Gordon Ramsay

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and two, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Costaway this week is a chef. He might have been a footballer, but injury cut short his career with Glasgow Rangers. Instead, he went to catering college and after a series of menial jobs ended up in London working for Marco Pierre White. Now, aged thirty-five, he's decorated with Michelin stars and owns his own restaurants in London and in Glasgow. His dishes, like his temper, are legendary. The unfriendly restaurant critic and the incompetent sous chef have both been known to feel the lash of his tongue, because this passionate, hard working man lets little stand in the way of his pursuit of gastronomic excellence. I'm not a celebrity chef, he reminds us. I cook and graft for a living. He is Gordon Ramsey. Fearsome stuff, Gordon. Is it true that you've never eaten in your own restaurant?

Gordon Ramsay1:17

No, you can't eat in there, no.

Presenter1:19

Why not?

Gordon Ramsay1:20

Well the first question you get asked of course is that you shouldn't be here, you should be behind the scenes. But that doesn't really bother me really because it's nice to see the delight and the joy on the customers' faces.

Presenter1:30

But he can't see that if you're stuck in the kitchen.

Gordon Ramsay1:32

Or you can because you invite them through and sort of

Presenter1:34

But it's more than that, isn't it? It's it your view is your place is in the kitchen. You don't do what a lot of chefs do, which is walk around the restaurant, in a way seeking plaudits.

Gordon Ramsay1:39

Yeah, do we

Gordon Ramsay1:42

Exactly that. And they stand there in their sort of starch, stiff jackets, immaculately dressed, all their beards trimmed, and um look like they haven't done a day's work in four or five years. But I'd never be able to relax in the dining room atmosphere, known full well that I'd be too

Gordon Ramsay1:58

Obsessed with what's going on the plate, is it seasoned properly, is the beef cooked to perfection, you can never relax in that kind of environment.

Presenter2:04

So you don't do schmooze.

Gordon Ramsay2:06

Definitely, definitely not. No.

Presenter2:07

Now some people say, some of your critics say, as you know, that you should, in the sense that going to a restaurant should be a total experience. It's not just about this immaculately clean plate and beautifully presented food. It's actually about giving a sense of

Gordon Ramsay2:20

A sense

Presenter2:21

of a complete event to the people who come to your restaurant.

Gordon Ramsay2:24

Yeah, you're right. But in many ways it's very old fashioned when you've got the sort of French chef gracing the tables and his wife hostessing and we w w we've we've evolved. We we're better than that in this country and we're not as pompous. We don't have this sort of stale, static, formatted dining where guests are whispering and eating out is not about whispering, it's about having fun and enjoying the surroundings, the food and the conversations.

Presenter2:47

But at the end of the day, it's the food. It's the food. And that's what Michel stars are all about. And again, a lot of people say Michel stars are out of date, which is why a lot of people have sent them back, you know.

Gordon Ramsay2:49

There's the food.

Gordon Ramsay2:55

No.

Gordon Ramsay2:56

Well, yes, I disagree with that. What I mean I mean, out of date in the sense that as a footballer you'd want to go and win an FA Cup winner medal, as a actor, you'd want to win an Oscar. And we have twenty four hours glory every January as a chef, and it's a mission star.

Presenter3:09

But you've got to maintain it, as uh your mentor, Marco Pierwhite, has said, that it's it's great to win it, but then, you know, the the slog is in the maintaining.

Gordon Ramsay3:17

Maintaining him a strike.

Presenter3:18

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay3:20

No, but as a cook, the reason why I re respect the guide itself is that no one gets close to them. It's all incognito.

Gordon Ramsay3:28

And it's all done for the public service.

Presenter3:30

And you are judged and you have to maintain that quality. But you are now the only guy left in town with with three stars, in London, with three Michel stars. The others, as I say, have abdicated. Marco has sent his back and Nico sent his back.

Gordon Ramsay3:38

Yeah, yeah.

Gordon Ramsay3:40

Yes, Mark.

Gordon Ramsay3:42

And Nico sent his

Presenter3:44

How does it feel? Because I mean you wanted to get there because of their competition. You wanted to be as good as them and now they're gone.

Presenter3:50

Or do you compete against yourself?

Gordon Ramsay3:51

I haven't

Gordon Ramsay3:52

No, I mean I've seen a lot of mistakes happening in front of me with other big chefs and you go against their grain and you don't become complacent and you don't take customers for granted and think, well, that's a success and I won't change that dish and we'll keep it there for twenty years because food is moving rapidly in this country and we

Presenter4:09

So you're thirty-five, you're not going to give up at at forty, like

Gordon Ramsay4:11

Death gain host known in the

Presenter4:13

All right. Well, you're going to have a long time to mull it over on your desert island. Tell me about the first disc you want to take with you.

Gordon Ramsay4:18

Yellow by Coldplay.

Gordon Ramsay4:20

We always drive home between two and three o'clock in the morning and I'm always over Battersea Bridge or Chelsea Bridge and it's just we go to Helenbach every day and it's just a really nice way of finishing the day and it relaxes you.

Speaker 44:33

It was all yellow.

Speaker 44:41

You're scar, oh yeah, you're scaring both turning into something beautiful Do you know?

Speaker 44:54

In Go Hanovis Soul.

Presenter5:00

No

Speaker 45:00

Uh

Speaker 45:01

Yes.

Presenter5:01

So

Presenter5:03

Yellow bike coal play, and who's this wee going back home at night over the bridge, then?

Gordon Ramsay5:07

Uh

Gordon Ramsay5:08

That's my uh my fast car and myself.

Presenter5:10

Just you, I think.

Gordon Ramsay5:11

Perfect time to drive that time of night'cause there's no traffic on the road, so you can actually drive properly.

Presenter5:15

Let's talk food, Gordon. Just get the sort of juices running before we can do anything else. It's spring, so I think, because I'm boring and traditional, I think lamb and minted peas and Jersey royal potatoes, I suppose. What do you think?

Gordon Ramsay5:27

Well, there's nothing wrong with lamb, providing of course it's new seasoned lamb. We have some of the best produce across the world and living and training in France at that length of time I was amazed at how much British produce was um bought into Paris. Of course the French will never ever turn round and say that we buy roast beef. Um they would never admit that.

Presenter5:42

But what are they about? Divide Welsh lamb, Scottish beef or

Gordon Ramsay5:43

Scottish beef, Welsh lamb, the best of sea bass from the Cornish coast. And we got the best mussel, the oysters, and the best vegetables. Longosteen. Longosteen, which which we know mum doesn't understand the word longesteen, so I have to say it's a Dublin Bay prawn.

Presenter5:49

Augustine, yeah.

Speaker 25:50

Uh

Gordon Ramsay5:55

So yeah, coming into spring, new season spring lamb, beautiful legs roasted, studded with garlic and rosemary and thyme and jersey royals maybe, as opposed to just boiling them.

Gordon Ramsay6:06

Look to cook them in goose fat with a nice bokeh gari and some wild thyme.

Presenter6:11

Look, to cook anything in goose fat, really. It is wonderful, isn't it?

Gordon Ramsay6:13

But it is wonderful. It's a great indulgence and providing you don't overdo it and really saturate them, I mean it can really add and impart great flavor.

Presenter6:20

Now you do something wonderful with garlic, that wonderful pungent garlic that you get from Italy this time of year.

Gordon Ramsay6:24

Yes.

Gordon Ramsay6:26

Yeah, config garlic. Just straight off in olive oil and just slowly confi it on the side of the stove at about fifty five, sixty degrees, for about forty five, fifty minutes. Then take them out of the oil.

Speaker 46:35

Still in their skins.

Gordon Ramsay6:36

Still in their skins. And then place them into the oven, in a hot oven, and just allow the shells to get really nice and crispy, and then crack open. It's almost like opening a walnut, and out comes this wonderful clove of garlic that's sweet, mellow, and just so tasty. But you've removed that ghastly strength of garlic.

Presenter6:53

What do you serve it with?

Gordon Ramsay6:54

Roasted lamb, roast cod with lentils. You could make a beautiful garlic soup from it with sauteed new seasoned cebs.

Presenter7:01

And those little broad beans, you like those, don't you?

Gordon Ramsay7:04

Fevs, yeah. I mean, Fevs and fresh peas. I mean, it's quite boring sometimes popping them and and pushing them out of their sort of shells, but um, which you

Presenter7:11

Which you did for a long time in your Parisian kitchen life, I think.

Gordon Ramsay7:14

I did for an awful long time. It's just little things like that you never ever forget about and you never then take food for granted. And I look at a l a lot of young chefs today that get bored doing those menial jobs and peeling shallots, picking salad, popping feves are the fundamental

Presenter7:22

Yeah.

Speaker 27:23

Uh

Gordon Ramsay7:33

Techniques of great cooking from an early age.

Presenter7:36

But it's been a long, long slog, as we shall hear. But let's pause for some more music. What's this one?

Gordon Ramsay7:41

Kim Wilde. Thad was involved in music um in a big way and he played alongside Marty Wilde on a few occasions and he used to ask me along to come and listen to him, which I was not interested at all. But the fact that this guy that he was playing with had a daughter called Kim Wilde really, really excited me. Sadly I went to listen to him twice, she didn't turn up.

Speaker 48:00

And out a dirty old window, down below the cars in the city go rushing by.

Speaker 48:08

I sit here alone and I wonder why

Speaker 48:15

Friday night in everyone

Speaker 48:18

Feel the heat, but it's soothing, heading down.

Speaker 48:23

I search for the feet in this dirty tale

Presenter8:29

Kim Wilde and Kids in America. What does that song do for you, Gordon? It's got kind of a lot of Let's Get Up, Go, kind of telling you to get out and escape. Escape seems to me to be a theme in your life.

Gordon Ramsay8:39

Coming from a large family, it was very difficult. We never had any money and it was sad when mum and dad separated and it all got very nasty and very ugly and

Presenter8:47

But it was difficult it was difficult before that, wasn't it?

Gordon Ramsay8:50

Oh, way before. Yeah, way before. Dad was yeah obsessed with the music and um could never hold a job down.

Presenter8:55

And he liked to be in control, didn't he?

Gordon Ramsay8:57

Completely.

Presenter8:58

Were you frightened of him?

Gordon Ramsay9:00

He changed through drink and you just see a a character forming of ugliness and someone that is not.

Gordon Ramsay9:08

Are you dad?

Presenter9:09

How was it for you and your your you have one brother, two sisters? How was it how was it at home?

Gordon Ramsay9:13

Yes.

Gordon Ramsay9:15

Um, I mean, I really cocooned myself and cut myself off and became obsessed with football and and and had a a life outside. Ronnie was um much younger.

Gordon Ramsay9:25

much more influenced by dad and almost became his blue-eyed boy. Diane and my big sister, who's two years older than me, started getting involved with sort of smoking from an early age and staying out late and just doing all the things that teenagers normally do. And of course Yvonne, being the youngest, I think they've always had the the worst case scenario because they're down underneath everyone and looking above.

Presenter9:49

Do you think you get uh some of your your aggression, which obviously you you you try to re direct positively, but do you get your aggression from your father?

Gordon Ramsay9:57

A combination of my father and my determination.

Gordon Ramsay10:02

But Dad got incredibly angry.

Gordon Ramsay10:04

I think for his own.

Gordon Ramsay10:06

hiccups in life as opposed to what his children were doing and how embarrassing it was becoming.

Gordon Ramsay10:12

the older we got, that he wasn't progressing.

Gordon Ramsay10:16

you know, live in a council house and that's not been disrespectful to mum and dad, but that's all we had and we get a letter from school to go away skiing and I remember asking dad, you know, I'd love to go skiing.

Gordon Ramsay10:27

And it was sixty five pounds. And he turned round to me and said, We would never actually spend that.

Gordon Ramsay10:32

On all six of us going away to Scarborough. So there's no way on earth I'm going to send you skiing. And what gives you the right to think that you should be going? And what about your brother and your sister? So he tried to humiliate you in a sense that I was only asking a normal question like anyone would do with excitement going away with all their classmates. And the sad thing about that particular situation, I think there's about 75-80% of my class actually went. So you.

Gordon Ramsay10:58

You feel cheap.

Gordon Ramsay10:59

And you want to do better than that. And so there's that added assertiveness to go on and do well because of the

Gordon Ramsay11:06

discomfort you felt at that age.

Presenter11:09

Echo number three.

Gordon Ramsay11:11

Blondie, great pin-up. I had a picture of her on my wall. I remember my folder. There's another picture of her inside there. But it was a great soul. Great girl.

Speaker 411:22

I'm a lonely street.

Speaker 411:25

As ice cream is still as free

Speaker 411:28

Fry your eyes on the girl

Speaker 411:33

Hey, I saw you guys with a different girl.

Speaker 411:38

Looks like he's in another world.

Speaker 411:41

I didn't hide something

Speaker 411:46

Hurry up, hurry up and

Presenter11:49

Londie and Sunday Girl. So this was in Stratford-on-Avon you spent this childhood, having been born originally in Scotland.

Speaker 411:54

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay11:54

Uh

Presenter11:55

But you were a talented footballer, and this is what in the end I think perhaps brought you and your father together, didn't it? Because he saw that you could be really good, you could be something big.

Gordon Ramsay12:05

I always played two or three years in front of my sort of age in the sense that under eighteen football, you know, I was playing at the age of fifteen. And then I got spotted by a scout and went on to Oxford United to play for their youth team, and then from there played in an FA Cup youth match and got spotted by a Ranger scout. And that's how it started going up back to Glasgow throughout school and summer holidays and then eventually signing.

Presenter12:27

And in the end the the whole family uprooted and went to Glasgow because of you.

Gordon Ramsay12:30

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay12:31

Because of the support. I think anyone signing for a professional team needs that kind of comfort in the support.

Presenter12:37

But you would have been, what, sixteen?

Gordon Ramsay12:39

Yeah, just coming up at 17.

Presenter12:40

So the whole family uproots. It's a tremendous responsibility for you'cause, you know, the onus is on you to make it, isn't it?

Gordon Ramsay12:42

Yep.

Gordon Ramsay12:47

Yeah, it was pretty grim in a way, because that was always at the back of my mind.

Presenter12:51

And what happened?

Gordon Ramsay12:53

I got my first team games. I was with the first team squad. I played um three first team games and and then I had a really bad injury. I had my cartilage removed and three months after that particular operation I tore my ligament, my crucial ligament, which just not

Gordon Ramsay13:08

Every ounce of confidence in me. Uh very easy to criticise eleven players every Saturday, but you've got no idea.

Gordon Ramsay13:15

But the understanding what it's like behind the scenes and there's three or four guys that can take your place within twenty four hours and the competition is phenomenal.

Speaker 413:22

Hmm.

Gordon Ramsay13:23

And of course I had the problem that I could never

Gordon Ramsay13:26

Come to terms with the pressure from home.

Gordon Ramsay13:30

And everyone thought that Rangers was the pressure, but it wasn't Rangers the pressure. It was going home to that environment where everyone was expecting me to go on and do great things.

Gordon Ramsay13:38

And I felt

Gordon Ramsay13:40

Awkward.

Gordon Ramsay13:41

Because I didn't deliver.

Gordon Ramsay13:42

But that wasn't through my own fault.

Presenter13:42

But that wasn't

Gordon Ramsay13:45

In the sense of the injury, I couldn't foresee that.

Presenter13:47

So you failed, eh?

Gordon Ramsay13:49

Uh I did fail.

Gordon Ramsay13:50

I got asked to go to the office on a Friday morning with Jock Wallace and Archie Knox, the first team coach. I had to take my father along and

Gordon Ramsay14:00

The night before.

Gordon Ramsay14:01

I couldn't sleep, but I just kept on telling myself, you know, you're going to sign again, you're going to get taken on and you're going to be a fully pledged first team player.

Gordon Ramsay14:09

But it wasn't, it was the opposite. And uh if there was ever a time that I really wanted to cry

Gordon Ramsay14:14

I mean really cry.

Gordon Ramsay14:16

It was then, but I was so determined not to do it in front of Dad. And uh

Gordon Ramsay14:21

Mum knew how upset I was, but Dad never really knew because he wouldn't let me stop knowing how upset he was that I didn't make it.

Presenter14:30

And what was the effect long term on the family, then?

Presenter14:33

Because this was the end of the reason for being in Glasgow, everything, wasn't it? The whole plan had collapsed.

Gordon Ramsay14:36

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay14:38

Yeah, I mean then you we found out that dad had been seeing somebody else and it was all um very messy and Ronald got involved with some

Gordon Ramsay14:47

guys that were smoking drugs or whatever, and and the whole thing started to disintegrate.

Gordon Ramsay14:52

And I carried that burden on my shoulders because I felt that that was uh my fault. It's so I needed to do something completely different and get out of that situation.

Presenter15:04

Extraordinary.

Gordon Ramsay15:07

Quite an eerie record for me because it's by Tina Turner, simply the best, and it's the record five to three on a Saturday afternoon at Ibrooks that gets played whilst the players are running out the tunnel to play for Glasgow Rangers.

Speaker 415:21

A sampling of that

Speaker 415:36

I am

Speaker 415:40

Step down your heart.

Speaker 415:45

I hang on every word you say

Presenter15:51

Tina Turner and the best. You still get the still give you the shivers there.

Gordon Ramsay15:55

It does because it's that five to three feeling. And I still get that feeling whenever I get um a a major food critic in or if I ever see an inspector in and five to seven where the curtains go up in any kitchen, I still have that.

Presenter16:09

Mm.

Gordon Ramsay16:09

Feeling and you know, I haven't lost that, and that's that's quite touching.

Presenter16:14

So you had to escape. Why did you suddenly think that cooking was the escape from all of this terrible family situation? Because you hadn't cooked before. You hadn't been in the kitchen. You hadn't been particularly interested, had you?

Gordon Ramsay16:23

Particularly interested, have you? No, no, no, no. I wasn't one for clinging onto sort of mum's apron and.

Gordon Ramsay16:30

I don't know, an easy outlet really. Easy in the sense that fifteen, twenty years ago, caging was something incredibly easy to get into. And my idea was spending two years in a kitchen or two years in London and

Gordon Ramsay16:41

Disappearing, travelling.

Gordon Ramsay16:42

Goin' to college and getting a foundation.

Gordon Ramsay16:45

Seemed a great idea.

Presenter16:46

So you did that? The catering and hospitality course at

Gordon Ramsay16:47

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay16:48

Diamond.

Presenter16:49

At a a tech. What was your first job then?

Gordon Ramsay16:52

I took a job inside this kitchen and the chef he wanted to use roast potatoes.

Gordon Ramsay16:57

Done, and of course I'd never done a roast potato before and was

Gordon Ramsay17:00

Just getting used to using a knife and slicing quickly and I remember him asking me to get these roast potatoes or these potatoes turn them into roast potatoes and he

Gordon Ramsay17:09

dipped them inside the deep fat fryer, which sort of sealed them. Then he put them into the roasting tray in the oven. And then, would you believe, he got two or three tablespoons of bovril.

Gordon Ramsay17:21

the granule, and sprinkle them.

Gordon Ramsay17:23

All over the potatoes, and it was, you know, it was like these granules, these gravy granules. And he said, that will impart flavor, that will give it a good taste. And I just couldn't quite believe what he was doing.

Presenter17:32

So that didn't turn you on to cooking. I mean, again, it was just a passport out, really, somehow, wasn't it? I think it was a kitchen's business.

Gordon Ramsay17:37

Yeah, I think it's a good idea.

Gordon Ramsay17:39

Six weeks in the kitchen I went to become a waiter.

Presenter17:41

So what made the difference? When did the turning point come?

Gordon Ramsay17:44

Well I needed to get to London, so I got taken on as as the second commie chef in this new banqueting suite in Mayfair that was opening up at the Mayfair Hotel.

Gordon Ramsay17:51

I was three months into that and

Gordon Ramsay17:53

The night chef didn't turn up, which was really weird, so I got asked to stay late and I finished about half five, six o'clock in the morning'cause the breakfast chef then came in early. I went to the staff canteen, sat down and started reading our trade mag, a Kato Hotel Keeper where it was called. And I saw this guy on the cover with long curly hair, and his name was Marco

Gordon Ramsay18:11

had a restaurant in Harvard's had just opened and I read the story and the insight to what he was about, phoned him up three hours later, and started two days later.

Presenter18:20

This is Marco Pierre White, who became your mentor, who had a lot in common with your really tough background.

Gordon Ramsay18:26

Mm-hmm.

Presenter18:26

Leads council estate, difficult father.

Gordon Ramsay18:27

Please cancel it.

Gordon Ramsay18:29

Very similar. Um but it was just walking

Presenter18:31

So, was it him when you walked in, and was it what you'd read about him, or was it seeing his kitchen? And did you think this is it? This is where I want to put it.

Gordon Ramsay18:37

I'm not sure.

Gordon Ramsay18:38

It was just um meeting someone he was twenty five, I was nineteen, at that age that cared so much about food. And I lied to him in the sense that I told him I'd done this and done that, but I wasn't that experienced. I could chop and I could move and I could taste things, but I didn't have a clue.

Presenter18:55

Record number five.

Gordon Ramsay18:57

Record number five, George Michael and Kellys Whisper.

Gordon Ramsay19:01

First serious girlfriend, her name was Helen, she was with me throughout the sort of Rangers saga and she bought this record for me.

Speaker 419:08

I feel so unsure.

Speaker 419:14

Take your

Speaker 419:18

The dance floor

Speaker 419:21

As the music dies

Speaker 419:24

Something in your eyes calls to mind a silver screen And oh it's sad I'm never gonna dance again

Speaker 419:36

Yeah.

Presenter19:37

George Michael and Careless Whisper. So from that moment on, and that was what, sixteen years ago, I think he walked into Markov Gierwhite's restaurant.

Gordon Ramsay19:43

Yeah.

Speaker 419:43

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay19:43

Cool.

Presenter19:45

You s you've said you became obsessed with having a refined palate. How do you get one?

Gordon Ramsay19:53

How'd you get one? Um, first of all, you don't have a girlfriend that smokes. There's nothing worse. Refined palates. Um yeah, I have a very light style of cooking that involves very little cream, very little butter, um a lot of poaching, steaming, braising, a lot of purees, um thicken your sauces with a basil puree, a carrot puree.

Presenter20:08

So it's a kind of clarity of flavour. It's letting the flavour through rather than cloaking it with cream and butter and fat.

Gordon Ramsay20:12

Exactly. And we had a a salad of roasted scallops last week and um the chef asked me what should we do with outside lettuce leaves. I said, Well, look, sweat them down with a touch of olive oil, two or three shallots, a clove of confided garlic, and make a beautiful lettuce sauce. And don't add any stock because the juice is from

Gordon Ramsay20:31

The lettuce itself is sufficient to have a source.

Presenter20:34

But make sure you put the scallops into a sizzling hot pan. Oh, very hot. Put them in a cold pan, turn them to rubber, because we've seen what happens to chefs in your kitchen when they do this.

Gordon Ramsay20:39

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay20:42

No, but y yeah, but it's for their benefit, Sue, and they need to go through. I mean, I I've got the the burden of their career in my hands and this is a great job to be in the Premier Division of of restaurants and chefs and and cooking at this level is phenomenal. But sadly it's the pits at the other end.

Presenter20:57

And you learned to behave like that, to bawl out your sous chefs and so on i in Marco Pierre White's kitchen,'cause that's what happened to you there, right?

Gordon Ramsay21:05

Yeah, I mean I had a controversial boiling point documentary which screened me for twelve months and showed compelling footage of nasty things that happen in kitchens, but that was over a period of twelve months and if they really wanted a proper blockbuster Hollywood star uh video in the making then they should have been at Harvey's back in nineteen eighty nine because you know they would have gone on and won an Oscar.

Gordon Ramsay21:25

When you look at the drive and the ambitiousness of Marco and his team in those days, it was phenomenal.

Presenter21:32

But why do you need to do it that way? That's really the question, isn't it? I mean, why not do it by gentle encouragement, by showing people how to do it? Why do you have to kind of bang on and on and on and rub these people into the

Gordon Ramsay21:36

But it's not

Gordon Ramsay21:39

Okay.

Gordon Ramsay21:41

Hang on and on and on and on.

Gordon Ramsay21:44

Right. I mean, an interesting question. But I mean, that's very well coming from you being a presenter on a wonderful show. But kitchen is you need to drive. And can you imagine one hundred pound a head?

Presenter21:44

Right.

Gordon Ramsay21:54

Three Michigan stars and you've got three or four tables turning up late. You've got one lady who has dietary requirements being a vegan or a vegetarian and you've got to create this special menu instantly.

Presenter22:07

So it's your own pressure you're passing on.

Gordon Ramsay22:09

It's huge pressure. And then and you don't run a kitchen and when you've got two minutes and you've finished your cigarette, please pass me the CBAS. And when you've done that, then be a good boy and steam the spinach. And then would you like to pass me the salad? No. I mean, you have to drive it. It has to be given.

Gordon Ramsay22:23

That push and kitchens are boisterous environments. There's huge amounts of insecurity throughout every cook that works in kitchens.

Presenter22:33

Sounds like the Ibrox Park dressing room, really.

Gordon Ramsay22:35

Yeah, but you've got to prove yourself, and you know, it's not a hairdressing salon, it's a kitchen.

Presenter22:40

Record number six.

Gordon Ramsay22:43

We had a very special uh wedding at Christmas back in nineteen ninety six, and we had three hundred guests. It was just a great um day because normally in weddings they get slightly stuffy in the afternoon and because everyone's wondering what should we do. Should we go home, should we change, we go back to the hotel? But no.

Gordon Ramsay22:59

Half the guests all went down Regent Alfer Street. Christmas shopping.

Gordon Ramsay23:03

Came back after a fantastic lunch cooked by Herbert Berger and Tana and I song was by Brian Maddens, Everything I Do is For You.

Speaker 423:12

Look into my eyes.

Speaker 423:16

You will see.

Speaker 423:20

You mean to me?

Speaker 423:25

Such a

Speaker 423:29

Search your soul.

Speaker 423:37

Do it for you.

Presenter23:39

Brian Adams and everything I do, I do it for you. Um, you you went off to Paris briefly,'cause Marco told you to, although he'd never been himself, had he? And you said, Paris taught me my style. What does that mean?

Speaker 423:47

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay23:47

I mean

Gordon Ramsay23:51

Yeah, I found out a lot about myself in Paris. Very fast-flowing city.

Gordon Ramsay23:56

And how to survive on ten pound a week?

Presenter23:58

Could you speak the language?

Gordon Ramsay23:59

I couldn't to begin with. Um got myself a French girlfriend, which, you know, didn't go too well to begin with. Became fluent in sort of

Gordon Ramsay24:06

bedroom lingo, which didn't really help in kitchens, and of course as a young British cook in amongst a brigade of thirty French.

Gordon Ramsay24:14

You got to work twice as hard, to be noticed. And so it formed my character. And for the first three months I had to stand and turn sorbets. I just remember that humming noise behind all these machines and then sitting on the little uh metro with my lingophone every day, lunch and dinner, becoming bilingual.

Presenter24:32

Hmm. And you worked for some uh the top chefs there, didn't you? Yes. Two and three star Michelin Holmes. Yes, and started a Guisevoix.

Gordon Ramsay24:37

Yes and started a Guise Avoir.

Gordon Ramsay24:39

Fascinating. When we got awarded our third star a year ago, I could never understand to why Keisois was still on two stars, but thankfully, it's just been announced in Paris he's won his third star, which was fantastic news.

Presenter24:50

So you got there before him and he'd left you on the Sorbay machines all that time.

Gordon Ramsay24:53

Yeah, for three months.

Presenter24:55

Uh

Presenter24:56

The rest is history, Gordon, because you came back to this country in nineteen ninety three and you're only twenty six and you opened your own restaurant with some corporate backing, the Aubergine and

Speaker 425:04

Is this

Presenter25:05

That one first one and then two Michelin stars. You went on from there, you opened your very own restaurant, and you won three Michelin stars.

Speaker 425:07

We're on

Presenter25:12

And now you've opened up in in Claridge's in the West End. You've achieved all of that. What about your dad? Did he finally admit that um he'd been wrong and that cooking can be a man's game?

Gordon Ramsay25:25

Yeah, it was I mean it's um a bit awkward really in the sense that that never ever came.

Gordon Ramsay25:29

to any of the restaurants, except that he was forever saying that he was, you know, dying to meet Tana and and Megan.

Presenter25:34

But he he'd never met your wife.

Gordon Ramsay25:34

What he

Gordon Ramsay25:36

Never met no. Spoken two or three times on the telephone and then sadly he was concerned a problem with his heart. He'd had a triple heart bypass. It was really weird because um he had booked a table on the twenty first uh of January. We saw each other in December and then sadly on December thirty first uh New Year's Eve he died of a heart attack uh at the age of fifty three. So awkward because I knew that he was about to come and see exactly what I'd done.

Gordon Ramsay26:04

meet my wife, and of course meet Megan.

Presenter26:07

And what about your mother? She must have burst with pride over the past ten years, everything you've achieved.

Gordon Ramsay26:12

Yeah, I mean mum has been a great foundation alongside my father-in-law in the sense that they've been there at the most crucial times.

Gordon Ramsay26:20

So Mum doesn't enjoy coming to the restaurant. That's the bizarre thing about it. She's been to Clarity's once on the opening night, and she's been to Royal Hospital Road once in three years.

Presenter26:32

Why doesn't she like it?

Gordon Ramsay26:34

It's strange because I don't think she feels comfortable because that's not h how she cooks for me. And I don't think that she

Gordon Ramsay26:42

feels comfortable in that surrounding. And so I'd never force it upon her because she could go down to the Bridge Cafe in Taunton and have a a Caesar salad and pay two pounds ninety for a lentil soup and enjoy it with her friends as opposed to coming to London.

Presenter26:59

Record number seven.

Gordon Ramsay27:00

Tom Jones Sex Bomb, and it's the first ever song I heard Megan sing. She's four in May, and she is a little sex bomb, curly hair, blue eyes, and doesn't take flat from anybody.

Speaker 427:14

Sex bomb, you're my sex bum. You can give it to me when I need to come along. Shack bomb, sex, bum. You're my sex bum. And baby, you can turn me on. Turn me on. Sex bomb, sex bum. You're my sex bum. You can give it to me when I need to come along. Sex bomb, sex bum. You're my sex bum. And baby, you can turn me on.

Presenter27:43

Tom Jones and Moostie and Sex Bomb. So you cook and graft for a living, you say, Gordon Ramsey. Um I think we've gathered that, but I'm not a celebrity chef, I quoted you as saying. That's more difficult. I mean, when you do all these television documentaries and you promote your books and you do all these things, I mean if you really had no desire to be a celebrity, you know, you you would be sort of slaving over a hot laconch and not going out there, wouldn't you?

Gordon Ramsay28:06

Going out there, wouldn't you? Interesting.

Gordon Ramsay28:09

I suppose it's the whole package now. I mean, I I I say in the sense that ninety nine percent of the celebrity chefs I know don't have restaurants. And the reason I don't class myself as a celebrity chef is that I don't go anywhere near ready steady. I I don't go anywhere near can't cook, won't cook, and my customers are more important to me than anything.

Presenter28:28

Anyway, now you get to uh slave over a hot beach alone, and nobody to take it out on, n nothing to focus on, I know from all that ambition, I suppose. I suppose you could escape, you'd be good at that.

Presenter28:41

Will you try?

Gordon Ramsay28:41

Yeah.

Gordon Ramsay28:42

Yes. I love diving. Something quite special about being thirty five, forty meters under the water and just listening to your heartbeat. I'm obsessed with sharks. I went down in a great white shark cage seven years ago in Florida. Loved every minute of it.

Presenter28:56

So you'll swim for it probably as you try to get out of it. One last pudding. What's the nectar you'd like to taste before you strike out for the horizon?

Gordon Ramsay29:03

I think the simplest of puddings, creme brulee. We have these apples in the freezer and then we place them into the juicer and we create this wonderful Granny Smith jus, like a a fresh juice. And it's just so delightful when you're mixing this fresh juice to the richness of the creme brulee. So vanilla creme brulee with a jus of Granny Smith.

Presenter29:23

Last record.

Gordon Ramsay29:25

Travis, and Singh.

Gordon Ramsay29:27

We have good days and bad days in in cooking and my job is to keep the mistakes in the kitchen. And when you've had a bad day and you've had twenty five vegetarians walk in unannounced, this is a song that just puts it all into text.

Speaker 429:41

We go so crazy

Speaker 429:45

Lately, nothing seems to be going right.

Speaker 429:51

So low, what you have if it's so low.

Speaker 429:57

You're so

Speaker 429:59

We've been waiting in the sun too long to let you sing, sing.

Speaker 430:09

Sing

Presenter30:11

Travis and Singh. Now, if you could only take one of those eight records, Gordon, which one would you take?

Gordon Ramsay30:17

Yellow by Coldplay.

Gordon Ramsay30:19

It's perhaps the only song I I actually know how to sing, but I'm not going to sing it.

Gordon Ramsay30:24

Please don't ask me

Presenter30:25

What about your book? You've got the Bible and you've got the complete works of Shakespeare sitting on the beach waiting for you.

Gordon Ramsay30:31

Anthony Bourdain, um kitchen confidential. He's done what n no chef has ever had the balls to do, to give a proper insight to the hellish environment uh that kitchens have uh still today. And you can never get bored reading it. And um

Gordon Ramsay30:50

Certainly not for the light-hearted vegetarians. Please don't go there.

Presenter30:55

And what about your luxury?

Gordon Ramsay30:57

Something incredibly um sensuous and something you never get bored with.

Gordon Ramsay31:01

A fresh vanilla pot

Gordon Ramsay31:04

And when you look at these obscure, long, ugly sticks

Presenter31:08

Bootlaces.

Gordon Ramsay31:09

Bootlaces, exactly that. You've got no idea of the impact it has on making a wonderful English custard. Flavouring a fish stock with fresh vanilla and caramelizing the sea bass with crushed new potatoes with a light touch of um vanilla fish stock. Mind blowing.

Presenter31:28

Gordon Ramsey, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Gordon Ramsay31:31

Thank you.

Speaker 231:39

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.