Gordon Ramsay

All Data Listed Below from Wikipedia

Gordon James Ramsay /ˈræm.ziː/, OBE (born 8 November 1966)^[1] is a British chef,restaurateur and television personality.^[2] He has been awarded 15 Michelin stars in total and currently holds 14.^[3][4] Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word,Ramsay's Best Restaurant, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon's Great Escape,Gordon Behind Bars, and Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course, along with the American versions of Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, MasterChef, and Hotel Hell. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay was named 33rd in Elite Traveler and Laurent Perrier Top 100 Restaurants in the World in 2013.^[5]

Early cooking career[edit]

By this time, Ramsay's interest in cooking had already begun, and rather than be known as "the football player with the gammy knee",^[9] at age 19, Ramsay paid more serious attention to his culinary education. After weighing his options, Ramsay enrolled at North Oxfordshire Technical College, sponsored by the Rotarians, to study Hotel Management. He describes his decision to enter catering college as "an accident, a complete accident".^[9]

In the early 1980s, he worked as a commis chef at the Wroxton House Hotel then ran the kitchen and 60-seat dining room at the Wickham Arms, until his sexual relationship with the owner's wife made the situation difficult.^[20] Ramsay then moved to London, where he worked in a series of restaurants until being inspired to work for the temperamental Marco Pierre White at Harvey's.^[9]

After working at Harveys for two years and ten months, Ramsay, tired of "the rages and the bullying and violence", decided that the way to further advance his career was to study French cuisine. White discouraged Ramsay from taking a job in Paris, instead encouraging him to work for Albert Roux at Le Gavroche in Mayfair. (While at Le Gavroche, he met Jean-Claude Breton, now his maître d' at Royal Hospital Road.) After working at Le Gavroche for a year, Albert Roux invited Ramsay to work with him at Hotel Diva, a ski resort in theFrench Alps, as his number two. From there, Ramsay moved to Paris to work with Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon, both Michelin-starred chefs. He continued his training in France for three years, before giving in to the physical and mental stress of the kitchens and taking a year to work as a personal chef on the private yacht Idlewild, based in Bermuda.^[9]

Head chef[edit]

Upon his return to London in 1993, Ramsay was offered the position of head chef at La Tante Claire in Chelsea. Shortly thereafter, Marco Pierre White re-entered his life, offering to set him up with a head chef position and 10% 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 and Ramsay's dream of running his own restaurant led to his leaving the partnership in 1997.^[9] In 1998, Ramsay opened his own restaurant in Chelsea, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, 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.^[21]

From his first restaurant, Ramsay's empire has expanded rapidly, next opening Petrus, where six bankers spent over £44,000 on wine during a single meal in 2001,^[22] then Amaryllis 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 protégé Angela Hartnett's name. Ramsay has opened 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,^[23] winning top newcomer in the city’s coveted Zagat guide, despite mixed reviews from professional critics.^[24]

In 2007, Ramsay opened his first restaurant in Ireland, Gordon Ramsay at Powerscourt, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow.^[25] In May 2008 he opened his first restaurant on the US west coast – Boxwood, in The London West Hollywood hotel, formerly the Bel-Age hotel on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.

On 9 August 2011, Ramsay opened his first Canadian restaurant in Montreal – Laurier Gordon Ramsay, formerly Rotisserie Laurier BBQ.^[26] However, in February 2012 Danny Lavy — the owner of the restaurant — announced the restaurant was disassociating itself from Ramsay, citing a lack of involvement and understanding on Ramsay's part.^[27] In 2013, the restaurant closed.^[28]

Awards[edit]

Opened in 1998, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay was Ramsay’s first solo restaurant, located at Royal Hospital Road, London. In 2001, it was voted Top Restaurant in the U.K. in the London Zagat Survey and was awarded its third Michelin star, making Gordon Ramsay the first Scottish chef to win three Michelin stars.^[29] Though he spends more time on television than in the kitchen, Gordon Ramsay's Chelsea restaurant still managed to retain its three Michelin star status according to the latest edition of the guide. Ramsay is one of only four chefs in the UK to maintain three Michelin Stars for his restaurant (the others being Heston Blumenthal, Alain Ducasse andAlain Roux).

He was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2006 honours list for services to the hospitality industry, but almost missed the award when his plane was delayed.^[30]

In July 2006, Ramsay won the Catey award for "Independent Restaurateur of the Year", becoming only the third person to have won three Catey awards, the biggest awards of the UK hospitality industry. Ramsay's two previous Catey awards were in 1995 (Newcomer of the Year) and 2000 (Chef of the Year). The other two triple-winners are Michel Roux, and Jacquie Pern.

In September 2006, he was named as the most influential person in the UK hospitality industry in the annual Caterersearch 100 list, published by Caterer and Hotelkeeper magazine. He overtook Jamie Oliver, who had been top of the list in 2005.^[31]

Also in 2006, Ramsay was nominated as a candidate for Rector of the University of St Andrews, but lost at the polls to Simon Pepper.^[32]

Ramsay's flagship restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, was voted London's top restaurant in food bible Harden's for eight years, but in 2008 was placed below Petrus, a restaurant run by former protégé Marcus Wareing.^[33]

Gordon Ramsay Holdings[edit]

All of Ramsay's business interests (restaurants, media, consultancy) are held in the company Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited, which was run in partnership with his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson. Ramsay owns a 69% stake valued at £67 million.^[34]

Whereas previous ventures acted as a combined consultant/brand, in November 2006 Ramsay announced plans to create three restaurants in the United States in partnership with private equity firm Blackstone Group, who are refurbishing each of the chosen hotels into five star locations at a cost of £100 million per hotel. At an investment of £3 million per restaurant for the 10-year lease, all the restaurants offer the chef’s trademark modern European cuisine, and opened in 2006/2007 at:

• Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel in Manhattan, New York, October 2006^[23]
• Gordon Ramsay at the Cielo in Boca Raton, Florida
• Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel in West Hollywood, California
• Gordon Ramsay at the Mirabelle in London

In late 2006 Gordon Ramsay Holdings purchased three London pubs which he converted into gastropubs. These are: The Narrow inLimehouse, which opened in March 2007, the Devonshire in Chiswick, which opened in October 2007 and The Warrington in Maida Vale, which opened in February 2008. Both The Devonshire and The Warrington were subsequently sold in 2011, leaving The Narrow as the sole pub in GRH's portfolio.^[35]

Ramsay acts as a consultant to numerous catering organisations, and was recruited by Singapore Airlines as one of its "International Culinary Panel" consultants.^[36]

In May 2008 it was confirmed that Ramsay's protégé of 15 years, Marcus Wareing was going solo having opened and operated Pétrus at The Berkeley Hotel on behalf of Gordon Ramsay Holdings since 2003.^[37] With the name Pétrus owned by Gordon Ramsay Holdings, industry sources suggested it was likely to transfer to another restaurant in the group with the former La Noisette site identified as the most likely.^[38]

In April 2010, Jason Atherton, Executive chef of Maze restaurants worldwide resigned to open his own venue in Mayfair.^[39]

On 19 October 2010, the company Gordon Ramsay Holdings Limited announced that Chris Hutcheson had left his position as CEO of Gordon Ramsay Holdings Ltd. Shortly after, Ramsay released a letter to the press describing how he had unravelled the "manipulative" Hutcheson's "complex life" after having him followed by a private detective. His father-in-law's "away days," wrote Ramsay, "were rarely what I thought they were." Company accounts show Hutcheson borrowed up to £1.5 million from Gordon Ramsay Holdings, of which he was chief executive, though he says he reported the borrowings to the company and paid the money back. Hutcheson said he had been "vaporised" and subjected to a "public hanging" by Ramsay, whom he described as a friendless egotist.^[40]

In January 2013, Gordon Ramsay was inducted into the Culinary Hall of Fame^[41]