Daily Mail - Daily Mail Weekend Magazine
I’m allowed a little cry, aren’t I?
how are they going to learn to manage financially?’ he asks.
He may be, according to Forbes’ Rich List, the 34th-highest- earning celebrity in the world (tied with Beyonce), but he is intent on ensuring his children remain level-headed and unspoiled, that they earn their own pocket money. ‘They’re at an age when they want little part-time jobs,’ he says. ‘They’ve asked, “Do you want any help in the restaurants? Do you want me at The Savoy on Sunday?” But I don’t want my team there thinking, “We can’t be ourselves because the Ramsay kids are here.” They don’t want that added pressure. So I’d much rather the children went off and found themselves jobs elsewhere.’
Tilly, who shares his birthday – he will be 50 in November on the day she turns 15 – is the most likely of his children to follow his career. A third series of Matilda And The Ramsay Bunch, in which she larks about with her siblings while cooking and chatting with effortless fluency – a trick she’s learned from her dad – has been commissioned. She’s also writing her first little cookery book, Gordon reveals. He, too, has a new cookery book out: Bread Street Kitchen features mouthwatering recipes – a mix of healthy and indulgent treats perfect for family meals – from his restaurant of the same name near St Paul’s Cathedral, London, and Weekend readers are treated to an exclusive preview of some of the most delicious dishes at the back of this magazine. The book offers all kinds of meals from quick weekday suppers to breakfasts and Sunday lunches; from hearty snacks and meals for sharing to dinners for entertaining. Gordon gives us his version of the brunch favourite French toast – served with bacon or berries – and turns the humble Scotch egg into a luxury treat by using minced venison instead of pork. There’s a glorious Sunday beef sirloin roast with caramelised onion gravy, and melting chocolate fondants, and he shares his secret for the perfect beef burger.
He’s adapted the restaurant recipes to make them accessible to all: for example, he advocates shop-bought puff pastry for a tarte tatin. ‘Why should you worry about making it when bought is just as good?’ he says reasonably. ‘Some chefs’ books are a bit intimidating, but this one is lively, fun; an easy book to cook from,’ he promises, adding, ‘if you’re sceptical of eating indulgent desserts, share one – we encourage this at the restaurant.’
He says he has particular affection for Bread Street Kitchen. ‘It’s five years old this month and it was the first big restaurant I opened after I parted company with my father-in-law,’ he explains. He’s referring to the acrimonious bust- up in 2010 with Tana’s father Chris Hutcheson, who had been CEO of the family business. Chris left his post amid allegations of financial irregularities: accounts showed he had borrowed up to £1.5 million from the company, although he insisted that he’d repaid the money.
The rift was deep. In the fallout, the machinations of Chris Hutcheson’s ‘complex’ private life emerged. Aside from the children he’d raised with wife Greta, Tana’s mother, he had a secret mistress who lived in the same village – Tenterden in Kent – with whom he’d fathered two children. Further claims
and counterclaims ensued. Tana’s mother Greta told her daughter she was ‘not welcome’ at their home. Two years later, a legal settlement was reached: Gordon paid his father-inlaw £2 million and severed all professional and personal links. ‘I wanted to get into a room with Chris and say, “Cut the c**p. How much money do you want to go?” But sadly he fought through the courts to the bitter end,’ he told me when we last met. ‘When the s**t hit the fan, Tana came out here to LA and Victoria [Beckham] opened doors in the right places and made it a lot easier for us to settle... It felt like a breath of fresh air.’
Today, after everything that’s happened, the Ramsays are focusing on the positive. Tana and Gordon hope to renew their wedding vows next year and Gordon’s mum Helen, 70, has been encouraging them. ‘She said, “Can I make the cake?” and I said, “But Mum, we need a cake that looks stunning.” Mum’s cakes taste amazing but don’t look quite as good. If she makes it I’ll have to cover it in a big drape.’ He roars with laughter.
We talk about Bake Off, and its defection – without the blessed Mary Berry and Mel-and-Sue combo – to Channel 4. Will it still work, with just Paul Hollywood remaining from the star lineup? ‘It will never be the same,’ he says. ‘It can’t work as well, any more than Top Gear did without Jeremy Clarkson. To have got 15 million viewers for a Victoria sponge in a tent in Berkshire is amazing, and the show will always be judged against that level of success. Mary is iconic.’
When we meet, Gordon’s bursting with suppressed energy, which he’s used to expending in extreme feats of physical endeavour. He takes part in Iron Man triathlons – demanding tests of stamina – for his Great Ormond Street Hospital children’s charity, but these have been put on hold during his recovery from the torn Achilles. ‘I was chasing Jack in the garden,’ he explains. ‘You think, at 49, you can compete with your teenage son, because in your mind you’re still 25. But it was a wake-up call. I was writhing on the ground and Jack said, “Stop messing around, Dad. Get up. I’ll give you a head start,” and I said, “It’s not a head start I want. It’s a doctor!”’
After the injury, in the last week of May, he spent ten weeks on crutches. ‘But I needed to do something. I was so pumped up,’ he says. ‘I’d do pressups on my knees; put a 30lb rucksack on my back when I was still on crutches.’ Today he’s still unable to run, but hopes to celebrate his half century by starting to train for another Iron Man.
There are, as ever, a multitude of projects in the pipeline: in Cornwall, where the family has a holiday home, plans to rebuild it have been given the green light. Will Gordon open a restaurant there? ‘ Nooo,’ he roars. ‘The last thing I want to do is open a restaurant in Cornwall. I’ll leave it to the boys who are already there. You might catch me running over to Rick Stein’s for fish and chips and swimming back. But no restaurant. I work hard for my holidays and don’t want them interrupted. You need to switch off. And that takes a lot for a control freak like me.’
It’s a rare admission: workaholic Gordon Ramsay scheduling in family time. He’s aware, I imagine, that the children will soon fly the nest. Time with them is precious. Jack, l ike Holly studying for Alevels, wants to join the Marines. ‘He adores Bear Grylls,’ says Gordon. ‘He thinks Grylls is a good chef because he cooks up a storm over a flame in the wilderness, and I tell him, “Trust me, a pot full of camel b*****ks is not a gourmet meal.”’
There’s plenty of good-natured competitiveness in the Ramsay household. Tilly, it seems, has inherited her dad’s mischief and drive. ‘She says to her brother and sisters, “I love seeing you cook because it makes me realise how much better I am.” And I find myself being a referee. You hear, “Jack, that’s unfair!” and “Princess Tilly gets everything!” Which, of course, she doesn’t.’
Tilly has joked that she intends to go to Jamie’s Italian, her ‘favourite’ restaurant, for her birthday dinner. ‘And she’ll probably ask to see him personally and Skype me a picture of them both. What a kick in the g**lies for your dad on his 50th birthday,’ laughs Gordon. Gordon Ramsay Bread Street Kitchen (Hodder & Stoughton, £25) is published on Thursday. Matilda And The Ramsay Bunch, tomorrow, 10.35am, CBBC. Hell’s Kitchen, Wednesday, 9pm, ITV2. Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, Mon-Thu, 11am, Channel 4.