Behind the Scenes With Gordon Ramsay: 20 Years of Cooking Up TV Hits
Q&A
Great Scot! Gordon Ramsay first lit up Hell’s Kitchen 20 years ago, and it continues to sizzle. A hit in Britain at the time, the Scottish-born chef brought the heat with him for Fox‘s 2005 adaptation, which became an instant hit thanks to Ramsay’s rugged charm, Michelin-star-awarded skills, and expletive-laden tirades.
Today, he still drops F-bombs like HK contestants drop plates, but he’s more the sweetly supportive coach we see on the expanded menu of shows Ramsay’s cooked up for Fox than the salty Kitchen nightmare he was originally made out to be.
Here, he looks back on the past two decades, how he’s helping families fix their failing eateries via some light espionage in the just-launched Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service, and the one rising chef who’s giving him hell.
Greg Gayne / FOX
Twenty years is huge. Where were you in life when this all began?
Gordon Ramsay: I was still pushing on [in my own restaurant], head down, not just nursing great talent, but searching for new ideas, chefs hungry for success…and then [in] 2000, a little knock on the door from Fox. And I said, “Are you sure?”
You wrote in your book Humble Pie that you hated the U.K. Hell’s Kitchen.
It was live—I love going live—but the contestants were celebrities, so it wasn’t meaningful. [They] were trying to rekindle their careers as opposed to focus on the industry. Sometimes, as you know, when it’s not going their way, they turn their nose up and we’d butt heads. And on TV, when it’s live, there’s only one winner, and you’re looking at him. [Laughs]
The U.S. version definitely serves up scrappier chefs.
Scrappy is not the right word. These are chefs that haven’t been given opportunity.
Has the show changed you as a chef?
That’s a really good question. I go to hell and back with these kids because it reminds me of starting up a restaurant [when] you’ve got to iron out all the cracks, face all the issues, come back solution-facing, and live under that intensity. That’s hard. It takes me back to Day 1 as a 27-year-old when I was lucky enough to open my first restaurant…and it reminds me that I don’t have to do it, I need to do it. I enjoy doing it because I love finding talent.
Fox really promoted the yelling, the bleeping you out…what do you think when you see old episodes?
I’ll be honest, I’ve never been that self-obsessed…and not because I’m embarrassed to watch myself. I can’t watch something I did three months ago because I’m already on to the next thing! I take the feedback, the criticism. There are moments in services where I lose my s–t because they push me to the extreme and don’t listen. I can accept mistakes the first, second time, but the third and fourth time for the same mistake, I’m not going to tolerate.
And by now, if you enter Hell’s Kitchen not knowing how to make risotto…
Do your homework! [Laughs]
Greg Gayne / FOX
Do you watch other cooking shows?
I do, yeah. [Australia’s] My Kitchen Rules was great. Crime Scene Kitchen is good. Top Chef is amazing. Yes, Chef!, I haven’t seen yet. I’ve taped that—Martha Stewart is a bundle of joy. And The Bear, obviously, is very cool. I’d say Top Chef is the one, especially the ones in France and the U.S. The talent is off the charts.
Your Fox empire now includes MasterChef, MasterChef Junior, Next Level Chef, Kitchen Nightmares, Food Stars, and the new Secret Service. I love the twist of having a mole inside these struggling family restaurants.
Secret Service is a combination of the last 20 years on Fox with everything I’ve learned, understood, and been told off for. The week before I get [to each restaurant], I sneak in the early hours of the morning with state-of-the-art equipment. From bacteria tests to black lights to snake cams, you name it, I have it. I take swabs from the cutting boards. I go into the fridges, I get under the hood and do all my due diligence…and then I find that moment to storm the building. “Stop what you’re doing, ladies and gentlemen!” And then I get the keys and we take over.
It feels more personal than your other shows.
Sometimes the families need fixing before the restaurant. When families are taken down and torn apart, the restaurant then curdles the whole mix of the family. It’s soul-destroying.
Speaking of family, your daughter is carving out her own culinary career.
Tilly! Yeah, a powerhouse. Finally, out of six kids, we have one that’s desperate to follow my footsteps. I think it’s important she find her own way first. She’s just come back from culinary school in Ireland, studying like mad. But it is a bit of a kick in the bollocks when she doesn’t want to be trained by me, though. [Laughs]
MasterChef, Season 23 Premiere, Wednesday, May 21, 8/7c, Fox
Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service, Series Premiere, Wednesday, May 21, 9/8c, Fox
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