Recently in Gordon Ramsay Category

In an interview in today's Metro, the great man of the Oxfordshire restaurant doesn't hold back with his thoughts on the two high-profile chefs.

Apparently when he was training Pierre White at Le Manoir, the volatile chef was "a nightmare," says Blanc. "Marco had to prove he was the best all the time. He always had to set up some sort of competition in the kitchen, which is not good because it makes people feel a bit scared."

As for Gordon, Raymondo is asked what he thought of the time the chef dressed up in disguise and pretended to be one of Blanc's fans at a book signing.

The response: "I find that very sad. He has a number of businesses and I know how tough that is. So to come and play the clown at one of my signings...what's the point? What is the bloody point? I didn't get it".

And: "He is the only one to get it. What is he trying to do and say? I just laugh. My God, has that guy got nothing else to do? He must be very well organised in his business if he has time to do stuff like that."

Later on Raymond does say: "I just want to add that Marco is a good friend of mine. And if he made a few mistakes on the way, well, don't we all?"

So one of them gets off a bit more lightly, at least.

Blanc's The Restaurant winners to launch Marlow pub >>

Marco criticised for belittling waiters on 'Hell's Kitchen' >>

Gillian Thomson, head of operations at Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH), is leaving the multi-Michelin-starred restaurant group, Kitchen Rat has learnt.

Scottish-born Thomson will leave GRH at the end of this month after eight years with the company.

Gillian Thomson joined GRH at its humble beginnings and has helped grow the company from two restaurants, employing 70 staff, to a global business with 23 restaurants on four continents.

After graduating with a hotel and hospitality management degree from the Scottish Hotel School at Strathclyde University, Thomson worked for what is now Millennium Hotels & Resorts, initially at the company's Glasgow hotel as assistant food and beverage manager.

She then transferred to the group's London hotel in Knightsbridge as food and beverage manager, before becoming operations manager at the Millennium Bailey's hotel. She joined GRH in 2001.

Gordon Ramsay isn't usually short of a swear word or five but his latest show isn't foul-mouthed enough for Channel 4 executives.

In the US version of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, the celebrity chef's effing and blindings have been bleeped out, much to the dismay of Channel 4 staff who have been working frantically to edit the curses back into the show.

"Gordon is Gordon so he does swear, as do some of his contributors," a Channel 4 source told The Daily Star.

"The American network usually bleep the bad language out but we will not."

The news is kind of ironic considering Ramsay came under fire last week after he served up no less than 312 swear words in just 103 minutes (that's one every 20 seconds) in his Ramsay's Great British Nightmare show.

Gordon Ramsay is back on TV screens with Kitchen Nightmares tomorrow, but it's a version of the programme with a difference.

For a start, the programme runs over two hours, a bonus for those of you that like seeing people being told off. The top chef looks at two restaurants in that time, a struggling venue in Sheffield and one in Devon.

All seems to be proceeding as normal, when after a few disagreements, the proprietors of each venue take his advice on board. However, then the economic downturn kicks in and both restaurants owners and Gordon have to engage in a significant rethink during filming.

Watch Channel 4 tomorrow at 9pm to see how Gordon is taking on the credit crunch. And you can catch Gordon too in a new book out in March and filming for more Nightmares in LA - he's on a real publicity blitz in the New Year.

Ramsay Nightmare restaurant Love's Fish closes >>

Gordon Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares restaurant badly damaged >>

It seems no-one is escaping the effects of the credit crunch.

Gordon Ramsay has sacked his long-standing public relations guru Gary Farrow, after five years working together.

The move comes just weeks after Ramsay was accused of having an extra martial affair, but Chris Hutcheson, chief executive of Gordon Ramsay Holdings, called the decision a "rationalisation".

He told trade mag PR Week that Ramsay would not look for a new publicist and that the company would continue to use Sauce Communications for its UK PR.

Farrow, chief executive of The Corporation, did not comment.

No one in the industry is going to escape the effects of the looming recession and Kitchen Rat hopes Ramsay will now focus more on the restaurant business than showbiz (although being quoted in Marie Claire probably isn't the best start).

A London businessman claims he is the first person to have dined at all of the world's three-Michelin-starred restaurants.

Andy Hayler, from Chiswick, has travelled the globe over the past four years and visited all of the 68 three-starred restaurants in Europe, the USA and Asia.

He told the Evening Standard he completed his culinary marathon last month with a meal at Thomas Keller's Per Se in New York. The 20-course tasting menu at the restaurant in the Time Warner Centre in Manhattan was the most expensive meal of them all priced at a hefty £500.

Hayler said he started his gastronomic travels after a series of disappointing experiences at some of London's top-rated restaurants. But after reading a rave review of Joël Robuchon's Jamin in Paris, he decided to give fine dining one last chance. He estimates he has spent about £15,000 on food and drink and equally as much on travel costs and accommodation.

Guests poured into the Taste of Christmas event last night at London's Excel for a slice of festive fun and glimpse of Gordon Ramsay.

In true showman style, Gordon Ramsay who was due to be cooking on stage was no where to be seen for the first few minutes.

Instead Mark Sergeant, head chef at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's, and wine sommelier Olly Smith paced the stage encouraging the 300-strong audience to call out his name.

"Gordon, Gordon, Goooooorrddooonnn." Then, out of nowhere a figure paced down the stairs from within the audience in a luminous worker jacket, whipped off a hard hat and dark wig and ruffled his mop of blond highlights. Who would have thought it!

But the panto didn't finish there, the three hosts then took it in turns to kick inflatable puddings out into the audience and in a musical chairs style game, whoever had the puddings when the music stopped were invited up on to the stage to sit at tables, flanking the central kitchen to eat Ramsay's feast.

In good spirits, Ramsay welcomed all guests, asking their names and occupations. Touching on recent events he said to one guest, a pretty blonde PR girl: "I could do with your help the week I've had."

He then set to work preparing a chestnut, apple and parsnip soup starter; duck with sautéed Brussels sprouts main and a pear tart for dessert with Bailey's ice cream.

Gordon Ramsay has predictably got it in the neck from Fleet Street's women columnists, following lurid tabloid allegations of his supposed seven-year extra marital affair.

The likes of Allison Pearson in the Daily Mail, Virginia Ironside in The Independent, Sue Carroll in the Daily Mirror and Catherine Ostler in the Evening Standard all attacked the celebrity chef in the wake of the News of the World revelations.

Pearson's comments were typical of those written by the angry columnists: "As his monumental hypocrisy was revealed, the 42-year-old Celebrity Father of the Year could at least have shown some embarrassment, even a little shame."

One high profile columnist, Jane Moore of The Sun, chose not to write about Ramsay, however, instead focusing on the collapse of Woolworths.

As journalist trade magazine Press Gazette's blog has pointed out, Moore is of course married to Gordon Ramsay's press spokesman Gary Farrow, head of The Corporation PR agency.

It's been a tough week for Gordon Ramsay and his wife Tana after the News of the World published a story accusing the multi-Michelin-starred celebrity chef of a seven-year extra-marital affair last weekend.

The news has been all over the media this week with the Ramsay's and Gordon's alleged mistress' faces pretty much everywhere you look.

But the coverage hasn't just been the tabloids trying to unveil saucy details about the suspected affair and a lot has been written about how much damage the scandal will do to the Ramsay brand, which Gordon, father-in-law Chris Hutcheson and indeed Tana have worked so hard to build up.

The Guardian, Daily Telegraph and Independent as well as business journal Real Business all question the impact the alleged liaison will have on Ramsay's restaurant empire, while in contrast the Liverpool Echo says that affairs don't have to mean the end of a business.

Meanwhile the Evening Standard argues that the only person to fix the aftermath of the scandal is Hutcheson, CEO of Gordon Ramsay Holdings.

Kitchen Rat's guess is that as long as Gordon and Tana stay together, as they have vowed they would, implications for the restaurant business will be marginal. After all, people dining at Ramsay's restaurants are there for the food not the moral high ground.

Gordon Ramsay accused of cheating on wife