GORDON RAMSAY: THE MAN AND THE MOUTH
Chef Gordon Ramsay talks travel, taste and gastro-kleptomania with CATHY ADAMS Gordon Ramsay與Cathy Adams暢談旅遊、品味和對美食不由自主的熱情
CATHY ADAMS chats about f-words (mostly food…) and travel with the British chef
毒舌廚神
Cathy Adams與英國名廚Gordon Ramsay暢談美食與旅遊
As an interviewee, British chef Gordon Ramsay was courteous, polite and didn’t say the f-word once.
He said it seven times.
Why is he in f****** Hong Kong, then? First, he’s checking in at (and up on) his Bread Street Kitchen & Bar in Lan Kwai Fong. It’s doing a considerably brisker trade on Tuesday lunchtime than its British counterpart has done on my past few visits. (Ramsay: ‘It’s a great area and it’s a buzzy little restaurant.’)
Second: location hunting. He’s interested in a ‘hip burger’ joint in Hong Kong, he says – stay tuned.
Third: to eat. As we slide into one of the sleek corner banquettes underneath marble tables, he rattles off his eating schedule. Cantonese restaurant Lung King Heen in the Four Seasons last night, Italian restaurant Spiga in Central tonight. Wyndham Street’s Bombay Dreams is his ‘favourite curry house’ (he ‘f****** loves’ the butter chicken). Then some street food, and – I assume – breakfast at Café Gray Deluxe (he checked into The Upper House).
‘I go anywhere in the world and I don’t get any bills,’ Ramsay crows. ‘I get extra courses, and I leave, like a piece of s***. It’s extraordinary. And all I want to do is pay for my f****** dinner.’
He notices me totting up the rude words. ‘It’s weird that you’re counting, and you’re from Essex. Essex girls don’t care; they don’t count.’ It’s somehow come up
英國名廚Gordon Ramsay在接受別人訪問時，態度誠懇有禮，沒而且 有說過一次「他X的。」他不是說了一次，而是七次。他為何身處「他X的」香港？
首先，他此行是前往蘭桂坊，到自己開設的Bread Street Kitchen & Bar餐廳去巡視業務。期星 二午餐時段，這家餐廳的生意頗興隆。我在英國也曾去過他旗下的餐廳幾次，生意還不及這裡好。Ramsay表示：「這裡附近一帶環境相當不俗，廳餐 雖小巧但氣氛熱鬧。」
其次， Ramsay此行的第二個目的，是尋覓理想的位置開新店。他表示想在香港開一間以「新潮漢堡」作賣點的餐廳，且讓我們拭目。以待
至於第三個目的，就是為了大快朵頤。我們剛在大理石桌旁的靠背座椅上就座，他就連珠發炮地說出連串美食行程。晚昨 是在四季酒店的粵菜餐廳景晚，龍 軒 餐今晚則到中環的意大利餐廳Spiga。雲咸街的Bombay Dreams是他「最喜歡的咖哩屋」（他「好X喜歡」那裡的牛油。雞）然後還有街頭小吃，以及在他下榻的奕居的Café Gray Deluxe餐廳享受早餐。
Ramsay得意洋洋地說：「我吃遍全世界的廳餐 也不用，獲付帳 還會 贈多道菜式，吃罷就像地痞那樣揚長而去。真是不可多得的體驗。而我不過是想頓為那 他X的晚餐付帳。」
他留意到我在數算他說過的髒話。「你來自艾塞克斯，郡 卻在計算我說過多少髒話，真是非常奇怪。艾塞斯的克 郡 女孩對這些事從不在乎，更不會數算。」對話中，提我 及我來自英國艾塞斯，克 郡 而因為某些
in conversation that I’m from Essex, in the UK, and for some reason Essex girls, like our spiritual sisters from Jersey Shore in the US, get a bad rap. We’re the kind, he says, who leave restaurants with ‘food in their handbags’. (Memo to Bread Street Kitchen:
I ate the food I ordered.)
The f-word is Ramsay’s trademark (even the name of one of his TV shows). But it’s the good stuff he puts into other people’s mouths, rather than the bad stuff that comes out of his, that matters.
The TV shows, controversies and court cases also make it easy to forget what a stir Ramsay created in the London fine dining scene in the 1990s, first with Aubergine and then with his own threeMichelin-starred restaurant in Chelsea. He’s joined the globalised stars of the restaurant business – the Ducasses, the Robuchons, the Nobus – with a more democratic portfolio that includes gastropubs, hotel restaurants and even eateries in airport terminals.
His Union Street Café opened on my old street in London in 2013 and, for the record, its meaty rigatoni was worth every artery-stiffening calorie.
Ramsay has racked up the airmiles, even if just for the purpose of barking a dozen f***s at journalists in different countries across the world.
So the conversation turns to travel.
As a child he got used to mixing with people from 原因，當女和地孩 美國Jersey Shore的女孩一樣風評不太好。Ramsay說我們都是那種會「把食物塞進手袋裡」然後離去的食客。（ Bread Street Kitchen餐廳仝人注意：我把點的食物全吃掉，一點也沒有剩下。）
那句髒話「他X的」謂可 Ramsay的商而標， 他其中一個電視節目更索性名為《The F Word》。不過最重的他要 是將美食送進別人的嘴裡，而不是從他嘴裡吐出來的髒。話
電視節目、爭議訴和 訟案件，很容易令人忽略
all over the world. He was born in the Scottish town of Johnstone, and grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare’s birthplace. Family holidays were in a faded south coast resort town (‘f****** Bognor Regis’).
‘ The most memorable trip was to Loch Lomond [in Scotland] and going camping in the summer and being bitten to hell by midges. Literally eating the most incredible salmon in a one pot wonder for breakfast. You didn’t complain about f****** hotels or beds; you just got on with it.’
Presumably this set him up for filming Gordon’s Great Escape in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia (a quick YouTube search brings up videos including him eating a duck foetus and going hunting for tarantulas).
‘ The outback in Cambodia was quite extraordinary. No telephones, no satellites, no contact, just 30 days living with a family that was raising crocodiles.’
To eat, I ask weakly? Oh no: ‘ They shop for food twice a day, seven days a week, and everything is super fresh. They buy whatever’s available, so it’s amazing.’
His favourite foodie destinations span northern Spain’s Basque region (Ramsay trained in nearby Bordeaux: ‘it’s like a second home’), Vegas (‘the standard is incredible, from the most amazing steakhouse to a proper grill to great Japanese food’) and Cornwall, just a two-hour chopper ride from his London home. Over the past decade, Britain’s sunniest county has welcomed a wave of beachfront restaurants from London’s big-name chefs, including Rick Stein, Paul Ainsworth and Jamie Oliver. Is another Ramsay outpost on the cards?
The answer, predictably, is NSFW.
‘I just want to go and have a f****** break. I’m going to get a helicopter and a boat and f****** enjoy it. I’m going to do the opposite of what everyone’s expecting me to do.’
That’s six f***s and one s*** you’ve read so far. Ramsay’s brash persona (which I’m sure is all it is, frustratingly) might go down well in the UK and the US, but in Hong Kong I wonder if it’s unappreciated.
Ramsay’s unfazed. ‘I respect them endlessly.
I just want to be judged for what I put on a plate. F*** the persona. Because at the end of the day, that’s what brings customers back.’
There’s one final dig at Hong Kong’s line-up of celebrity-backed restaurants. ‘At least I turn up to my openings. I’m not saying anything; I’m just saying that to you – you’re a journalist and a smart girl.’
Just not one who stuffs food in her handbag.
HE’S JOINED THE GLOBALISED STARS OF THE RESTAURANT BUSINESS – THE DUCASSES, THE ROBUCHONS, THE NOBUS他躋身餐飲業界的國際天王行列，與DUCASSE、ROBUCHON和NOBU等星級大廚齊名
了Ramsay於1990年在代 倫敦高餐級 飲業界起掀 的熱潮由， Aubergine餐開廳 始以， 至在他 Chelsea開設的米芝蓮三星餐廳他。 躋餐身 飲業的界國際天王行列，與Ducasse、Robuchon和Nobu等星級大廚齊，名而且名餐下的 廳食店組合多更 元化，美既有 食酒吧和店酒餐廳，亦有機場客運大樓內的小餐館。
他於2013年在倫敦一條我住曾 過的街開上 設Union Street Café餐廳，那裡的肉長醬 通粉滋味豐美，雖然卡路里高得驚人，饕客們卻認為，即使吃後會上患動脈硬化依， 然是值得的。
Ramsay經常周遊列國，有時可能純粹為了在世界各地的記者面前大吼十數次「他X的」。
因此話題就順勢轉到旅遊。
在童年時代，他已習慣與來世自 界各國的人融洽相。處他在蘇格蘭小鎮Johnstone出生，在莎士比亞的故鄉Stratford- upon-Avon長大。放假時，他與家人通常去一個已黯然失色的南部海邊小城度假（他的「 X Bognor Regis」）。
「我最難忘的旅程是， 夏季前蘇蘭往 格 的Loch Lomond湖露營，被蠓叮得混身痕癢。但在早餐的雜錦鍋裡吃到最美味的三文魚時，你就不會他X的抱怨有沒舒適酒店或床舖之類，覺得只要順其自然就了好 。」
也許因此造就了Ramsay前往越南、柬埔泰寨、國馬西等南國和 來 亞 東 亞 家拍攝視電 節目《Gordon’s Great Escape》。要只 在YouTube上稍作搜尋，就可看見他吃鴨仔蛋和捕獵狼蛛的影片。
「柬埔寨的內陸地區與別處截然不同。沒那裡 有電話和衛星電視，與世隔絕，而我就和一個以飼養鱷魚為生的家庭生活了30天。」
我囁嚅地問是否養鱷魚來吃非？！也 「他們每天兩次出去買菜，所有食物都非常新鮮，買是的都 當天出售的時令食材，令人驚喜。」
Ramsay說他最喜愛美的 食勝地包括西班牙北部的巴斯克地區（他曾在附近的波爾多受訓，因此那裡對他而「言 就像第二個家」國） ；美 的拉斯維加斯（「那裡的餐飲水準高得驚，人 網羅最優秀的扒房、正宗的燒烤餐廳和令人垂涎的日式美食」） ；以及距離Ramsay位於倫敦的家兩小時直升機航程的Cornwall郡。過去十年，這個號稱國陽英 最 光充沛的郡迎來了一眾由倫敦廚名如Rick Stein、Paul Ainsworth和Jamie Oliver等人開設的海灘。餐廳 Ramsay是否也打算在這裡開一家餐廳？
一如所料，答案也是難登大之的話雅 堂 髒。
「我只想他X的休息一下。要我買架一 直升機和一艘遊艇，享受他X的人生。要我 做盡與他人期望相反的事情」。
文章寫到這裡，「」X 已出現了不下七次。Ramsay粗魯傲慢的性格（我無奈地相信那事）是 實 在英美國和國也許頗為人受落，但我懷香疑在 港是否有人欣賞。
Ramsay卻處之泰然。「我一直尊重別我別人。想只人批評我的烹飪技藝，而不是他X的性格。因為說到底，食物質素才是令客人再次光顧餐廳的原因」。
最後，他還不忘諷刺香港多著星眾 打 明 主廚招牌的廳餐 ：「起碼我會出席自己餐廳的開幕禮。我不是在暗示什麼，只是對你發發牢騷──你是個記者也， 是個醒目女。」
不過這個醒目女不會悄悄把食物塞進手袋裡。