Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant Empire in Hot Water

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,482726,00.html

Gordon Ramsay's Restaurant Empire in Hot Water

It looks like celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay may be in a bit of a pinch as he faces a tumbling restaurant empire, the tax man and allegations of infidelity.

His flagship restaurant in London, Foxtrot Oscar, has closed for two days a week, and his two other London restaurants are for sale, the New York Post reports.

Eight months ago the 42-year-old's company was loaned $14 million by the Royal Bank of Scotland, according to documents. And he allegedly owes two years worth of back taxes.

There are also rumors that some restaurants owned by the "Hell's Kitchen" star are asking for extended time to pay suppliers — in some cases, as long as six to eight months — though the chef's reps have denied this claim, the Post reports.

[Monk06]

1. That's what you get for putting goat cheese and walnuts in brocollii soup.

Or maybe his habit of wrapping stuffed chicken
breasts in bacon.

[charlie and algernon]

2. stuffed chicken wrapped in bacon?

the hell? What's wrong with having chicken topped with whatever with a side of bacon? why the need to combine it all?

[Monk06]

12. That's not the worst of it. He wraps the breast in bacon, poaches it for half an hour then

FRIES IT IN A SKILLET !!!!

Leave it to the English to find a way to combine boiling
and frying to a meat dish.

[kentauros]

3. Well, that's what happens to assholes.

I'll be happy to not see him or his shows anywhere.

Maybe, someday, we'll get food shows that don't focus on the assholes. Whatever happened to the quality shows like Julia Child's various shows or something like The Frugal Gourmet? (yes, I know both are deceased.)

Why are calm, truly educational food shows not popular?

[charlie and algernon]

4. I like Top Chef

It's still got some of the drama but for the most part is all about the quality of food.

[kentauros]

6. I just don't watch any of those "reality" cooking shows.

I've worked in Food Service and worked with assholes, both co-workers and chefs. I learned far more with the ones willing to teach me, than the ones that only wanted to be the "boss". And that's all I see in these reality cooking shows. Maybe they can "teach" if only the hard way. "Great Chefs of the West" is a helluva better series than any of the reality ones :D

[Connonym]

30. let's not forget the Frugal Gourmet was a pedophile

just sayin'

[RebelOne]

32. Cooking shows are the only reality TV programs I watch. n/t

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

35. Top Chef is MUCH better than Ramsey's lame Hell's Kitchen

At least they have experience and some flair in Top Chef. I think I'm a pretty good cook, but I could never survive some of the tasks that they are given and the time constraints.

Hell's Kitchen, on the other hand, always seems to be filled with half-wits with very negligible kitchen experience. All they do on that show is cook from a set menu with Ramsey's recipes. It's basically who can become a proficient line cook. I can't see why anyone of them would qualify as the winner to be running their own kitchen in a top restaurant as the prize. I bet they last about 2 weeks.

[SacredCow]

5. That "cooking with Julia" series.....

where they paired her with an up and coming "celebrity" chef was often VERY funny, though unintentionally... You could so often just see and hear her disdain for whomever she was with. The one with that hack Emeril, for example, was an absolute laugh-riot!!!

I can NOT imagine how she would have put down that loudmouth Ramsay....

:rofl:

[kentauros]

7. I think I remember some of those "incidents"

;) though I tended to watch only the ones that were about baking and pastry as that's my forte in cooking :D

I would have loved to have seen her deal with Ramsay and Bobby Flay

Now, if it's meant to be comedy, Lenny henry's Chef! is not only watchable, but the best way to watch an asshole at work! :rofl:

[SacredCow]

9. Julia had such a great sense of humor....

I remember seeing her on some morning show or other, and the host picked up an eggplant out of a basket of produce in front of them and said, "Oh, isn't this a beautiful squash?" Julia didn't miss a beat and grabbed a turnip and said, "Yes, and isn't this a glorious tomato?" (my vegetables may be wrong- that was a long time ago, but you get the idea!)

[kentauros]

11. Oh, that's great!

:rofl:
And sounds so typical of her. She did have a wonderful sense of humor. My mother has told me of her making funny comments as she made streudel one time on her old show in the early 60s, too. She had to slap the dough on the counter pretty hard, and was saying something funny about the act of it, though I don't know what.

I remember seeing her in another interview where she said that she and her husband would once a year pull out the recording of Dan Ackroyd imitating her on SNL. They thought it was hilarious! :D

[PunkinPi]

13. Love Chef!

I can hear him now, "EVERTON!" :rofl:

[yellowdogintexas]

21. I gave my daughter's boyfriend the boxed set of 'Chef!' ..since he is in chef school

so he would know how NOT to be an asshole.

[kentauros]

26. Great Idea!

:D

I'm sure he'll not only enjoy it, but find plenty of parallels to people he meets and works with/for ;)

[keroro gunsou]

23. you're damn skippy

you long-haired, hamfisted, ignorant PILLOCK!

lenny henry owns that role.

i can't think of any one else doing it... well, other than my grandfather.... :D

[keroro gunsou]

24. a better chef rant

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=cfOCak7wh1U&NR=1

illegal cheese!

[Burma Jones]

8. There's still Jacques Pepin

I kinda miss Nathalie Dupree....Much better than Paula Deen.....

We get a PBS cable channel called create, and they have what I believe would be the kind of cooking shows you (and I) prefer.....

http://www.createtv.com/

[kentauros]

10. Okay, thanks

:D

Jacques Pepin sounds really familiar. I think he may have been on that "Cooking with Julia" show, too.

I know there's one of those "holistic living" channels on Dish, but I haven't looked at their schedule enough to know if they've got any cooking shows. When Wisdom Channel still existed, they had a really good vegetarian show, although it looked like it was originally recorded in the 70s

[WinkyDink]

14. "Why are calm, truly educational food shows not popular?" There's your answer!

[kentauros]

16. Why because Americans are stupid?

Oh wait... :P

[LostinVA]

22. "The Frugal Gourmet" was canceled when it was discover Jeff Smith was a pedophile

And, "Top Chef" is very good, as is Giada DeLaurentiis' show.

[RetroLounge]

25. I think it was never proven

"His public career came to an end when two of his male assistant chefs brought charges of sexual harassment against him. Shortly thereafter, in 1998, seven men alleged that he had sexually assaulted them in the 1970s, when they worked for him. Smith denied the accusations. He was taken off the air shortly afterward. Though he was never charged with a crime, he settled with theI plaintiffs out of court, and never returned to the airwaves."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Smith_(TV_personality)

No mention of pedophilia or underage anything.

Yeah, I now it's wiki and not a good source, looking for more now.

Ah, here's more info. They were teens... http://www.current.org/people/peop813s.html

:hi:

RL

[TommyO]

33. One of my favorites is Secrets of a Restaurant Chef

with Anne Burrell. She manages to take her experience and distill it down for us home-based foodie wannabes. I've tried a number of recipes from her Saturday morning show and they just work.

[LostinVA]

37. That's a great show

[Robeson]

15. Que Gordon Ramsay: ...

...You've got to be bloody shitting me! What the fuck is this?

[kentauros]

17. And why the closing sentences of my favorite chef-story on Houston Press.com

depicts the asshole-chef perfectly:

You'll soon learn that keeping your mouth shut, your eyes down and your nose to the grindstone is just the bit of sugar you need to make that inevitable spoonful of disciplinary medicine go down easier. Swallowing a bit of pride will help, too. Learn it here and now, or learn it the hard way.

Like me. I've been choked by a chef for running out of Caesar dressing on a busy weekend. His frothy, panicked words -- "This is not a joke to me, motherfucker!" -- still ring in my ears at night when all goes quiet and I'm left alone in thought.

Chefs Rule!

I have to wonder how often he's been hit by a hot pan (or its contents) or cut by a cook that didn't take kindly to his assholiness...? Kitchens are dangerous places from the people that work in them, too.

[Wapsie B]

18. I just have one question, why does the cooking world

attract borderline personalities and prima donnas like Ramsay? I know in the art world there can be a fine line between brilliance and insanity but it seems some of these chefs need to be in a rubber room rather than a kitchen.

[kentauros]

27. I really wish I knew the answer to that one...

Maybe it's the power associated with it.

I also know that you can either do cooking school for tens of thousands of dollars (think C.I.A., Art Institute, Le Cordon Bleu), or work your way up over the years (usually at least ten years) or take an apprenticeship. The latter is where you become like a literal slave to the chef for whom you are apprenticing.

The first year to year and a half (it's three years of intensive "training") you don't actually learn anything from the chef. It's all just grunt work, clean-up and so on.

The second year the chef will begin to teach the basics as they know them in addition to plenty of grunt work.

The third year is more akin to learning to be like the sous chef without the title or background experience. Even after all that, you still have to work your way up the ladder in food service, although the apprenticeship does give you a leg-up kind of like what a chef graduate would have. It's just the more "traditional" method of learning the trade. And where these prima donna chefs get to really treat you like dirt for their power trips.

[GCP]

19. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy

:sarcasm:

[deucemagnet]

20. 42?

Jeez, I would never have guessed he was a day under 50! I guess that's what a high-stress profession can do to you.

[HarukaTheTrophyWife]

28. He has looked 50 since he was 25

[Liberal_in_LA]

29. He has a face like one of those shar pei dogs. He has enough sense of humor

to let people joke about it to his face.

[Liberal_in_LA]

31. More on Ramsey: RAMSAY'S GOOSE GETTING COOKED CELEB CHEF'S EMPIRE IN FREE FALL

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01252009/news/regionalnews/ramsays_goose_getting_cooked_151984.htm

RAMSAY'S GOOSE GETTING COOKED
CELEB CHEF'S EMPIRE IN FREE FALL

His kitchen nightmares extend to the bedroom, too, with recent embarrassing headline-grabbing accounts that the married Scotsman had a seven-year affair.

To make matters worse, Ramsay, 42, just fired his p.r. guru, Garry Farrow, the man heralded with helping him become the top celebrity chef in the world, not to mention the richest, with a personal fortune of $83 million.

Farrow also managed to suppress the roar of the British media, which skewered Ramsay after his alleged mistress, Sarah Symonds, unleashed bombshell allegations complete with titillating details about his penchant for the sex drug amyl nitrate.

Farrow's company went into overdrive as more women came forward claiming to have had flings with the foul-mouthed food icon.

[dropkickpa]

34. Considering the state of the economy worldwide

Not nearly as shocking or titillating as the article makes it seem. The restaurant industry as a whole is REALLY hurting right now. People can't afford to go out to eat when they can barely afford ramen at home.

[BarenakedLady]

36. I can't NOT watch him

I find him facinating in a really irritating way. More often than not, one of his shows is playing on my tv at any given time of the day. Well, unless he's having his pet sheep slaughtered, then I just run from the room in horror.

:scared: