We will meet Gordon Ramsay near the Sun King’s castle, at the Waldorf Astoria Versailles, a palace that has housed one of his restaurants for fifteen years. But when we approach the suite where the interview takes place, the first thing we find is his bodyguard, a closet with a mirror and a friendly smile. And when we finally have access to the 57-year-old British chef, with his hair disheveled and his forehead furrowed with deep furrows, his agent reminds us that we only have twenty minutes of interview. A welcome worthy of a Hollywood star.
In fact, Gordon Ramsay is a star, perhaps the most famous chef in the world. Twenty years have passed since the first episode of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmareswho inspired Kitchen nightmarein 2004, that the host became famous by terrorizing candidates on widely broadcast television shows. There was hell’s kitchen (“hell’s kitchen”), The F word − we could translate it as “the M word…”), 24 hours to hell and back (“24 hours to hell and back”).
These programs with evocative titles have led to him being caricatured as a ruthless brute even in cartoons or video games. Furthermore, he himself is amused by his reputation: in a comedic sketch, in which he plays his own role, we see him enclosing the head of an employee between two slices of bread and saying to her: “You’re just a stupid sandwich!” » A sequence that has become cult on the Internet.
The mistake would be to think that the character is just a scarecrow. But Gordon Ramsay is above all a businessman who has known how to make his name a label, a guarantee of quality. “I have 89 establishments around the world, excellent restaurants, breweries, street food counters, remember. And my team has about 2,500 employees. »
This great athlete – marathon runner, karate black belt – with an always stylized figure, loves challenges. He even managed to establish a hamburger chain in the United States. “Everyone thought we were crazy for opening burger restaurants in Las Vegas.the businessman laughs. We work on our recipes well in advance and one of our secrets is to use a very fatty and very tasty butter to caramelize the filling. The success of our burgers has not diminished for ten years, to the point that we are thinking of offering them in France. »
One question remains: behind the media window and this disproportionate gourmet empire, what defines the kitchen of this giant capable of selling pizzas as well as gourmet menus? To answer this, you have to look at the chef’s career, rich in decisive encounters and comings and goings.
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