Ramsay: Exercise helps me to cope
GORDON Ramsay has told how he took up extreme exercise because he did not want the pressure of cooking to kill him.
He cited the example of David Dempsey, head chef of his flagship London restaurant, who fell to his death from a block of flats in 2003.
An inquest heard that the 31-yearold protégé of Ramsay had suffered a bad reaction to cocaine.
Ramsay now s ees marathon running, cycling and swimming as a release from operating his restaurant empire.
The 47-year-old said: ‘I’m not working harder, I’m working smarter, that’s an important turning point for every chef. I don’t want to stand there and sweat and panic and worry; I want a life outside the kitchen. I’m in the best shape of my life.
‘There have been quite a few chefs over the past decade: Santi Santamaria died of a heart attack; depression set in with Bernard Loiseau, who committed suicide.
‘I lost a chef years ago to a nasty addiction to cocaine, so I keep myself fit. Last year I did my first Ironman in Hawaii – it’s a 3.8km swim, 180km bike ride, then a marathon.’
Ramsay, who has just opened his first restaurant in Hong Kong, called Bread Street Kitchen, said: ‘I look at my restaurants and I think of my mum. Would she be more comfortable in Bread Street Kitchen or in the Restaurant Gordon Ramsay? Bread Street Kitchen 100 times over, because Restaurant Gordon Ramsay is not where I came from.’