Latest features Gordon Ramsay talks Christmas

Date Published:

07/09/2007

With mere weeks to go til Christmas, Gina Schauffer caught up with Gordon about his seasonal rituals and turkey tips

Is Christmas one of your busiest times?

[laughs] Everyone thinks it is but, you know, every great chef’s busy 12 months a year, not just in December. I love Christmas because it’s a busman’s holiday, clearly, in terms of being responsible for the Christmas lunch etc… and advising so many customers on things like tips and plans and how do they make the most amazing day, their best day. It’s amazing that we only get to do it once a year – the Americans get 2 hits at it cause they get Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for them is huge… so they practise their turkeys in November and have down the perfect turkey Christmas lunch by December. Here we never practise. I always say, a month in, say the 25th November, have a run through. Get an amazing large free-range chicken and do all the trimmings; set yourself a time plan.

There’s something quite authentic about Christmas; when it’s after midnight and you’re driving home after shutting up shop… Oxford Street, Regent Street, New Bond Street – there’s something quite amazing about driving down those roads and seeing the Christmas lights flashing. My first week of opening Claridges, 7 years ago, I was very grateful to be asked to turn on the lights of New Bond Street. It was amazing.

Christmas is special, everyone’s in an amazing mood, and it’s time to forget credit crunch, pressure on from the credit crunch – and it’s time to spend quality time together.

In terms of Christmas food, who cooks?

I’m very lucky, really, Tana’s got her hands in that now which is great news! Christmas Day morning here is manic; we always have a late brunch, a hot breakfast. And once we’ve finished - scrambled egg, smoked salmon - we’ll all go into Claridges and the children will come with me, shake hands with all the staff, and Tana will bring them back and start preparing Christmas lunch.

We won’t eat until about 4:30-5pm, so the children only eat twice in that day… far better to enjoy a longer, late lunch. There’s too much pressure with everyone eating at 2pm – there’s just too much to do. Even as a professional chef – there’s too much to do; it’s impossible to get everything right in time. So I come back from Claridges about 3-3:30pm and we sit down at 4pm. We have a table for the adults and a table for the children, so there’ll be like 20 of us, and the children eat first and will serve the adults.

They get to have their stockings in the morning and then they get to open their 'big presents' – they have one big present, nothing more than that. We’re very lucky but the children don’t get spoilt, they know this, but they’ve accepted this. A lot of the presents they get from friends and family go down to Mum’s Refuge in Taunton, where she runs a refuge for single parents. So… they save that and the children send a little letter with them. Last year they all got bikes and that was it – we keep it seriously real.

Are the children allowed to leave any food on their plate?

I never force food down them, but they’re not fussy eaters. They don’t eat with their eyes, they eat with their palate. I mean I’ve tormented them the last 4 years with turkeys in the back garden; we’ve been breeding our own lamb; we’ve had pigs in the back garden… they’ve eaten the most amazing lamb’s brains on toast!

Tilly was adamant that it was delicious; I didn’t tell her what it was! It was 'some soft form of squidgy chicken' – I said 'well you could say that…'! Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall was cooking it for them as well. She went to school the next day and asked the dinner ladies for lamb’s brains on toast – they looked at her like she was some little fruit cake! So they eat exceptionally well...