the cameras in on his life. But at 31 he thought he had no choice. Any publicity was good publicity, he believed. So he signed on the dotted line. His life was going to be public property like never before.
Channel 4 was overjoyed. ‘We chose Gordon because he’s the best chef in Britain and because he makes great television,’ a spokesman told the Mail on Sunday just beforethe series was aired. What they had loved most about him during filming was that he was the classic good-looking, angry young man, full of passion, contradictions and surprises – a genius chef with hooligan tendencies. Better still, he didn’t care if all of it was captured on camera.
When the show’s producers looked at the early tapes, they knew straight away what the series should be called: Boiling Point . Shown over nearly two months, it covered Gordon’s final days at Aubergine as well as the high-stress opening of Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. As promised, it also opened the door on the reality of life in a kitchen and on the take-no-prisoners style of this particular chef. Gordon was shown yelling and swearing viciously at almost every member of his kitchen team from the moment the opening credits had ended. ‘Episode One ended with an employee cycling away in tears after being fired, Ramsay muttering: “I don’t give a shit,” as he went. For Episode Three, a special occasion in which the president of Michelin visited the restaurant, Ramsay rose to the occasion and wheeled out the c-word,’ was how one newspaper summed it up.
Throw in some gratuitous insults of the people who supplied the restaurant with food, Gordon’s extraordinary fury when he found out a turbot had been overcooked by 30 seconds and his relentless demands for better work, and a television phenomenon was born. ‘Every dish, every meal, every day has to be perfection’ became Gordon’s mantra on the show – repeated endlessly and with an ever-increasing choice of key adjectives in almost every episode. ‘Is your brain in your fucking arse, you fucking fat bastard?’ he had screamed, to give one example from the first show.‘You’re going to lose your job, dick-head,’ he crowed in the next. ‘What about opening your big French eyes, arsehole?’ he roared, rounding things off nicely.
What also made headlines was Gordon’s uncompromising attitude to the food his staff were creating. Any imperfections and it was thrown back at them – sometimes literally. Whole platefuls, and often the plates themselves, were flung into the bin every evening. It was like no kitchen viewers had ever seen before.
‘The man is clearly an ogre and rarely has television witnessed anybody being so vile to their staff,’ said one reviewer.
Others found they had an even stronger reaction. ‘Shortly after watching Boiling Point , about Britain’s most brilliant and furious young chef, I had to go out for a walk, just to cool down. I was seething with directionless rage, catching it off Ramsay, whose profanities tumble out of his gob in a hailstorm of abuse, firing off invective which seems to be both deeply personal and yet random, as if the whole world needs bollocking all the time,’ wrote Charles Jennings, television reviewer of the Observer .
And readers of the tabloids were getting pretty much the same message – though in shorter words they could tailor to their own purposes. Gordon says a group of brickies, scaffolders and other workmen taking their lunch breaks on London’s Tottenham Court Road took to shouting: ‘Table Nine, you fucking arsehole!’ whenever they saw him heading down the road to work, for example.
Long famous for his four-course meals, Gordon had a new trademark: his liberal use of four-letter words. He tried to laugh off the criticism, saying he was using thelanguage of the industry and had nothing to apologise for. But not everyone agreed.
Viewers had flooded the broadcasting watchdog the Independent Television Commission with complaints
Channel 4 was overjoyed. ‘We chose Gordon because he’s the best chef in Britain and because he makes great television,’ a spokesman told the Mail on Sunday just beforethe series was aired. What they had loved most about him during filming was that he was the classic good-looking, angry young man, full of passion, contradictions and surprises – a genius chef with hooligan tendencies. Better still, he didn’t care if all of it was captured on camera.
When the show’s producers looked at the early tapes, they knew straight away what the series should be called: Boiling Point . Shown over nearly two months, it covered Gordon’s final days at Aubergine as well as the high-stress opening of Gordon Ramsay in Chelsea. As promised, it also opened the door on the reality of life in a kitchen and on the take-no-prisoners style of this particular chef. Gordon was shown yelling and swearing viciously at almost every member of his kitchen team from the moment the opening credits had ended. ‘Episode One ended with an employee cycling away in tears after being fired, Ramsay muttering: “I don’t give a shit,” as he went. For Episode Three, a special occasion in which the president of Michelin visited the restaurant, Ramsay rose to the occasion and wheeled out the c-word,’ was how one newspaper summed it up.
Throw in some gratuitous insults of the people who supplied the restaurant with food, Gordon’s extraordinary fury when he found out a turbot had been overcooked by 30 seconds and his relentless demands for better work, and a television phenomenon was born. ‘Every dish, every meal, every day has to be perfection’ became Gordon’s mantra on the show – repeated endlessly and with an ever-increasing choice of key adjectives in almost every episode. ‘Is your brain in your fucking arse, you fucking fat bastard?’ he had screamed, to give one example from the first show.‘You’re going to lose your job, dick-head,’ he crowed in the next. ‘What about opening your big French eyes, arsehole?’ he roared, rounding things off nicely.
What also made headlines was Gordon’s uncompromising attitude to the food his staff were creating. Any imperfections and it was thrown back at them – sometimes literally. Whole platefuls, and often the plates themselves, were flung into the bin every evening. It was like no kitchen viewers had ever seen before.
‘The man is clearly an ogre and rarely has television witnessed anybody being so vile to their staff,’ said one reviewer.
Others found they had an even stronger reaction. ‘Shortly after watching Boiling Point , about Britain’s most brilliant and furious young chef, I had to go out for a walk, just to cool down. I was seething with directionless rage, catching it off Ramsay, whose profanities tumble out of his gob in a hailstorm of abuse, firing off invective which seems to be both deeply personal and yet random, as if the whole world needs bollocking all the time,’ wrote Charles Jennings, television reviewer of the Observer .
And readers of the tabloids were getting pretty much the same message – though in shorter words they could tailor to their own purposes. Gordon says a group of brickies, scaffolders and other workmen taking their lunch breaks on London’s Tottenham Court Road took to shouting: ‘Table Nine, you fucking arsehole!’ whenever they saw him heading down the road to work, for example.
Long famous for his four-course meals, Gordon had a new trademark: his liberal use of four-letter words. He tried to laugh off the criticism, saying he was using thelanguage of the industry and had nothing to apologise for. But not everyone agreed.
Viewers had flooded the broadcasting watchdog the Independent Television Commission with complaints
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