Celebrity Chef

GORDON RAMSAY initially embarked upon a career in football. At age 12 he was chosen to play in the under-14 side for Warwickshire. When Ramsey’s childhood team, Rangers offered him a chance to trial for the club, he was elated. However, the partnership wasn’t meant to be as injuries undermined his ability to stay with the club and eventually, by his own admission, his chances were “doomed when it came to football”.

GORDON RAMSAY has, however, seen much success since his entry into the culinary world. He has shown natural talent that has broadened his career and allowed him to be a chef, entrepreneur, television personality and restaurateur. His choice to enrol at the North Oxfordshire Technical College may have been a “complete accident” but it nonetheless set him on a path of great success.

Early on, Mr GORDON RAMSAY began working with a number of London-based restaurants before choosing to work with the talented but volatile Marco Pierre White at Harveys. This experience gave him an awareness of French cooking and he decided that this would be his next venture. Ramsey began work with Jean-Claude Breton at Le Gavroche. This led to Albert Roux inviting him to work as his sous-chef at Hotel Diva in the French Alps. Gordon’s love of French cooking grew exponentially so he continued to train in France for 3 years working with chefs like Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon.

A return to London in 1993 saw GORDON RAMSAY offered the head chef position at La Tante Claire. Marco White also proposed a business partnership in the restaurant Rossmore, later named Aubergine which achieved its first Michelin Star in just over a year after the change and a second star in 1997. In 1998 Ramsey decided to go out on his own. Restaurant Gordon Ramsey was opened in 1998 and by 2001 had achieved a collection of three Michelin stars. This move ignited a long list of successful restaurant openings in the UK and across the world which include iconic places such as Amaryllis in Glasgow, Claridge’s at the Dubai Creek, Co. Wicklow in Ireland, Boxwood in West Hollywood and his namesakes in Tokyo,  New York City, which won top newcomer in the city’s coveted Zagat guide.

Mr GORDON RAMSAY has enjoyed a lucrative television career which has capitalised on his intense and passionate personality. His first experience of it was with two documentaries called Boiling Point and Beyond Boiling Point. This was quickly followed up by a 3-episode series of Faking It, which won the 2001 BAFTA for Best Factual TV Moment. In 2004, a series began called Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares where he turned around struggling restaurants in a week. Afterwards Hell’s Kitchen began, his infamous reality show that showcased Ramsey training British celebrities how to be chefs as they attempted to run a restaurant on Brick Lane. The U.S. also capitalised on these two shows by producing their own versions to highlight Ramsey’s notable kitchen antics. His provocative nature continued with the series The F-Word, a show that featured competitions, guest cook, food investigation and raising farm animals for slaughter. It was a highly successful and popular television series. Ramsey was also a judge on the US version of Masterchef. He starred in 2 travelogues about his visit to India and Asia. He hosted Ramsey’s Best Restaurant, his first UK series produced by his own company One Potato, Two Potato. Ramsey’s most recent production will be a new series called Hotel Hell in the U.S. where he will focus on struggling lodging establishments and help to turn them around.

Accomplishments:

– 1995, Catey Award for ‘Newcomer of the Year’;
– 1998, opened his first solo Restaurant ‘Restaurant Gordon Ramsey’
– 2000, Catey Award, Chef of the Year
– 2001, third Michelin Star for Restaurant Gordon Ramsey
– 2004, made Honorary Patron of the Scottish Spina Bifida Association
– 2006, awarded an OBE
– 2006, named most influential person in the UK hospitality industry by Caterersearch 100 list
– 2007, hosted St Andrew’s Day Gala Dinner at Stirling Castle, now an annual event
– 2010, raised awareness about the saltwater fish industry in a series called The Big Fish Fight