six part<\/em> \u2013 documentary, follows the chef \u2019n\u2019 TV personality as he embarks on his most ambitious venture yet. It\u2019s \u201cA huge undertaking\u201d, \u201chigh risk, high reward\u201d, a \u201conce in a lifetime opportunity\u201d and \u201cone of my final stakes in the ground \u2026 If it fails, I\u2019m fucked.\u201d It is opening seven billion (five, but it feels like seven billion) restaurants on the top floors of 22 Bishopsgate at once. There is going to be a 60-seat rooftop garden place with retractable roof, a 250-seater Asian-inflected restaurant called Lucky Cat, a Bread Street Kitchen brasserie and a culinary school.<\/p>\nBut we begin with a family scene. The youngest of Ramsay\u2019s six children with wife of 30 years, Tana, are having pancakes. Gordon thinks they are too thick. They\u2019re American-style, not the crepes he thinks they should have. \u201cDarling,\u201d says Tana, not for the first time even that morning, you suspect, \u201cCould you just give it a rest?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/span>Tilly Ramsay with dad Gordon.<\/span> Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nThe defining feature of Ramsay, of course, is that he cannot. No Michelin-starred chef can. They are not made that way. When he is with his children, he is fully with his children (\u201cMegan\u2019s 27, the twins Holly and Jack are 25, Matilda\u2019s 23, Oscar\u2019s six, Jessie James is 18 months. Did I miss any of them? Thank fuck for that\u201d). Running and jumping and playing with the little ones, planning weddings and engagement parties and buying inaugural chef whites with the older ones \u2013 he is apparently inexhaustible and they, like Tana, clearly adore him, while also (in the elders\u2019 case at least) having a firm handle on the man.<\/p>\n
The same \u2013 at least in this extended advert for the Ramsay brand \u2013 is essentially true at work. His chefs respect him because he\u2019s walked the walk before, talking the talk, and they all strive to do their best, both for him and \u2013 as they are all cut from the same perfectionist cloth as Ramsay \u2013 just because<\/em>.<\/p>\nIt is watching these people adhere to an abstract ideal \u2013 to the idea so unfashionable that it is rapidly becoming unfathomable \u2013 that everyone should work to the highest standard at all times because that is the right thing to do that saves Being Gordon Ramsay from being (as the man himself might put it) the absolute bollocks it could be. And then there\u2019s just the simple pleasure of seeing them construct the most mouthwatering dishes you will ever, if you can afford it, eat \u2013 with a knowledge and skill that is almost as delicious to watch.<\/p>\n<\/span>Room at the top \u2026 Ramsay surveys the view from his new premises.<\/span> Photograph: Courtesy of Netflix<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nSix hours of the many dramas associated with getting five businesses up and running at the same time does feel like quite a lot \u2013 each of the premises needing to be designed and built from scratch and a retractable roof added to one. But it does at least allow for an appreciation of the attention to detail that must be paid to a successful launch. The menus and the tastings \u2013 you can\u2019t make a rum baba too small or it won\u2019t aerate properly \u2013 are only part of it. There are the pockets on the prototype aprons that must be removed because Ramsay knows wait staff naturally fill them with bits and pieces and soon look scruffy. There is the vetoing of leather seating being added to one restaurant\u2019s design, taking up space that would cost them two covers, or \u00a3300, a night. There are a million other things and Ramsay is across them all. Does he have time to couch every decision in soft words? No. Is he needlessly rude? No and no. There\u2019s a reason for everything he does, he gives it, he moves on. You need to have a good sense of self and plenty of confidence to deal with him, for sure, but if you don\u2019t I am of the school of thought that says that is a you problem, not him. He is nonetheless a Marmite proposition, that\u2019s for sure, and an entire sociology module could be written around him and people\u2019s reactions to him.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, there\u2019s this fluffy nonsense with occasional nuggets of insight. Enjoy or don\u2019t. No offence, but Ramsay\u2019s got better fucking things to worry about.<\/p>\n