Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph says London super-chef Gordon Ramsay has been serving his customers pre-prepared meals cooked in an off-site “food factory,” and sold with a 586-percent markup.
Which, by itself, is no big deal really. How many Wolfgang Puck airport bistros do you really think are cooking in the ten square feet of kitchen space they have? Although, I suppose Burger King wouldn’t dream of building a fast-food joint without a grill.
But this is Gordon The Great we’re talking about. So it’s a little different when a newspaper (even if it is The Sun) publishes a photo slide show of people sneaking in the back door of a Gordon Ramsay gourmet pub with prepared dishes ready to serve customers.
Ramsay told the London Times one week ago: “My food hell is any ready meal. It’s so easy to prepare a quick meal using fresh produce, such as a simple stir-fry, but people still resort to ready meals that all taste exactly the same.’”
So imagine The Sun’s surprise to find out that nothing was actually cooked in the restaurant. Even though the waiter insisted that everything was “freshly made” and that the “slow roasted pork belly” took 20 minutes to cook!
The reliably fussy gastro-dweb set is predictably perturbed. Jamie Oliver, for starters, is “a bit shocked.”
Richard Harden of Harden’s restaurant guides, told The Daily Mail: ‘The problem with Ramsay doing this is that it contradicts everything he says he stands for. It does seem hypocritical. Ramsay is extremely good at saying exactly what people want to hear, but this suggests that what he has said is not based on deep convictions or what he himself does.”
And a fellow chef who got the royal ream-out treatment on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares is gloating: “I bet Gordon wishes he hadn’t talked quite so much about fresh food cooked on the premises. These things have a habit of coming back to haunt you. His staff said food is cooked fresh, then they van it in — it just doesn’t look good, does it”
Nope.
Bonus points: Gordo demonstrating how to properly chop hhhhhherbs. Which, apparently, no one in his restaurants actually does anymore.
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I hope he loses everything over this. If you go to a fine restaurant you expect to have your meal freshly prepared by an expert chef. What a jerk.
I can’t think of a place (aside from some fastfood joint, of course) where serving pre-cooked meals to the customers is deemed acceptable. A highway diner has higher standards than that. What a douche.
Say it ain’t so Gordon…..I have lost all faith….
Heck, I love Trader Joe’s as much as the next busy mom but I’d be wicked pissed to pay big bucks for it at a restaurant.
Wait, isn’t that what we do at all those corporate eateries like Applebee’s and Chili’s? Tastes that way anyway.
Hee. He’s such a gargoyle. Good enough for him.
MC Mom–we don’t eat out much here (SW Georgia) b/c if you’re white, you’re very likely to wait 2 hours even to have your order taken, let alone get your drinks and/or food. My kids could completely disassemble an entire Applebee’s in that time. And have, and probably will.
very little respect for other people and a real team leader, I can tell. looks like the kind of show FOX would carry. how declasse.
i have a hard time believing Ramsey would jepoardize his empire with such a easily discovered cheap stunt.
it’s probably something quite reasonable to do with logistics and the food quality is unaffected, nor pre-cooked.
i’d hope so anyway; otherwise, he’s in for a VERY VERY long fall.
i second queen bee. a 586 percent markup?!?! seriously? (i don’t watch this guys’ shows) i’m a merchandise marketing major and this damn merchandise math class i had to take had some screwed markups but 586%? good god!
This is what I imagine that it’s like for a kid to discover that there is no Santa for me. I love Gordon Ramsay. I love his foul mouth, his shows (they don’t bleep out the cussing in the UK), and every recipe of his that I have attempted (always with hubby’s supervision because I am a crap cook).
I would love to think that ShyAsrai is correct in this, but either way, it looks bad. Ah well, at least I still have Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall, who can pick a few wild plants, stuff a badger’s bum and call it dinner.
Well said.
I have never watched his shows, but this to me is poor taste and poor class. If you are a chef and you have restaurants then you need to give the people what they are paying for. If Emeril or Wolfgang did this, they would lose everything. I hope he does lose out on the things that made him rich for doing this.
I’m really hoping there’s a logical explanation (maybe a large party where they needed extra kitchen space and to prep a bunch of meals before hand?). Because otherwise, yeah, Santa Claus is dead and the Easter Bunny ate him.
Well, let’s hope he prepared Saint Nick fresh on the premises, then.
Chronic, oregano and dandelion-stuffed badger is a regular favorite in the MC household.
But Hugh Fearnley Freakin’ Whittingstall? What kind of poncy limey name is that?!?
You know, I was sorta skeptical when the menu said “two all beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onion, on a sesame seed bun.”
LMAO, MC Mom. Now I know what to do with the dandelions I keep ripping out of my yard! Don’t be fooled by his name, though. He looks like a hippie, butchers his own animals, and grows most of his veg. If I had to survive in the wilds of Europe, I would want him or Ray Mears with me, though I suspect Ray Mears is a serial killer on the side.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Fearnley-Whittingstall
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_mears
“they don’t bleep out the cussing in the UK”
That’s it, I’m moving! *maxes out credit cards, overdrafts bank account, burns identity papers* Buy, Obama! Good luck, America! *packs bags* Toby Kebbell, here I come!
Did anyone here even read the source article?
A spokesman for Ramsay said the gastropubs and Foxtrot Oscar were too small and reheating the food, by a method known as “sous vide”, tried and tested by the world’s best chefs.
He said: “The central kitchen is a state-of the-art-facility run by Gordon Ramsay chefs.
“It is a Gordon Ramsay kitchen run by Gordon Ramsay chefs cooking Gordon Ramsay food.”
The food is supplied to “to those kitchens with limited cooking space”, including Foxtrot Oscar and The Narrow, the spokesman added.
“These are sealed and transported daily in refrigerated vans and all menu dishes are then cooked in the individual kitchens.
“This is only for the supply of Foxtrot Oscar and the three pubs and allows each establishment to control the consistency and the quality of the food served.”
How is this even news? Other than the fact the deceiver article implies he is doing this for all his restaurants. I mean obviously he is getting his meals flown in from London to be served to his restaurants in LA, Right?
I meant “bye”…sorry, got too excited
LMAO, Nati. UK TV is so different from US TV after 9pm.
Nati, I would move with you, but I need food with taste
AAW, cooking is probably the one and only thing I’m actually good at. And, unlike in Ramsay’s restaurant(s?), everything is always freshly prepared. We’ll be roommates. I’ll stay home and cook, and you will have to go out and get a job. You’ll bring the bacon in, and I’ll cook it. Or we can both stay home and just rely on public assistance, no need to overwork ourselves. I’m sure Chronic will be more than happy to pay into public assistance with her taxpayer money, right, Chronic?
lol, the dumbest (and the funniest) f***king thing about my misspelled post from yesterday night is that it took me nearly 2 hrs to figure out what was wrong with it. I mean, I knew I misspelled something, but it took me 2 hrs of staring at what I’d typed in to figure out which word I misspelled…awww I grow dumber by the day
I’ll turn a blind eye if you let me raid your back garden, Nati. Or at least throw me a pork chop once in a while.
“if you let me raid your back garden”
that came out…interesting. Alas, I know you are talking about my achievements in agriculture. Come on, AAW, pack your bags, we’re going to be mooching off Chronic’s taxpayer money while she’s tracing that pork chop with a hit of my garden’s finest.
LMAO!!! Not THAT back garden, Nati! I’m married!