A child survivor of domestic violence, failed footballer and marathon runner: there’s more to the nation’s favourite chef than meets the eye. Would the real Mr Gordon Ramsay please stand up?
I have no time for stick-thin models who never eat. I would refuse to serve anyone in my restaurant who asked to go off menu because they were on a stupid diet like the Atkins or GI. They would be out of the door before they knew what was happening.
Tana's not allowed in my kitchen. It's a lifelong ban. But she's got her own. Wouldn't you do the same? People have his and her bathrooms. You know what men are like: when they shave they don't clean the plug hole out. It's the same with me. I don't want her in my kitchen.
When you work so hard from Monday to Friday you long to get away. The restaurant is closed at weekends (the bank thought I was mad to do this, possibly sacrificing around £500,000 a year in revenue). For holidays, I like to go to Florida. The dive sites are fantastic. Visibility there is about 100 yards, compared to about two-and-a-half inches off the English coast. The water is warm and we have been about four times. The food is naff, but you just have to stick to Caesar salad (they couldn't mess that up could they?) and play safe.
I prefer city life, but I enjoy country living. My childhood holidays were spent in Blackpool, Scarborough, Bognor Regis and on Loch Lomond. I love that area, just one-and-a-half hour's drive from Glasgow airport in stunning countryside. I also love Battersea Park and Albert Bridge. On Friday after work I tend to go to the cabbies' café on Chelsea Bridge, just to sit and reflect on the week.
I play squash and I am obsessed with running. I do a half-marathon every Sunday (13 miles), a regime I have done for the last two years. I am up at 6.30am when my father-in-law knocks on our door in his sports gear and trainers. I’ve also completed the Comrades, a double ultra marathon in South Africa (a gruelling 59 miles or (94 kilometres) in 10 and a half hours. I ran my first London marathon last year in four hours and four minutes. I raised £20,000 for several charities, including Bridgewater's refuge for single parents and battered mothers (for a new mini-bus).
As a child survivor of domestic violence I can remember the fear and isolation. It is shocking that so many children still live in fear as a result of domestic violence, and don't know who to turn to for support. I’m a supporter of the Hideout, a new Women’s Aid website for children and young people. I know it could have made a real difference to me at a young age.
I was six foot, fast, strong, 19 years of age. So the last thing I expected was to be kicked out [of the Glasgow Rangers]. I really thought I was there. And sometimes I question it, of course I do. But I believe now that I was not meant to be footballer.
I'm not trying to make excuses for my inadequacies - far from it - but, it's the nature of the beast unfortunately. When things go pear-shaped in the kitchen I do get annoyed, but when things are running normally I'm fine. I'm just being too honest, that's all, and that's what it's like in each and every restaurant I've ever worked in. I don't think it's ever going to be any different, but I don't go out of my way to use bad language.
I'm not very good at dinner parties. You arrive and then nothing happens for an hour. So you just feel like getting up and saying, `Look dear, sit down, let me do it'. It's terrible. The last one I went to I was served a gratin potato dish and they'd left the garlic in there. Trust me to get it first. I was sat with this great lump under my tongue trying to get it out. It wasn't even a slice, it was a whole clove. And then they ask you what you think of the food, which again is a trial. 'It's a pile of rubbish, really,' I tell them, which annoys everyone else, who think I'm being an arrogant swine. But if they ask for the truth, I'm going to give it to them.
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