Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
THREE AMIGOS!
Mexico’s just one of the spots where Gordon Ramsay, Gino D’acampo and Fred Sirieix go wild in their second foodie adventure series
Take three men who call themselves boys, with egos the size of Vesuvius. Throw a racing track into the mix, and what do you get? A car crash – literally.
Gordon, Gino And Fred, the ITV show that sends chefs Gordon Ramsay and Gino D’acampo and First Dates maitre d’ Fred Sirieix to explore cuisine (and more) in a campervan, won a BAFTA nomination last year. We called it Top Gear With Tomatoes, and this year it’s back – but the tomatoes seem to have got a bit mashed.
The first episode finds the boys doing what boys do – badly. In Mexico they take over a racing track with dune buggies. The result? Gino crashes into their RV home, as Gordon crashes his buggy into a concrete barricade. It’s a miracle no one died, and Gino admits they went too far.
‘This is what happens when you put three boys in fast cars,’ he shrugs, embarrassed. ‘What can I say? You get over-excited. But it’s good to be able to tell the story.’
He is still shocked at how quickly things went out of control. ‘It all happened so fast. I was fully in shock. I had petrol all over me, thinking, “If this thing goes on fire, it’s the end of Gino”.’
He blames Gordon, of course. ‘He was going on about how he was the best driver – we call him The Master Of Everything. I’m not as competitive. Genuinely. But I wanted to be fast to show him.’
The natural thing would be for him to say they learned their lesson. Not quite. ‘I think if we had the chance, we’d do it again. That’s the sort of idiots we are.’
But this show is compelling not for the food, but for the journey – and clashes between the three of them are key. As Gino says, ‘We are very different – in personality, nationality, culture. So we clash.’
And they revel in it. The show, filmed over two months, is an extended holiday, Gino admits. ‘We’re like schoolboys on a trip. The food is secondary. We are serious businessmen, but we take time off to do this and can still call it work. It’s the best job ever.’
This series takes them to the
USA (via Mexico). They visit Las Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, trying goat yoga, spear fishing, chilli-tasting (again, it’s surprising none of them end up in hospital when it gets competitive), tequila sampling, cowboy capers and wrestling. ‘It took me four days to recover,’ Fred says.
‘You see overweight guys jumping on top of each other and think it’s not that hard, but it is!’ says Gordon. But, er, the food? There is some. They taste the so-called Best Breakfast in the World, and head to the birthplace of the Caesar salad. Even that ended in chaos. ‘Gordon was dropping plates and getting annoyed,’ says Fred. ‘Oh my, I still have the cramps from laughing so much.’