We are to meet Gordon Ramsay near the Sun King’s castle, at the Waldorf Astoria Versailles, a palace which has housed one of his restaurants for fifteen years. But as we approach the suite where the interview takes place, we first come across his bodyguard, a mirror cabinet with a good-natured smile. And when we finally get access to the 57-year-old British chef, his hair wild and his forehead furrowed with deep furrows, his agent reminds us that we only have twenty minutes of interview time. A welcome worthy of a Hollywood star.
In fact, Gordon Ramsay is a star, perhaps the most famous chef in the world. It’s been twenty years since the first episode of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmareswho inspired Nightmare in the kitchenin 2004, that the host made a name for himself by terrorizing the candidates of widely broadcast television shows. There was Hell’s Kitchen (“hell’s kitchen”), The F Word − we could translate it as “the word M…”), 24 Hours to Hell and Back (“24 hours to hell and back”).
These programs with evocative titles have led to him being caricatured as a ruthless brute even in cartoons or video games. Moreover, he himself is amused by his reputation: in a sketch with a comic aim, where he plays his own role, we see him enclosing the head of a clerk between two slices of sandwich bread and saying to her: “You’re just a stupid sandwich!” » A sequence that has become cult on the Internet.
The mistake would be to think that the character is just a scarecrow. However, Gordon Ramsay is above all an entrepreneur who has managed to make his name a label, a guarantee of quality. “I have 89 establishments all over the world, great restaurants, brasseries, street food counters, he recalls. And my team has about 2,500 employees. »
This great sportsman – marathon runner, black belt in karate – with an always sharp figure, loves challenges. He even managed to establish a burger chain in the United States. “Everyone thought we were crazy to open burger restaurants in Las Vegaslaughs the businessman. We worked on our recipes well in advance, and one of our secrets is to use a very fatty, very flavorful butter to caramelize the filling. The success of our burgers has continued unabated for ten years, so much so that we are considering offering them in France. »
One question remains: behind the media window and this disproportionate gourmet empire, what defines the cuisine of this juggernaut capable of selling pizzas as well as gourmet menus? To answer this, we must look at the chef’s career, rich in decisive encounters and twists and turns.
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