by Neil Simpson
So what finally ended the impasse, halted the legal action and caused Britain’s toughest, angriest chef to apologise? Once again, it was his mother who forced him to do the decent thing. ‘I did feel a bit guilty about the plonker reference because Mum said, “Gordon, you shouldn’t talk about people like that when they are being nice to you.” I don’t give a toss about the farmers but I do care what my mother thinks,’ he said.
It was the ultimate proof that the foul-mouthed monster in the kitchen was a very different man elsewhere. ‘I put on a different coat when I go to work, like everyone else does,’ he said. ‘Yes, I get angry, yes, I swear and, yes, some people hate it. But I’m doing it for a specific reason, to get the very best results and create the very best food. I’m a different man inside and outside of the kitchen and I will never apologise for that.’
Nor would he apologise to those who inadvertently strayed into his kitchens – however important they were. While Gordon was earning some extra money running a massive outside-catering day at Royal Ascot that year, a man he didn’t recognise came into the vast temporary kitchen looking for a cup of coffee. ‘I stopped him, grabbed him and said, “What the fuck do you think you are doing in here? Get the fuck out and get your fucking cup of coffee somewhere else,” and he scarpered.’ The man turned out to be the managing director of the entire Ascot operation and was effectively paying Gordon’s wages. He never got his coffee.
SEVEN
WHERE’S DAD?
It was Millennium Eve and Gordon was, of course, working. Extra chairs and tables were being squeezed into the main room at Gordon Ramsay, where he was hosting a massive party for more than a hundred family members and friends from around the country. As it was a private affair, Gordon had let any of his staff who didn’t want the overtime to have the night off. And this had turned out to be just about all of them. So, as the world got ready to party, Gordon was in his kitchen, on his own, with a massive and important task ahead.
‘Dad had died almost exactly a year before and my mother had wanted everyone together that night, so I wanted it to be a perfect evening,’ Gordon said. He had gone to Chelsea at 8am to start the preparation work, pretty much like any other working day. But things didn’t stay ordinary for long.
‘I was working on the canapes, roast beef, the home-made pizzas for the children who were coming and everything else when I got a call from home. Tana hadn’t been feeling well first thing and I had desperately wanted to stay at home and be with her. But I’d needed to come in because I was obsessed with getting everything right for the party and now she was feeling worse.’
Not sure what to do, Gordon suggested that Tana rest before the big night and told her to call him if she didn’t feel better later. But, as it turned out, he called her first. ‘A little bit later on, I rang to see if she could pick up some of the family from Euston station,’ he says. Tana, so often criticised for putting up with her husband’s chauvinism and insensitivity, had reached breaking point, however. ‘She told me to fuck off,’ Gordon remembers.
It turned out she had good reason. Tana was carrying twins and, while their due date was nearly five weeks away, it looked as if they were in a hurry to be born. Instead of being children of the new millennium, the new Ramsays were ready to be among the last to be born in the old. Their dad, however, was in complete denial.
‘There were no staff working and I was up to my eyeballs in it, really up against it, when the phone rings. It’s Tana, saying, “I’ve got tummy pains – I think it’s contractions.” So I said, “You’re having a laugh, aren’t you? Take some Nurofen and call me back in a couple of hours.” I just went back to work yet again and tried to push it to the back of my mind.’
Tana, meanwhile, headed for the hospital. She called Gordon as she left but once again he failed to grasp the seriousness of the situation. Over the moon about how the preparations for the party had gone and how good the restaurant and the food looked, he was just upset that his wife might miss the fun. ‘I told her to come straight to the party after the check-up,’ he says, still convinced at that time that she would be given the all-clear. She wasn’t. ‘Two hours later Tana rings back and says, “They’re taking me down now” and I said, “Down where?” and she says, “Into theatre.” A doctor then came on the line and told me they were doing an emergency Caesarean in 15 minutes.’
At last, Gordon got the message and did what most soon-to-be fathers do in this kind of situation. He panicked. The family and other guests had started to arrive at the restaurant but he ignored everyone and went out into the street to grab a taxi. But it was the most important New Year’s Eve in a thousand years and he couldn’t find one.
‘In the end, I started running, just running blindly through the streets like a madman.’ Desperate by now, he was heading north towards the Portman Hospital, where Tana had long since been booked in to give birth. The hospital is a celebrity favourite, where women like Victoria Beckham, Zoë Ball and Sarah Ferguson had had their babies. But it is nearly four miles from the Gordon Ramsay restaurant and even when Gordon did finally flag down an empty taxi he got caught in traffic and it took what felt like for ever to get there.
By the time he finally arrived, Tana had two little surprises for him: a boy and a girl, soon to be named Jack and Holly. ‘When I first saw them I couldn’t believe how tiny they were,’ he says, just like almost every other new dad. ‘But they are so perfect.’ In typical fashion, Gordon didn’t stick around to admire the two new Ramsays for long, however. After a few tears with Tana and some hugs for the doctors and nursing staff, he was in a taxi, back to the restaurant and back to work.
Having already heard Tana’s news by mobile, the family turned the party into a massive and well-oiled celebration. ‘I got there at 1.10am and people were pissed as newts. All the family were blotto. I think I must have been the only chef in Britain who didn’t have a drink that night,’ says Gordon, even though he had more to celebrate than most. And for Gordon work still took priority over almost everything else in his life.
After the last guests had left, Gordon spent several hours on his own in Chelsea, cleaning his beloved kitchen. And even then he didn’t go straight back to the hospital to see his wife and new children. ‘It was about 7.30 when I left the restaurant. I went to a greasy spoon in Victoria and had the best cooked breakfast ever for £4.99. I was sitting there alone, it was New Year’s Day, I’d had my first son and I’m thinking, Here I am, the happiest man in Britain today, having an English breakfast, and there are all these people looking at me thinking I was some sort of Nobby-no-mates and saying, “Look at that sad bastard on his own.”’
Gordon’s surreal calmness was soon shattered, however.
Back at the Portman, doctors had noticed a heart murmur in the baby boy and, with his birth weight just four pounds five ounces, they wanted him under constant observation to check it wasn’t going to turn into anything more serious. Tana and the twins were kept at the hospital for two long, painful weeks while everyone’s condition was monitored. ‘When they first spotted it, they said it would be touch and go for the next 24 hours,’ says Gordon, who then did stick to his wife’s side as the first set of vital tests were carried out.
But soon little Jack was given the all-clear, and Gordon took Megan in to see her mum and her new brother and sister. He then found himself crying suddenly about how perfect his family life had become. He had built the life he had always wanted, both at work and at home. And he vowed to rewrite the history books and become the father he had never had himself – though this new policy may not have been immediately obvious to anyone else.
‘It was very hard to visit the hospital because the restaurant was open, but Tana and I stayed in touch on the telephone. She is amazingly understanding,’ he said, with amazing understatement, when describing the first two weeks of 2000 when Tana and the twins were still in the Portman.
In Gordon’s defence, January is a big month for restaurateurs at his level. The books have
to be balanced during the New Year lull, which tends to see takings fall after the seasonal excesses. And the publication of the latest Michelin ratings will reveal how well – or badly – you have done over the previous 12 months. As Gordon continues to say, being awarded Michelin stars is only the first half of the battle. Retaining them is equally important and can be even harder to achieve.
In January 2000, Gordon had another restaurant in the frame for official recognition. The previous year he and his old friend and protege Marcus Wareing had decided to put the traumas of Aubergine and L’Oranger behind them and open a new restaurant of their own. Their joint workloads were to move up a gear once more. The pair looked around all the high-rolling parts of central London and, ironically, the site that showed most promise was 33 St James’s Street – just around the corner from the Ritz and less than a hundred yards from the ‘under new management’ L’Oranger.
After putting in a bid and winning, Gordon and Marcus got ready to open up. Gordon was to be the driving force behind the venture and his money and his reputation would be on the line if it failed. But as head chef Marcus would be the man in the kitchen every day making sure everyone lived up to Gordon’s expectations. Petrus, named after Marcus’s favourite wines, just as Aubergine had been named after Gordon’s favourite colour, had just 50 covers and one of the most expensive wine lists in London. There were more than 300 choices on the wine list, including up to 30 Chateau Petrus bins.
As with anything to do with Gordon, the restaurant was to be judged primarily on the quality of its food, however. And shortly after Gordon’s twins were brought home from hospital that January, he found out how well this judging had gone. Petrus had earned a Michelin star within just seven months of opening. The Ramsay magic was as potent as ever – and even more official recognition was just around the corner.
Later in the year, Gordon was up against Raymond Blanc and his old mentor Marco Pierre White in contention for Chef of the Year in the ‘Cateys’. Gordon won the prestigious award, with the head judge saying, ‘Ramsay’s food is vibrant, the flavour of the moment, and is executed to the very highest level,’ before adding the blindingly obvious statement that ‘Gordon Ramsay can no longer be ignored’.
Meanwhile, Gordon Ramsay was named Top Restaurant of the Year in the latest internationally famous Zagat survey, and was shortly to be named Best Fine Dining Restaurant in the next Harden’s London Restaurants. In recent months, two further Gordon Ramsay books, A Passion for Seafood and A Chef for All Seasons, had also joined the best-sellers. And, with Beyond Boiling Point getting an airing on television as well, it seemed Gordon could do no wrong or get no happier.
He was even able to laugh (after a while) when a rival restaurateur strode into Petrus one night, had a brief slanging match with the staff on the front desk and then spat on the wall before leaving – triggering a £1,300 repair job to the hand-woven wallpaper.
From the outside, it looked as if everything in Gordon’s life was finally working out just perfectly. His restaurants were booming, his reputation was getting ever stronger. He was married with children and, despite working some of the longest hours in the industry, he was managing to be the father he had never had. His mother was more relaxed than she had ever been and his sisters were thriving.
Gordon was happy too. Catering really could be a contact sport and its challenges seemed as exciting as any of the ones he had hoped to face as a footballer at Ibrox. And in many ways the possibilities and opportunities available to him in his new world seemed even broader. He had already achieved a huge amount – but he still had enormous dreams for the future.
The problem, though, was that, for all the good news, there was a secret cloud on the horizon, a worry that nagged away at him most days and almost every evening. And in the small hours of the night, when the restaurants and the kitchens were closed and his wife and three children were asleep, Gordon knew he had to face up to this private nightmare. He had to work out what to do about his brother.
EIGHT
THE FAMILY SECRET
Two boys, born less than two years apart. They shared a room, a love of fishing, a sense of humour and a passion for sport. Gordon reckons he grew up with a ready-made best friend in his younger brother, Ronald, and for years the boys were all but inseparable. ‘We spent almost ten years sleeping in the same room together, me on the top bunk, him on the bottom always putting his feet under my mattress, pushing me to the floor,’ says Gordon of the good times.
But the two best friends soon lost their way. By the time they were in their twenties Gordon had effectively lost Ronald to drugs and crime. In their thirties, the gap between the brothers was at its widest and most depressing point, as vividly illustrated by the events of Monday, 28 February 2000.
On that day, Gordon, as usual, was in the kitchen at Gordon Ramsay, shouting, swearing, encouraging and demanding the best of his staff. He had a loving family, money in the bank and hopes for an amazing future still ahead. But on that same Monday a gaunt and pale Ronnie was waiting alone in a magistrates’ court in Bridgwater, Somerset. He was there to be sentenced for stealing £70 worth of batteries from a supermarket to pay for his chronic heroin addiction. He had no partner, no income and no confidence in any aspect of his future.
The brothers, friends for so long, had pretty much seen a parting of the ways the previous year. Gordon still tried to speak to Ronnie on the phone almost every day – sometimes for up to 45 minutes at a time. But the last time they had seen each other face to face had been nearly six months earlier, when Gordon had taken a rare day off and arranged a day at Silverstone for them. Ronnie had just been though his most recent rehab programme and this time had seemed desperate to stay off drugs and turn his life around.
Gordon was jubilant at his brother’s progress and was trying to keep Ronnie’s mind focused on good things rather than dwell on the bad. The idea behind a day at the racetrack was to try to recreate some of the fun times of their childhood, to have a ‘lad’s day out’, a bit of healthy competition, a few laughs, a chance to forget all their day-to-day cares. But it wasn’t to be.
‘The night before we were due to go to Silverstone, I went round to check on Ronnie and he was out of it. He’d been to King’s Cross and used heroin. I was devastated. I wanted to scream at him but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. In his adult life, Ronnie had been using drugs far longer than he’d been clean and it just devastates me to see such a young, talented life going to waste. Drugs for Ronnie are an escape. It puts his mind in a cloud and he doesn’t have to deal with reality. He’s never had a fixed address for more than six months, or a bill in his name. For Ronnie, life becomes easier the more oblivious he is. I feel like I’ve lost him and it just leaves me full of despair.’
The trip to Silverstone never happened and shortly afterwards Ronnie left London and went back to Bridgwater, near where their mother lived. From then on, Gordon began trying yet another way to get through to his brother, staying in almost constant touch by phone but keeping other contact to a minimum. It was the latest phase in what had felt like an endless, debilitating battle with Ronnie’s addictions.
‘What we are doing now is tough love. He has had to go out of my life and I haven’t seen him since he relapsed because I am not going to allow my family to fall down beside him. It is all no good if I am just there funding his habit. I have given a hundred and ten per cent and now I have to close the door, shut down and live with it. I still love him as my brother but we’re at the end of the road. It’s his choice and I’ve done everything I can. Now it’s down to him.’ They were some of the saddest words Gordon had ever said.
At this latest low point, Gordon was facing up to the awful dilemma that comes to relatives and friends of all addicts. You are desperate to understand, to help and to support them. But you are terrified of what might happen when you do. ‘You can’t get close to them because if you do they will ask you for £10 for a hit,’ Gordon said of the worst times. ‘Now I just dread gett
ing the phone call saying that he is dead.’
No one can accurately pinpoint why some people turn to drugs and others don’t. No one can really say why some get addicted and others don’t. For the Ramsay brothers the questions are even more baffling. As teenagers, both were tall, strong, blond, good-looking and funny. Friends say both had boundless energy for life and all its possibilities. Gordon had the football skills that took the family back to Glasgow. But Ronnie had pole position in their father’s affections and as a teenager was happy to toss up his career options: the Army or an apprenticeship as a mechanic. Girlfriends, great mates, good times – they both had them all.
So when and why did it all go wrong? One theory is that it happened when the boys’ parents finally split up after so many years of fights and unhappiness. Gordon says the break-up made him happy, as he felt his mother would finally be free to live the life she deserved. But Ronnie, he says, could have taken an alternative view. ‘My brother is two years younger than I am and our parents’ split affected him in a different way. Parents can put a huge amount of emotional baggage on their children and it can make or break them,’ was one of Gordon’s many attempts to understand the situation.
Whatever the triggers, Gordon says Ronnie began by smoking a little pot and graduated on to stronger drugs during a trip to Amsterdam with friends. Speed, ecstasy, cocaine and, ultimately, heroin followed. Gordon, his parents, sisters, the rest of their family and a host of mutual friends could only watch what was happening and try desperately to help. But nothing they ever did seemed to work.