A chip off the old block
As his teenage daughter gets her own cooking show on TV, we ask Gordon Ramsay: is this your worst kitchen nighmare?
You can tell the truth about a man by the way he is with his children, and big, scary Gordon Ramsay is about to have his cover blown. The most ferocious chef ever to rule a kitchen can reduce lesser mortals to human soup with his angry, foulmouthed rants, but not today.
His 13-year-old daughter Tilly is snuggling up to him on the sofa, giggling at the idea that Dad would ever lose his temper at home. ‘No!’ she says, tossing dark blonde curls. ‘He just laughs all the time.’
This is not what we expect from the host of Ramsay’s Kitchen
Nightmares and other shows in which he blows his top at anyone unwilling to learn from a chef with a multimillion-pound business empire and 14 Michelin stars in restaurants across the world.
But is he secretly just a big softie at home? ‘ Yeah, definitely,’ says Tilly, smiling, ‘Cuddly bear.’
He doesn’t even wince at that, simply smiles and pats the legs that she has draped across him on the sofa at their London home.
Ramsay is the king of the kitchen feud, the kind of chef who could start a fight with his own reflection in a saucepan, but being at home has mellowed him. He won’t even respond to the latest attack from Jamie Oliver, his long-time rival.
They have been bickering for years, and now Jamie says Gordon is ‘just a ranter’ who is always trying to take the mickey because he is ‘deeply jealous’ of the younger man’s success. The new, cuddly Ramsay dismisses that as ‘a non topic’, but then Jamie Oliver has already apologised, saying: ‘It is very irresponsible of me to take the p*** again, because I don’t want his kids to get upset.’
The truth is they probably don’t care. The life that 13-year-old Tilly Ramsay leads is untouched by such showbiz spats, for the moment – although everything will change if she becomes a television star in her own right...
The family home in a wealthy neighbourhood looks unremarkable from the outside but inside the kitchen is vast and impressive. Floor-to-ceiling windows allow light to flood in and the stove alone cost £66,000. There’s a long dining table made from a slice of some massive tree. A bulldog called Rumpole is dozing in the corner.
This is the room in which Tilly began to learn the family trade, and now she is getting her own television show with a series for CBBC.
Matilda & The Ramsay Bunch shows the youngest of the chef ’s four children (there’s also 16-yearold Megan, and twins Holly and Jack, 15) cooking simple, fun recipes such as burritos or cupcakes in the kitchen at their holiday home in Los Angeles, while other members of the family help out – or in the case of her father, get in the way.
‘I sort of dip in and out, have a bit of banter and get the hell out of there,’ he says. Actually, it’s cute and funny when he gets told off by his daughter for interfering: ‘I can do this!’ And she can. As well as being a good young cook, Tilly is naturally relaxed on camera.
She looks comfortable today in a blue sweatshirt that says Pray For Snow, but is a bit shy in person – as any young teenager would be with a stranger in her home asking awkward questions. So here’s one for Dad: is he not worried about the pressure this show might put her under at a vulnerable age?
‘I think CBBC is a bit different to Channel 4 primetime. I’m not just saying that to make a bulls*** excuse. There is a bit of a safety net. They have asked for a second series and I have said no because I don’t want to do anything until I see what Tilly and the kids feel.’
The Ramsay kids are not as intim- idated by cameras as others might be, having had them in the kitchen or the garden all their lives. All four children appeared on screen in the first series of The F-Word in 2005, when they helped raise turkeys in the back garden, and then saw the birds go off to slaughter.
Tilly was little more than a toddler, and her face was fraught with worry in the clip that showed Gordon urging them to say goodbye. ‘Bye bye turkeys,’ said her father. ‘See you in the oven!’ Son Jack was less squeamish, asking: ‘Can I see them be killed?’
With his reputation for bad language does he ban them from swearing? He nods. Isn’t that a bit hypocritical?
‘Good question,’ says Ramsay in his staccato, no-nonsense way. ‘They know I’ve said bad words. I say it is an industry language. They don’t swear. They don’t walk around shouting the f-word,’ says the man who spends hours on camera swearing like a chef who has just burnt his fingers in the soufflé.
‘Do they sit down and watch my programmes? Thankfully, everything is bleeped here. I suppose I was just too brutally honest in the beginning, and now I have got that reputation for swearing. We don’t swear at home.’ Not ever? ‘The odd
‘It’s a very disciplined household. Tana is a stick, an ex-teacher. And she’s got firmer’
s*** and c**p comes out. What can you do?’
As if on cue Ramsay’s wife Tana enters the room looking immaculate in black and almost as chiselled as her best friend, Victoria Beckham. We discuss multiple
‘Marco Pierre White was incredible early on. But all that arguing... it’s actually quite sad’
births, as something we have in common. ‘I managed twins, but triplets is a whole new ballgame,’ she says. Gordon takes instant mock offence, protesting: ‘We managed twins!’ Tana smiles, relishing the chance to put him down, at least for fun. ‘No. Let’s be honest about it, come on. You put the weight on, darling, I managed the twins.’
Ramsay has shed two stone over the last couple of years, though, thanks to his wife’s insistence on a healthier diet at home.
‘I was just saying how hard you are,’ he says to her. ‘I’m the one on the naughty step, the one who has to take a back seat.’ Tana laughs. ‘Someone has to be the grown-up, come on.’
Later, when she’s gone, he says: ‘It’s a very disciplined household. Tana is a stick. Literally. Being an ex-school teacher. It’s not fair to say she’s got worse. She’s got firmer.’
He is being astonishingly frank, but still prefers not to say anything about his relationship with his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, who used to run Gordon Ramsay Holdings until they fell out over certain deals and he was sacked in 2010. They are said not to be talking to each other any more. Tana has accused her father of ‘systematically defrauding’ her husband, but the couple now insist everything has been resolved.
There may even be an end in sight for his loudest and longestrunning feud, with fellow chef and former mentor Marco Pierre White. They fell out so badly after working together that White once vowed he would never talk to his protégé again.
‘The guy was incredible early on in my career,’ says Ramsay. ‘He was one of the very few chefs who taught me how to put food on a plate with great finesse. But all that hype and years of fighting and arguing was absolute utter bulls***. It’s actually quite sad.’
Then he shows off one of several framed photographs of Marco Pierre White that he has recently
‘The word “fame” is banned. We say “busy”. The kids know the fame is a result of hard work’
bought, and which his sworn enemy has signed: ‘To the Ram, with love, from the Bull.’
Nobody else would sign it like that, says Ramsay, who describes the gesture as ‘a very gracious thing to do’. So, have they reconciled at last? ‘We’ve never had that meeting. We have never sat down and said, “Let’s be chums.” It’s bulls***. It doesn’t work like that. The more successful you become, the more people you p*** of. That’s one thing I have learned.’
Meanwhile, Tilly sees her father in a completely different way. He’s the old softie who smuggles sugary treats into the house when her mother’s not looking. These are a respite from the healthy diet that is otherwise imposed on the Ramsay children, almost all the time.
‘Mum tries to keep us all healthy, but on a Friday night we are allowed some crisps and dips after school, before dinner. That’s our weekly treat.’
Tilly’s favourite meal to cook for the family would be a beef Wellington, because it is what her dad likes best. Is she ever tempted to become a vegetarian? ‘No. I don’t think Dad would like that. I don’t think he would be too impressed... but I think he would let me if I wanted to.’
Is he a hard task master? ‘No, he is not too hard. He makes sure everything is done, though. He is strict in a good way.’
And does he help with homework? ‘He tries…’
Let’s face it, these children are well off. Ramsay is a chef who gets accused of biting off more than he can chew, trying to run a business empire and be a TV star rather than focus on the food at his restaurants, but Forbes magazine still estimates his personal wealth at £31m. Others suggest it is twice as much. When asked where she likes to go on holiday, Tilly says: ‘I love the Maldives.’
Yet Ramsay wants his children to know the value of things. ‘We start it young, with food. The less wasteful they are with food, the less frivolous they will be with money. We encourage hand-me-downs. Tilly thinks it is quite cool, playing hockey in Jack’s old rugby boots.’
Still, they do go on cool holidays, often with their friends the Beckhams. Gordon and David became close after Ramsay catered a World Cup party in 2006, and their wives are said to be inseparable.
They are famous, their friends are famous, but the word ‘fame’ is banned in the Ramsay household, like swearing. ‘We don’t really have that word, we don’t use it. We say “busy”. They know the fame is a result of the work.’
Now the work is going to make Tilly famous in her own right. ‘Is it a bad thing? I don’t think so. Are we pushy parents? Far from it. This is a very natural thing, you can see that on screen.’
So whose idea was the show, actually? ‘That’s a very good question,’ he says, hesitating. ‘I would have to say that the idea hatched out of a conversation late one night with Pat Llewellyn.’
She is a television producer who has made several chefs into stars, including Ramsay. ‘We were filming a home cooking series here, three years back. She said, “Can I have a word?” She saw the same things in Tilly as she did when she spotted Jamie Oliver as a 23-yearold at the River Café. That level of confidence, the ability to have fun, hold your own and call it like it is.’
Now Tilly is donning her father’s chef whites for the cameras. Is this a way for the dynasty to continue?
‘I am not ready to retire,’ says Ramsay. ‘But if anyone thinks we are ever going to retire, trust me: we’ve got a little thoroughbred coming through the ranks, getting primed and ready to go.’
Matilda And The Ramsay Bunch, Tuesday, 4.55pm on CBBC.