The 15 Best Lines From Gordon Ramsay’s FT Interview

Big Shouty, Big Sweary Gordon Ramsay, who is now 50, has been speaking to the Financial Times about, well, everything. In the interview, there are some spectacularly Ramsay-esque lines. It seems middle-age hasn’t forced him to sit on the fence on any issue and he still enjoys the F-word. Here are the 15 best lines from the interview:

1. About nothing in particular, he suggests: “Things can be fucking brilliant. Things can be good, and fucking well deserved. And fucking congratulations.”

2. He recalls the evening of the U.S. Presidential Election in November last year: “[Trump] completely fucked my dinner. I’ve never seen a dining room fucking curdle and go so silent in all my life. At the beginning of the dinner it was looking like Hillary, and by dessert they had a new president. It was a shell shock.”

3. His routine, described in the same staccato way he instructs his recipes: “I got up this morning at about half past four...Quick hour in the gym, then took the dogs for a walk, got back and woke them all [his family] up. And yeah, hit the ground running.”

4. He can look after himself: “I’m not very good at being babysat.”

5. On his physique: “I’m a big guy, I know what to do.”

6. On Marco Pierre-White is he says, succinctly: “Crazy motherfucker.” He goes on later to say, “Marco pushed us. Oh my God, that guy was ruthless, but fucking brilliantly ruthless, because he just wanted the best, and if you didn’t give him the best, he’d let you know.”

7. About the industry that no longer has too many hallmarks of his influence: “In general, British restaurants are “way less pretentious than we were in the 90s”.

8. He helpfully reminds us of the opening line from No Shit, Sherlock: “Money has made life easier.”

9. Given the troubles he’s had being in business with his father-in-law, he proffers some wisdom: “One lesson to any young chef out there: never mix family with business.” He expands, with trademark eloquence: “If one of my daughters’ boyfriends asked me for a pint in a couple years’ time and said, ‘Hey Mr Ramsay, I’m thinking of setting up this burger chain. Would you be interested in investing?’ . . . You can fuck, right, off. With a capital F! And two capital Fs at the end!”

10. As if anyone didn’t actually know that Ramsay was seldom in the kitchen anymore, he recalls an encounter on a plane: “Yesterday, the stewardess on the plane was taking her mum to The Narrow [his London gastropub] and she asked, ‘Are you cooking there?’ I said, ‘Are you fucking mad?’ I don’t go and put Yorkshire puddings in the oven on Sunday lunch.”

11. Without actually swearing he says: “[Swearing is] an industry language. Chefs cook better when they swear.”

12. Politics isn’t for him: “Let me just say, thank fuck I’m not in politics. Jamie can campaign for all he wants. Keep me out of the political world, I have no interest whatsoever.”

13. Michelin like him, so he likes them: “Michelin understand the pressure of business. I know that the Good Food Guide and the AA Guide are all out high-fiving one another and comping bills, you don’t do that with Michelin. They’re there for the public, they don’t give a damn about the name.”

14. His maître d’ at Aubergine, Jeanne Claude Breton, kicked out a Michelin inspector the first time the Red Guide attempted to try his food: “[Breton] came down to me and his hand was shaking. He said, ‘This gentleman’s just given me his card.’ I said, ‘Jean-Claude, this is a fucking Michelin inspector, why has he given me his card?’ He said, ‘I’ve just kicked him out. Well, he didn’t confirm his table, so I gave his table away.’ [Now] I laugh about it.”

15. One Ferrari wasn’t enough, but he’s not going brag about it: “I grew up dreaming of a Ferrari black horse, so now that I have a few, it’s exciting but I don’t want to push it in people’s faces. That’s the difference. I don’t like showing off.”

• ‘I’m a big guy. I know what to do’: the story of Gordon Ramsay [Financial Times/paywall]