Gordon Ramsay

Scottish by birth, Gordon was brought up in Stratford-upon-Avon, England, from the age of five. With an injury prematurely cutting short a promising career in professional football with the Glasgow Rangers, he went back to college to complete a course in hotel management.

Ramsay’s first years in the kitchen were spent training under culinary luminaries such as Marco Pierre White and Albert Roux in London, after which he moved to France where he worked in the kitchens of Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon for three years where he was able to enhance his expertise in classic French cooking. In 1993, Gordon became chef of the newly opened Aubergine, within three years the restaurant was awarded two Michelin stars.

In 1998 at the age of 31, Gordon set up his first wholly owned restaurant, Gordon Ramsay, in London’s Chelsea area. A year later he opened Pétrus with his protegé, Marcus Wareing, as Chef Patron in London's St. James's Street. Within seven months, it had won a Michelin star. That level of success followed him when, in October 2001, Gordon opened Gordon Ramsay in Claridge's, which gained a Michelin star in 2003. By 2003 Gordon's award-winning food was now being served in another famous London hotel, The Savoy. Set inside the art-deco splendor of the hotel, Banquette followed the earlier opening of The Savoy Grill, which also won Marcus Wareing a Michelin star in 2004.

May 2004 also saw Gordon Ramsay star in the Channel 4 series Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, later to be awarded a BAFTA and an International Emmy. Shortly after this, Gordon was given two weeks to direct a group of celebrities towards Michelin standard cooking in the ITV series Hell's Kitchen. 2005 confirmed Gordon as one of the UK's major television stars. A second series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was followed by the debut of Channel 4's The F-Word, a high-octane food show with cooking, food campaigns, and celebrity guests which remains one of Channel 4’s highest rating shows. The third series of US Hell’s Kitchen was named the top rated show of Summer 2007, and a few months later, the American version of Kitchen Nightmares made its successful debut.