Gordon’s new nightmare as restaurant plunges £15m into the red
DINERS have been scathing in their criticism about the small portions served up at Gordon Ramsay’s York & Albany restaurant – but the venue has been eating a giant hole in the fiery chef’s bank balance.
For I can reveal that the ailing restaurant in trendy Camden, North London, has sunk even further into the red and has racked up losses totalling a staggering £15million since opening in 2008.
The figure appears in the ‘accumulated losses’ column of the latest financial statement. The records also reveal that the establishment made losses of more than £550,000 in just one year, to the end of August 2019.
And things could be about to get even worse for the Kitchen Nightmare star, pictured right. The disastrous number was for a period months before lockdown in the UK, which had a devastating impact on the high street. All of Ramsay’s restaurants closed in March and have only recently started to reopen.
In the new accounting figures filed to Companies House last week, the star’s team warn that the full impact of Covid-19 ‘is not yet known’.
The books show that he has personally given guarantees of £5million to shore up the businesses.
York & Albany has proved a huge headache for Ramsay. Years ago it was revealed that he had signed a deal guaranteeing to pay a staggering £640,000-a-year rent on the premises for 25 years, meaning he will fork out £16million over the course of the lease.
And the restaurant has had its troubles on TripAdvisor. Last week, a scathing review appeared on the site, criticising what it claimed was a small steak and ‘over-salted’ chips for £23. The one-star review was titled, ‘Gordon is not Heston’, referring to rival Heston Blumenthal.
A spokesman for Ramsay declined to comment.