Gordon James Ramsay, OBE (born 8 November 1966 in Johnstone, Scotland) is a British multiple Michelin star awarded chef, television personality, and restaurateur known for his ferocious temperament, colorful vocabulary, and no-nonsense attitude.
Born in Scotland, Ramsay originally dreamed of becoming a football player for his childhood team Rangers, but a leg injury left him with crushed hopes and the inability to sit cross-legged. Instead, he began a career in the culinary arts and landed a chef's job in the famous Harvey's Restaurant in London, where the tough training regime and unreasonably high standards set by head chef Marco Pierre White fostered Ramsay's constant swearing and temperamental condescending attitude. However, from several accounts, he's a much nicer person on British TV, on MasterChef (especially the Junior version of MasterChef), and in interviews.
He first came to the notice of television audiences with 1998's Ramsay's Boiling Point, which documented the opening and first few months of operation of his first restaurant in Chelsea. Until that point, chefs on British TV had generally tended to fall into one of three molds: cultured and upper-class British, sophisticated European (usually Italian or French), or perpetually cheerful and upbeat. While Ramsay wasn't the first example of a bad-tempered, foul-mouthed TV chef, he was definitely the first one to achieve major fame.
Surprisingly, Ramsay himself has said in multiple interviews that he's not as talented a chef as people perceive him to be and that his real strength isn't his cooking skills (which are undoubtedly formidable), but rather his managerial skills. He says that his ability to run a successful business is the true secret to his success.
He has starred in main roles in successful television shows The F Word, Ramsay's Best Restaurant, and both British and American versions of Kitchen Nightmares, Hell's Kitchen, MasterChef, Hotel Hell, and 24 Hours to Hell and Back.
THESE TROPES!!!!! ARE FUCKIN' RAAAAAAWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!:
- Adam Westing:
- He starred in an AT&T commercial where he gets exactly what he wants... and doesn't know what to do.Ramsay: I'm not too sure what to do with my arms right now, because this is where I usually start throwing things.
- He challenged the Muppets' Swedish Chef to a cook-off... and lost.
Sweetums: You sure do say "bleep" a lot.
Ramsay: Because it's the bleepin' Muppets! There's families bleepin' watching! - There's more. Collection 1 Collection 2
- A regular occurrence on his Twitter account is fans sending him pictures of dishes they've made or encountered, so he can insult them creatively. He also reacts to amateur cooks showing their recipes on TikTok.
- He starred in a comedy skit from The Late Late Show titled Hell's Cafeteria, an Affectionate Parody of Hell's Kitchen in which he reprised his role as a Drill Sergeant Nasty Angry Chef, with James Corden and Julie Chen as the cooks.
- He starred in an AT&T commercial where he gets exactly what he wants... and doesn't know what to do.
- Angry Chef: Most notoriously in Hell's Kitchen. It's more or less a persona, as Ramsay's far more polite and friendly in other shows. When 'in-character', he has a Hair-Trigger Temper, is Drill Sergeant Nasty, and never holds back in calling out the contestants for their incompetence. However, this is a case of Tough Love, as the intent is to make them ready for and capable of actual professional kitchen work.
- Catchphrase:
- "Absolutely delicious!"
- "What a shame..." Related is, "Wow..." when he discovers just how far-reaching the damage of a situation is.
- "YOU DONKEY!"
- "I'M SHUTTING IT DOWN!"
- "EIGHTY-SIX IT!"
- "IT'S FUCKING RAW!" "THIS COULD KILL SOMEONE!" typically follows on from this.
- "I HAVE EATEN HERE!"
- "IT'S STONE FUCKING COLD!"
- "THESE SCALLOPS ARE RUBBER!"
- "Oh, fuck me..."
- "COME HERE, YOU!"/"ALL OF YOU, COME HERE!!" followed by "Just touch that!"/"Just taste that!"
- "STOP SENDING ME SHIT!"
- "GET OUT!"/"YOU, YOU, YOU, YOU AND YOU! GET OUT!"
- "Give me your jacket."
- "Do me a favor... fuck off out of my kitchen!"
- "I'm not here to blow smoke up your arse."
- Some variant of "It's fucking delicious". In one case his host was actually anticipating it, saying nothing else could make her happier than to hear someone say that while eating.
- "It's the Rolls-Royce of ___", when describing a valuable cut of meat, like filet mignon or saddle of lamb.
- "Have you given up?" (Or alternatively, "Are you done?")
- "Gentlemen/ladies, you're in for a miserable day." (to a Hell's Kitchen team that loses a challenge)
- "MOVE YOUR ASS!"
- "WHERE'S THE LAMB SAUCE!?!", "WHERE'S THE LAMB SAUCE!?!"
- "We're in the shit.
- "This is shit at its finest."
- “Service, please.”, when the food at the pass meets Ramsay’s standards.
- "SHUT IT!"
- Character Tic: When speaking on camera, he keeps his hands clasped together right under his chin and will chop the air with his right hand if he wants to emphasize a point. If he's not doing that, he has his arms firmly crossed across his chest or planted on his hips.
- Cluster F-Bomb: One of the biggest abusers of this trope.
- When something goes horribly, especially when it’s in the kitchen, every other word he says is profane.
- He makes sure to watch what he says when he’s in front of children or especially his mother. He has accidentally cussed at least once or twice on Masterchef Junior at the contestants but apologised for doing so.
- Half of the pun of "The F Word" is based on the fact that F-Bombs are basically a catchphrase for him. He frequently clarifies that the "F Word" in this case stands for Food, despite frequently engaging in tongue-in-cheek nods about why the name was really chosen.
- Friend to All Children: In comparison to his on-screen persona on Hell's Kitchen where he is a full-on Drill Sergeant Nasty, he is incredibly supportive and kind with junior chefs in MasterChef Junior.
- Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing: Gordon plays the grumpy half to fellow chef Gino D'Acampo's cheerful on the Road Trip series. Gino is one of the few people who can troll Gordon 24/7 and is merrily immune to any of Gordon's attempts at retaliation.
- Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Since his cursing has no off switch, once in a while he'll use "Flipping Heck" rather than "Fucking Hell".
- Hypocritical Humor: Mentioned in an interview, where he admits to having told some of the contestants on MasterChef Junior to watch their language.Ramsay: ... And they're like, "Are you telling me to watch my language?!"
- I Got a Rock:
- Discussed in one Jimmy Kimmel skit where Gordon lists off the five worst Halloween treats.
- Smarties.note "The perfect combination of aspirin and tums."
- Circus Peanuts. "Do you know what circus peanuts are? Clown <bleep>!"
- Candy Corn. "It's not candy. It's not corn. It's earwax formed in the shape of a rotten tooth!"
- Apples. "Do I look like a <bleep> teacher, mate?"
- Pennies. "In 2016 you're still giving out <bleep> pennies?!"
- In Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, one of the shellfish he caught in Norway actually was a rock!
- Discussed in one Jimmy Kimmel skit where Gordon lists off the five worst Halloween treats.
- Mama's Boy: His mother often appears on his various shows and he takes those opportunities to talk about how much he loves her and praise her for how hard she worked to raise him.
- My Greatest Failure: Whenever Ramsay encounters a chef with a drink and/or drug problem during the course of making his shows, he always makes sure they check into rehab, even if it means paying for it himself. By his own admision, this is his way of atoning for failing to spot that David Hector Dempsey, one of his most promising proteges, had such a serious drug habit that he ended up falling to his death while under the influence of cocaine in 2003, as well as Ramsay's brother Ronnie having suffered from drug abuse.
- Nice to the Waiter: On shows like Kitchen Nightmares and Hotel Hell, he'll stand up for lower-ranked staff members against abusive owners and chefs and disabuse them of the notion that it's OK to bully employees.
- Playing Against Type: The times he's appeared in kids' cartoons tone down his usual behavior. This is prominent in Big Hero 6: The Series and Mickey and the Roadster Racers, where the characters he plays are usually just insensitive or pushy, but not mean. This is taken further on The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, where he appears as himself, and is still toned down.
- Thrifty Scot: If a restaurant is wasting money on produce, he's going to complain about it.
- Very Special Episode: If he encounters a chef or restaurateur who has serious problems with addiction, odds are the episode will turn into one of these. Sadly, substance abuse is notoriously rife in the culinary industry to the point where, as explained in an episode of Kitchen Nightmares UK, 10% of all chefs will develop an addiction during their career.
