‘My money is not going to my children’
As Gordon Ramsay returns to TV with a family-friendly show, Emma Cox discovers that he is just as strict in the home as in the kitchen
‘I’ve never done daytime before – they’ll have to bleep me’ ‘I don’t want to be the male version of Mary Berry. I’m more wrinkly than her anyway’
Gordon Ramsay is not known for mincing his words, so it should come as no surprise to learn that writing up an interview with the outspoken chef is akin to devising an elaborate game of “fill in the blanks”. Nor that he is raising his four children in the same strict, no-nonsense style in which he runs his kitchens. Though it’s perhaps somewhat unexpected to learn that they are rarely allowed to eat in his restaurants.
“I’ve never been really turned on about the money,” he tells me, in a break from filming his new daytime TV cookery show (now this a surprise, which we’ll come back to). “That’s not my number one objective, and that’s reflected in the way the kids are brought up.
“Last time we went to Royal Hospital Road [Ramsay’s three Michelin starred flagship restaurant in Chelsea] was for Megan’s 16th birthday, and that was the first time we’ve ever eaten there with the kids. They have served the Chelsea pensioners there for Christmas lunch, but not eaten there.”
It appears his stringent parenting stance doesn’t relax, even on holiday: “They don’t sit with us in first class. They haven’t worked anywhere near hard enough to afford that. At that age, at that size, you’re telling me they need to sit in first class? No, they do not. We’re really strict on that.
“I turn left with Tana and they turn right and I say to the chief stewardess, ‘Make sure those little f------ don’t come anywhere near us, I want to sleep on this plane’. I worked my f------ arse off to sit that close to the pilot and you appreciate it more when you’ve grafted for it.”
His ethos is undoubtedly a product of his own tough upbringing. He was born in Glasgow and brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon by Gordon Snr, an abusive, alcoholic womaniser, who took out his frustrations on his young wife, Helen. Ramsay moved out of the family home aged 16.
The chef is now married to former teacher Tana, 42, and has homes in Wandsworth, south London, Los Angeles and Cornwall, and businesses dotted around the world. He is said to earn as much as Beyoncé; both made $54 million (£43 million) last year, according to Forbes.
Yet the Ramsay children – Matilda, 15, Jack and Holly, 17, and Megan, 18 – earn their own money and have been brought up helping out charities such as Great Ormond Street Hospital.
“Tana came from a super set-up, and I’m just ‘educated rough’ from a council estate,” he admits. “So we meet in the middle and the kids bounce off both of us. They have a completely different life than I did growing up. I worked my arse off to get out of the s--- mess that I grew up in and they’re grateful, they’re not spoilt.
“Meg’s at uni and has a budget of £100 a week; the others get about £50 a week and they have to pay for their own phones, their bus fare. The earlier you give them that responsibility to save for their own trainers and jeans, the better.
“They all cook as a life skill, as opposed to a career. I never want to put that onus on them. I don’t want them with a badge, going into a kitchen [with people] thinking that’s Ramsay’s daughter or that’s Ramsay’s son.”
He announced that Tana was expecting their fifth child – a second son – on James Corden’s The Late Late Show in the US, last year; but they were left grief-stricken when she miscarried, five months into the pregnancy.
He has since revealed he was buoyed by the support of celebrity friends Jamie and Jools Oliver, and the Beckhams – and that getting through the devastating loss together “made the family unit even tighter”.
His teenagers certainly take after him: psychology student Megan is about to run the London Marathon for the first time to raise money for Great Ormond Street, reflecting her father’s passions for running as well as charity work. Jack is the spitting image of his dad (“but with a few less wrinkles”) and wants to become a Marine; Tilly has her own CBBC cookery show, Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch; while Holly is interested in fashion and wisecracks as well as her dad.
Whatever they end up doing, they will have to make their own way in life, as Ramsay has no intention of leaving his fortune to them in his will.
“It’s definitely not going to them, and that’s not in a mean way; it’s to not spoil them,” he says. “The only thing I’ve agreed with Tana is that they get a 25 per cent deposit on a flat, but not the whole flat.
“I’ve been super-lucky, having that career for the past 15 years in the US. Seriously, it has earned a fortune and I’ve been very lucky, so I respect everything I’ve got.”
For a while, we seemed to have lost Ramsay to the States, but he is currently back with a bang, with a three-programme deal on ITV that included a week-long stint fronting
The Nightly Show last month and a hard-hitting documentary due to broadcast later this year.
Next week, he hits daytime screens with Culinary Genius, made by his own production company, Studio Ramsay, in which would-be cooks compete for a cash prize, judged by a different chef each week and hosted by Fern Britton.
Ramsay is the star chef for the first week: a move that may raise eyebrows among those who have been following his career since he first crashed on to our screens with his big quiff and potty mouth on the slightly anarchic primetime shows, Kitchen Nightmares and The F Word.
“I’ve never done daytime before,” he admits. ‘S---! I’m f-----, basically. I thought they’d wheel me out at 10pm. They’ll have to bleep me.
“I used to get really antsy about TV chefs, which was very hypocritical of me. I used to watch Ready Steady T--and how hypocritical, here I am now, with Culinary Genius?
“[But] I’ve been blown away by the standard. There have been some great skills this week. It’s hard to believe they’re amateurs. We are, as a nation, cooking more than ever before.”
Watching some of the shows being recorded, I’m somewhat surprised to see the proponent of tough love dishing out blue plasters and hugs to some of the contestants.
Having celebrated his 50th birthday in Las Vegas last year, he’s not going soft in his old age, surely?
“F---, no!” he laughs loudly. “Tell me if I am, because I’ll get the f--out of here. I’ll go back to Channel Four. They did ask me for Bake Off, anyway…”
Interesting. His name has not previously been linked with the show, whose format was controversially sold by Love Productions from BBC One to Channel 4, prompting judge Mary Berry and hosts Mel and Sue to jump ship in protest. Did he not fancy joining Paul Hollywood on what is, after all, a readymade hit?
“I’m not very good at sloppy seconds,” Ramsay admits. “I don’t want to be the male version of Mary Berry. I’m 30 years younger and more wrinkly than her anyway.
“I think, [as] with Top Gear, we have an asset that is a crown jewel within a network: 14.5 million [viewers] – there will never be another cookery show with that number, ever again.
“For me, Bake Off is like the Queen: it’s something to be respected, listened to and cared for. Not sold off.”
And he’s off again. He may have to watch his mouth in his unlikely new guise as the don of daytime TV, but it’s good to have him back.