Gordon Ramsay Biography

British chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay was born in 1966 in Johnstone, Renfrewshire and grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon. Young Gordon’s first love was football, and although he was a very talented player, multiple injuries throughout his youth and teen years made it difficult to consider playing professionally as an adult. Instead, Ramsay began to pursue a career in the culinary arts, and by the time he was nineteen, he had enrolled at North Oxfordshire Technical College to study hotel management and cuisine.

Gordon’s career in the culinary world began in the early 1980’s, at the Wroxton House Hotel as a commis chef. He then went on to work for Marco Pierre White at Harveys, then for Albert Roux at Le Gavroche, and then Ramsay continued his work for Roux but at the Hotel Diva in the French Alps. He then moved to Paris to work under the tutelage of Joel Robuchon and Guy Savoy, from Ramsay credits today as having being a highly influential mentor.

A decade later, Gordon Ramsay returned to London to work at La Tante Claire, a three-star Michelin rated restaurant in Chelsea. A chance reunion with White led to an offer to open his new restaurant, Aubergine, and so Gordon began his work at the restaurant, leading it to its first Michelin star only a year later. Another Michelin star followed in 1997, and then finally Gordon opened his first restaurant himself, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, also in Chelsea.

By the new millennium, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay had earned three Michelin stars, the highest possible rating. Around the same time, Ramsay began to appear on television, starting with appearances in the documentaries Boiling Point (1998) and Beyond the Boiling Point (2000.) By 2004, he was hosting his own television series in Britain, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and appearing on the reality show Hell’s Kitchen, his notorious flair for drama and his explosive temper bringing more and more viewers to the shows each week. In 2005, the Fox network launched an American-based version of Hell’s Kitchen, and the show continues to be one of the network’s most highly rated programs.

Today, Gordon Ramsey is the owner or operator of dozens and dozens of restaurants throughout the world; more than a dozen are located in London, but a number are also located throughout California, New York City, Florida, and Las Vegas. Ramsey also has restaurants in Canada, Italy, France, Ireland, Japan, Qatar, South Africa, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Dubai. The author of more than twenty books, Gordon Ramsey most recently released his latest, Gordon Ramsay and the Bread Street Kitchen Team: Delicious Recipes for Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner to Cook at Home, in 2016.