Tuesday May 13, 2008
Source: The Straits Times, Singapore / Asia News Network
Chef Ramsay’s Gordian knot
Chef Gordon Ramsay’s celeb airtime far exceeds what he earns from his restaurants. Has he sold out and gone soft?
By SUSAN LONG
Like a car crash, it’s difficult to watch bad boy British chef Gordon Ramsay blow his top, but harder still to look away.
Minutes before our interview in Tokyo two weekends ago, he has a meltdown. He has spent the morning darting in and out of photo shoots, hobnobbing with diners, signing autographs, and checking on lunch at his first restaurant in Asia, Cerise, at the Conrad Tokyo.
Flying high: British chef Gordon Ramsay at the Trianon Palace Restaurant in Versailles, west of Paris. The 41-year-old chef is aiming for world domination, to achieve three Michelin stars simultaneously in New York, London and Paris, and become the most successful diversified restaurant group in the world.
He is running over an hour late. There’s too much on his plate.
Finally, he loses it. He rounds up his schedule planners, springs onto his haunches and juliennes them. The veins in his neck pop, his craggy face distorts and the rapid-fire swearing begins.
It is lacerating. His minders look down uncomfortably but he leans in with his dead-eyed stare, the same one he uses to take apart novices in his reality TV shows –
Boiling Point,
Hell’s Kitchen,
Kitchen Nightmares and
The F Word – which show on the Asian Food Channel (Astro Channel 703).
Each time he boils over, the murmurs grow louder: Is England’s most famous chef going off the boil? After all, he has spread himself thinner than a truffle shaving.
In London, his empire now spans five fine-dining restaurants, including Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in Royal Hospital Road in Chelsea, three gastro pubs and a brasserie.
Worldwide, he has restaurants in Dublin, Prague, Tokyo, New York, Florida, Paris, Amsterdam and Los Angeles. Next on his menu are Melbourne, Berlin and Geneva. He is eyeing Singapore too since it will have its own Michelin guide soon.
A Gordon Ramsay restaurant was part of the failed Atlantis Sentosa integrated resort bid two years ago, which lost out to Genting International’s proposed theme park, Universal Studios.
At 41, apart from opening new restaurants as often as other guys open a bottle of wine, he also hosts four ongoing reality TV shows in the United States and Britain. Soon he will appear on
The Simpsons, teaching Homer how to cook.
He’s also a prolific author of over a dozen cookbooks and a consultant to everyone from Royal Doulton to Singapore Airlines.
But the gilded reign of the foul-mouthed culinary Colossus with 12 Michelin stars may be coming to an end.
Last year, his Royal Hospital Road restaurant – the jewel in his corporate crown – lost top spot on the Good Food Guide to Heston Blumenthal’s Fat Duck, as well as pole position in London’s Zagat restaurant guide to Bruce Poole’s Chez Bruce.
He sacked his chef in New York after withering reviews. And two of his London restaurants, The Connaught and La Noisette, closed outright.
He’s been lambasted for plastering his name over everything from crockery to crisps. Two years ago, he had an embarrassing endorsement debacle whereby he publicly dissed his own Gordon Ramsay-label chocolates, declaring their quality didn’t matter, given that they “only cost £3.99 (RM25)”. It was an ill-judged comment, given that the chocolates cost £5.99 (RM3
and generated £8mil (RM50.5mil) a year for him.
His defence, as usual, is a full-on attack.
“Bullsh**,” he expels, fixing you with a glacier glare. “It’s just jealousy. I won’t be judged by individuals who know less about food than I do.
“Do you go to Nobu and ask if he is slicing your sashimi? Do you go to Robuchon and ask if it’s Joel Robuchon in the kitchen cooking your quail?
“I was with a journalist last night. She said, ‘You’re such a hands-on chef. Who does the cooking when you’re not there?’ I said, ‘The same people who do it when I’m there.’
“She said, ‘It can’t be true.’ I said: ‘You have a nice suit.’ She goes: ‘Yeah, it’s Armani, $1,000.’ I said: ‘When you bought it, did you ask if it was Giorgio who stitched it? You stupid cow’,” he sputters.
Just because people want to see Ramsay beavering away in the hot kitchen doesn’t mean he will be captive to their expectations of him or his profession.
“I’m not going to die on the stove. I want a life outside my kitchen,” he declares.
He reels off what he thinks really matters – two Michelin stars after 10 months in New York. Opening up in Paris a month ago and in Los Angeles next month. So what if the French food critics annihilated him? His restaurants are fully booked for months, critics and bloggers be damned.
“I listen to my customers. Customers vote with their feet ... they are my biggest critics. And there’s one big critic above my customers and that is myself.”
But in the past year, he has lost a coveted Michelin star or two and been criticised by influential British restaurant guide Hardens for having “run out of steam”.
It rankles because ratings, stars and money are the way he keeps score. Although he says his customers count, the figures he reels off, a tad defensively, are bookings and earnings.
His naked ambition is well-known: world domination, to achieve three stars simultaneously in New York, London and Paris and become the “most successful diversified restaurant group in the world”, such that if a downturn hits fine dining, pubs and chocolates will shore up his empire.
Gordon Ramsay Holdings’ turnover is forecast to hit £74mil (RM466.7mil) this year. In five years’ time, he hopes to make it £200mil (RM1.26bil) and the first 20 Michelin star restaurant group, leaving other global players such as France’s Joel Robuchon with 17 stars and Alain Ducasse with 15 stars in the dust.
Long hours have etched Panini-grill creases onto his face but brought him an estimated £67mil (RM422.6mil) net worth. But he insists he’s no businessman, just a savvy chef who knows his way around profit and loss statements.
He suddenly volunteers, with complete insincerity, that he’s thinking of retiring from TV. The trouble is, Fox Channel in the United States recently offered him a five-year contract at US$300,000 (RM966,000) an hour.
I say the money’s obscene and he agrees. It’s clear the value of an hour of his celebrity airtime now far exceeds any income from weeks of steaming sea bream.
This is Ramsay’s Gordian knot. Beyond raising his empire’s profile, his tetchy TV persona now generates over £8mil (RM50.5mil) from Channel 4 and £4mil (RM25.2mil) a series from the US spin-offs – which finances his new restaurants.
But he knows his marketability is tied up with the quality of the nosh he serves.
The last thing he wants to be is a “celebrity chef” gone soft with cable success who’s forgotten his core mission.
But is it too late?
Two weekends ago, I sat down with great expectations to a seven-course dégustation dinner and a three-course Sunday lunch at Cerise.
The food, framed by stunning views over Tokyo Bay, was underwhelming. Default flourishes such as foie gras terrine and lobster ravioli failed to leap off the plate. The flavours were predictable, a tad polite.
Meanwhile, the maestro air-kissed food critics and customers in his pristine chef whites. I couldn’t help but wonder: Had he as much as stirred my broth?
Perhaps the best thing Ramsay can do for himself is to heed the advice he liberally doles out to aspiring chefs: Don’t sell out. Focus on your food and your customers.
But will he? – The Straits Times, Singapore / Asia News Network
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