesh had triggered public apologies by television network chiefs and a huge fine and led to the introduction of time delays on similar broadcasts in the
future. So no one could quite believe that Gordon could get away with such unwholesome language on a prime-time reality show. But somehow he did and, as
Hell’s Kitchen
continued, the insults and the honesty would continue to fly.

‘If I had known you were coming, I would have put lobster in,’ said one of the next contestants after Gordon tasted her signature dish of Chinese sausage.

‘You did know I was coming. Get back in line’ was all it took to dismiss her.

And then there was the glorious-sounding ‘pan-seared chicken breast, stuffed with Portobello mushrooms and goat’s cheese’ from 25-year-old purchasing manager Jimmy from Williston Park, New York. ‘It looks like a dehydrated camel’s turd’ was Gordon’s description, before that sample too was spat into the bin and Gordon started throwing some of the food back at its creator to see if he was agile enough to catch it. He wasn’t, which led to another shock for American audiences.

Gordon was also ready to speak his mind about a different television taboo: size. ‘For as long as Jimmy weighs 250 pounds, he is never going to make a great chef because he is too clumsy’ was Gordon’s initial verdict on the contestant he would endlessly refer to as ‘big boy’ and once as ‘one big, fucking overgrown muffin’.

Next up was 26-year-old Ralf, whose job, he said, was ‘Number One in a restaurant’. Gordon was unimpressed. ‘Number One? With this shit? Back in line’ was all he needed to say.

The contestants soon learned that answering back was a bad idea – as proved by Colorado chef Michael. ‘It’s really
not that bad,’ the 27-year-old countered feebly, after his dish was rejected.

‘Not that bad? Let me tell you something, you have a palate like a cow’s backside, that was disgusting,’ he was told.

Gordon’s overall verdict when every dish had been tasted was not good: ‘a pile of shit’ was just one other pithy description. But he repeated his belief that anyone could be transformed into a master chef with the right instruction, encouragement and passion. He would do so with at least one member of this group. And since he had scattered a few compliments among the criticisms it was possible to believe him.

Off set and off camera, what Gordon couldn’t believe was the way the American contestants seemed to have been shielded from the truth all their lives. ‘In my London restaurants, if someone makes a mistake there can be no: “Hey, let’s sit down and discuss this, and never mind, you’ll get it right next time,”’ he said. But, as Simon Cowell had found when filming
American Idol
, ‘never mind, you’ll get it right next time’ seemed to be the American way. Genuine criticism seemed off limits, with everyone desperate to accentuate the positive and gloss over any shortcomings. In LA, negativity seemed to be a bigger sin than swearing and Gordon reckoned his hopeful chefs had been over-praised for too long. On his television debut there, he wanted to give everyone a very loud wake-up call.

Unfortunately, within days of starting the show, Gordon was to get a wake-up call himself. A very minor scuffle took place off camera when Gordon got too close to one of his trainees, who then stumbled back and injured his
ankle. In most parts of the world, it would have been bad luck, soon forgotten. In America, it triggered a legal crisis that threatened to bring production of the show to a shuddering halt – much to Gordon’s disgust. ‘The problem with Yanks is that they are just wimps’ was his conclusion on the matter. ‘I’ve never punched anyone in a kitchen, but I have been punched. You stand there like a man, you don’t wimp out and run crying for your mum. In America, they run for their attorney. I’m Gordon Ramsay, for goodness sake. People know I’m volatile. But I didn’t mean to hurt the guy.’

The injured contestant allegedly wanted to sue Gordon and his producers for $3 million but after a series of meetings Granada was said to have sorted the matter out with a $125,000 out-of-court settlement. Other experts said Gordon and Granada might have been putting themselves in line for a different set of legal problems owing to the confrontational nature of the show. ‘Back in Britain, a barrage of criticism and insults could undermine an employee’s confidence and lead to accusations of unfair constructive dismissal and big compensation claims,’ said Iain Patterson, partner at law firm Browne Jackson. Triggering the same events across the Atlantic in the most litigious country on earth was not worth contemplating. So lawyers, on all sides, were kept busy for the duration of Gordon’s stay.

The final group of people who were open-mouthed at Gordon’s attitudes and language were the hopeful diners who came to
Hell’s Kitchen
expecting a decent meal. They were in the most service-driven economy in the world, confident that in America the customer was always king.
Or at least that is the way things had been until now. In Gordon’s little corner of America, the head chef was king – and the customer had to wait until the chef was happy before they got their food.

‘Can you just shut the fuck up for 30 seconds?’ he yelled at three blonde women who had been waiting more than 45 minutes for their starters and very reasonably came into the kitchen to ask when they might be arriving. ‘Just ignore those bimbos,’ he told his staff as the women gave up and returned to their table. An hour and a quarter later, when the foursome had been served their starters but were still waiting for their main courses, they came back to the chef’s window again – for a second slice of classic Ramsay.

‘Mr Chef, you hurt my friend’s feelings,’ one of them began, again perfectly reasonably.

‘I hurt your friend’s feelings? How?’ Gordon asked, unable even to pretend that he cared.

‘She is very upset because you told her to fuck off.’

‘Oh really, did I? OK, will you tell her that I meant it?’ was his perfect putdown before asking the maitre d’ to ‘escort these women back to plastic surgery’.

The two American chefs who were heading up the red and blue teams in America admitted to being staggered at the way Gordon spoke and acted from the first moment they met. ‘The first time I was introduced to him, he was clearly the biggest guy in the room,’ said Scott Leibfried, himself a bruiser of a chef whose day job was at the celebrated Napa Valley Grill in Los Angeles. ‘I haven’t heard stuff like he is dishing out in a very long time. In the state of California, that sort of thing is actually illegal. You can’t cuss at your staff.’

But, as Gordon cussed away, the jury was still out on whether the show would be a hit. At first, the American critics were unimpressed, just as the British ones had been. ‘It’s a cooking show that’s hard to stomach,’ said the
Washington Post
amid a sea of equally negative culinary cliches. ‘Ramsay is a cartoonishly abusive snot,’ said the show-business bible
Variety
. But, as the episodes rolled by and the trainee chefs shaped up, viewers were starting to love the show. Gordon had picked up the nickname G-Ram and was starting to become a household name. Or at least he was in households where swearing was allowed, which seemed to be an awful lot more than some straight-laced critics had imagined. Mike Darnell, one of the senior executives at the Fox network, said Ramsay’s ‘acerbic’ style was the peg that had helped get American viewers hooked. So after the heavily tattooed chef Michael had won the show – getting an offer to work at Gordon Ramsay in London as part of the package – the man himself was immediately signed up for a second big-money series.

And the money certainly was big. Simon Cowell, Anne Robinson and even tough ‘Supernanny’ Jo Frost have all found that speaking your mind in America can do wonders for your bank account. Gordon had been edging his way towards inclusion in most of the newspaper Rich Lists for the past five years. By the summer of 2004, he was valued at £20 million and hit eighteenth position in the list of Britain’s wealthiest ‘craft millionaires’ – people who had made it to the top without going to university. Top of that list was Phones 4U founder John Caudwell with a hard-to-beat fortune of £1.28 billion. By 2006, Gordon had made it on to the mainstream rich lists, however, and this
wasn’t just due to the entertainment money coming in from America.

When the cameras were not rolling at home and abroad, Gordon had been busy expanding almost every other aspect of his culinary empire. The core restaurants were still working as strong cash generators: in 2005, it was revealed that his Claridge’s site was making a profit of nearly £1.5 million a year after nearly £7 million went through its tills in just 12 months. The Savoy Grill and the Gordon Ramsay restaurant were each making profits of more than £400,000 a year and Petrus added nearly £300,000 to the cash pile. Ramsay restaurants at the Connaught and Berkeley Hotels also made profits of more than £13,000 a month. In the year in which losses of up to £800,000 from the closure of Amaryllis in Glasgow were still being absorbed, Gordon’s holding company still made a record profit of some £3.8 million, with analysts saying the whole business could be worth a staggering £50 million.

While all the cash tills had been ringing, Gordon had turned into a major employer – his staff numbers rise by at least a hundred a year, depending on the number of restaurant launches, and topped one thousand by the middle of 2005. But what got the accountants really excited were all the spin-off business ventures that added millions more to Gordon’s total income. And these were about as varied as you can imagine. Gordon’s willingness to keep taking his shirt off during
Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares
had won him a surprising new fan base, so the tired-looking 38-year-old took the unexpected step of posing for his own glossy calendar in 2005. Flatteringly, he saw it outsell many of the more predictably popular offerings
from the likes of Peter Andre, the ‘
Hollyoaks
Babes’ and the ‘Soap Hunks’.