He’s known for being hot-headed and foul-mouthed on television shows such as Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, Hell’s Kitchen and MasterChef but yet when this celebrity chef is dealing with children on MasterChef Junior, he is gentle and encouraging and even comforts the young contestants when they cry. His goofy and helpful personality on the latter programme took everyone by surprise, in a good way. This, Gordon has said, is how he deals with his four children, but being fair yet firm, and through MasterChef Junior, he has found many new fans. He’s not just a television personality though; he’s a successful restaurateur and chef whose restaurants have earned 16 Michelin stars and he is also an author of many cookbooks.
Gordon didn’t grow up wanting to be a chef. He was actually training to be a footballer until an injury derailed his dream and he found himself in college studying hotel management. An affinity with food led him into the restaurant industry and over the years he has worked for some of the most well-known chefs in the world, including Marco Pierre White and Guy Savoy. He then served as head chef in Aubergine in 1993, and within two years, the London restaurant was awarded two Michelin stars.
He opened his first restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in 1998, and has since gone on to open a string of successful restaurants around the world. Though a number of them have gone on to earn Michelin stars, his first restaurant is the jewel in his culinary crown – Restaurant Gordon Ramsay is the London’s longest-running restaurant to constantly receive three Michelin stars year after year.
It is his demanding, perfectionist nature that has led to the high standards his restaurants are known for. Despite having so much on his plate, Gordon still makes unannounced surprise visits to check on things in his restaurants as documented on his show, The F Word.
His fame within the restaurant industry led to him being approached to appear in shows that documented his life as a chef. Boiling Point, showed the months leading up to his very first restaurant and this was where viewers were introduced to his impetuous temper and demands for culinary perfection. He has since been approached to star in multiple television shows. He is perhaps most well-known for shouting expletives at contestants as the host of Hell’s Kitchen where he often shouts expletives at the contestants, and for his harsh criticisms as a judge on Masterchef.
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While many might criticise Gordon for his stern and stringent attitude on his cooking shows, he is a giant teddy bear on MasterChef Junior. He evidently has a soft spot for kids as seen through his encouraging comments and patience in answering questions the contestants throw to him. As a father of four children, three of which are girls, he uses that experience to relate to the young contestants, and has said that when they make a mistake and get upset, it tugs at his heartstrings.
Aside from hosting and judging cooking shows, Gordon also serves as executive producer for most of the shows that he hosts. His family has also made it on to the small screen with Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch, a reality show that his daughter Matilda Ramsay, writes and stars in. It features the Ramsay family’s summer holiday and the different shenanigans they get up to.
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The woman behind the successful restaurateur is former schoolteacher Cayetana Elizabeth Hutcheson, nicknamed Tana, who he married in 1996. Two years into their marriage, the couple had their oldest child, Megan Jane Ramsay. The family then welcomed a pair of fraternal twins, Holly Anna Ramsay and Jack Scott Ramsay in 2000, and in 2001, Matilda Elizabeth Ramsay, affectionately known as Tilly, was added to the family.
Thanks to social media, we’ve been able to catch a glimpse of Gordon’s softer side with his children, and his silly side was exposed on Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch.
The devil in Hell’s Kitchen sure does have a soft spot for his kids and a great sense of humour – check out his method of waking his children up at 5am.
While he clearly loves his children, the pragmatic dad has no plans to spoil them. He has shared that his eldest daughter had a budget of £100 a week, while the others get about £50 a week and they have to pay for their own phones and bus fare. According to him, “The earlier you give them that responsibility to save for their own trainers and jeans, the better.” It’s no different when the family flies overseas, the kids fly economy while Gordon and Tana live it up in the first class cabin.
Whether you love or hate Gordon, beneath his onscreen personas, he is just a father who loves his children dearly, and wants the best of them in the future
For last week’s dad crush, click here.
