17 hours Ago By Evening Standard
Gordon Ramsay is walking — striding — through the glass-walled dining room of Lucky Cat, his new restaurant on the 60th floor of 22 Bishopsgate. It is London ’s highest restaurant, so far up that the building’s viewing deck is two floors below. “Come here,” he says, beckoning by the window.
I mutter something about vertigo. Ramsay nods earnestly. “I had the same thing,” he says, “until I started abseiling down the side of mountains.
All of a sudden, I got over that fear — by taking on that fear.” The thing is, Gordon Ramsay is not like the rest of us. Neither is he like most chefs ; most chefs don’t open five places at once.
He’s more like an old soldier (or is it Action Man?) — lots of chat about “running drills”, “taking the blows”, “standing strong” — and for his latest mission has commandeered four of the building’s floors: on level 58 is the Gordon Ramsay Academy, quite probably the highest cookery school in the world. Above that, launching later in the year, will be an outpost of his Bread Street Kitchen chain. On level 60, there’s Lucky Cat and the 12-seater Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High, and then a large rooftop terrace opening, right on the top, with a Japanese garden and a retractable roof.
“That’s been an absolute head f***, I’m not going to lie. But I was having dinner with [Soho House founder] Nick Jones in West Hollywood, and this thing retracted and I thought, ‘Oh my god, I have to have one.’” 22 Bishopsgate is a project he’s fought for.
“Every single heavyweight in the restaurant scene was desperate for it,” he says. But does Ramsay, the world’s most famous chef, really have competition? “It’s a good question,” he says. He praises Richard Caring (“the guy’s a billionaire, how do you compete with that?”) while dismissing Alain Ducasse (“he’ll never invest his own money in London”).
Ramsay has invested, it turns out, and heavily. “I’ve got skin in the game, it’s personal. It’s not a label slap.
” How much? “I’m a realist and I take these opportunities f***ing seriously.” How much? “We’re in excess of £20 million, plus.” It is not, he says, a good time to be opening a restaurant.
“We’re faced with tough running costs, because of increased labour costs, because of the increased National Insurance contributions. Now Labour have made it even more difficult, so we have to raise our game and be smarter.” Some of these increases, he thinks, are a long time coming.
“It’s an industry that’s been underpaid for a long time. Chefs, sommeliers, maître d’s, mixologists ..
. they’re like athletes, they want it, they’re in demand. You need to understand their worth.
” Fine, but won’t prices go up for customers? “Then you have to pivot, you have to divert.” In the Ramsay group, that means “we’re diminishing the front of house in fast casual, and going to doing online ordering because the generation now don’t want to talk and order.” But these concerns won’t touch this project, where expense has not been spared.
And he’s excited to do it in London, “one of the most diverse, melting pot culinary cities. I mean, Gymkhana. Two stars, to go and have butter chicken, it’s just .
..” His words run out.
“I think London’s thriving.” This Lucky Cat is Ramsay’s fourth worldwide, and the second here. The first, in Grosvenor Square, opened in 2019 and its pan-Asian, non-region specific approach was derided on social media.
Ramsay blew up at the time, making headlines. Looking back, did it seem unfair? “Oh my god, did it. With the cultural appropriation stuff? Terrible.
Awful.” But the incident left no lasting mark, and he has no qualms about opening another now. The executive head chef is Michael Howells.
Ramsay is not worried about another row. “We spent time in the West Coast in LA. Do you think I’m averse to an incredibly talented Mexican chef running one of the Nobu restaurants? I wouldn’t look at him any different.
I’m just excited that kid from Mexico City can execute some of the best Japanese cuisine on the planet. We need to wake up to that ..
. modernisation,” he says. In fact, the main problem he thinks Lucky Cat is looking at is to do with the loos.
“There are lots of couples going in there and treating it like the ‘mile high’ bathroom,” he quipped on Jonathan Ross last week. Reportedly too, he lost £2,000 in the first week owing to people stealing the cat-shaped, gold-coloured chopstick rests. Lucky Cat is an ambitious site, with room for 120 and 360- degree views across the city.
“This view, it’s majestic. Oh my god, I was sat here, I had a tear in my eye on the phone to my wife Tana this morning. We’ve had helicopters flying below.
It’s weird when the clouds are down there, and we’re up here.” There will be a feast menu at £185, alongside various cheaper options, including a £35, three-course lunch, and bottomless brunch offered on the weekends. Ramsay wants it to be the city’s buzziest hangout.
DJs will play, dancing is expected, there’s a projector for sports. Your favourite influencer’s favourite influencer will be there. “It’s going to have that after-party vibe, especially with the 3am licence,” he says, grinning.
A 24-hour licence is on the cards, “but I don’t want to do that until a year down the line.” But perhaps most important of all will be the Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High. Twenty-seven years after Restaurant Gordon Ramsay opened on Chelsea’s Royal Hospital Road, and 24 years since it was first awarded three Michelin stars — which it still holds — Ramsay is finally opening a second iteration of his modern French flagship.
While the Chelsea restaurant is all fine pressed linens and cream-coloured walls, with room for 40, the operation here is almost industrial: great floor-to-ceiling windows, tan stool seats, a charcoal U-shaped table that seats only 12. At the back of the room is an open kitchen. “We’re inviting you into our world,” says Ramsay, indicating to the stoves.
“The secret here is to remove the intimidation, the stigma attached to fine dining, when it’s stuffy and whispering. This is a bit of an event. We want guests off their seats in between courses.
It’s a slice of heaven.” Ramsay looks around the room with fondness; the sense is that he hopes this might be his greatest achievement yet, and wants it recognised as such. “How do we go for four stars up here? How do we make it better than something we’ve mastered since 1998?” Already, he says, City firms have booked the space out.
Financially, Lucky Cat may be the breadwinner, but he says this 12-seater space is the room that matters most. Is that because Royal Hospital Road is the restaurant most precious to him? “Well, that’s like saying, who’s your favourite kid?” he ventures. Sure, but only one of your kids has three Michelin stars.
“Ah, f***ing hell, that’s a tough one, isn’t it? Because that’s where it all started. And I suppose the risk of that, of asking Tana to sacrifice our dream home — rented accommodation, some people have no choice, and we had no choice at the time — so the heart lies there.” Heavens, not renting.
Is it also, I wonder, a message to the critics, and perhaps a public that might only know him from TV, that he’s still a first-rate chef? “It’s a good point. I still need that fix. I’ve never been turned on by money.
This is a gentle reminder of where the base is, what I’m about.” Ramsay will not, of course, be cooking himself. In charge of the kitchen is James Goodyear, formerly of Soho hit Evelyn’s Table.
Ramsay seems vague on how he found Goodyear — “we did a search” is as far as he goes — but not short of praise. “I knew instantly.” Still, Ramsay has been heavily involved in the tastings, checking in daily to tweak, refine, sculpt.
How does he rate himself as a cook? “Oh f***ing hell. In terms of creativity?” He’s often be considered an incredibly hard worker, I say, perhaps more than someone of God-given talent (“He’s a good chef but certainly not one of the best we have trained,” said the late Michel Roux Sr). “The stigma about being born a genius is absolute bullshit,” Ramsay counters.
“I came from a council estate in Stratford-upon-Avon. But working at it, with the right kind of mentor, if you can be schooled enough, take the medicine, listen to the prescription, don’t come left or right of those tracks ..
.” Er? “I suppose what I’m trying to say is: I’m a good learner, I can absorb like a sponge, and I’ve got a memory like an elephant. It’s always hard, isn’t it? I get tarnished with that brush that ‘you’re just a Marco boy, you’re just another version’ and you know, I disagree.
” The Marco Pierre White mention is illuminative of Ramsay. He is at once consumed with what matters today and what’s coming tomorrow, and yet the past is ever-present in conversation. His stint at Claridge’s — which earned him a star, but not the three he wanted — comes up often (his disdain for those who followed him is evident, too).
He talks fondly of training at Guy Savoy, life under Albert Roux, and his own impact on British dining (chefs who’ve trained under him include Angela Hartnett, Clare Smyth, Marcus Wareing). Does he, in any way, feel under-appreciated here in the UK — where critics snipe — compared to, say, the US, where he’s a bona fide, A-list megastar? “You wake up in the morning, you’re not going to please everybody, so stop searching for that endless ridiculousness,” he says, frankly. If it does bother him, it doesn’t show.
The Ramsay of today is in a very different position to the Ramsay of then. 22 Bishopsgate appears to be a big project. But is it really, by Ramsay standards? He has somewhere close to 100 restaurants worldwide.
He is big enough that recent scandals seemingly in his sphere haven’t affected him. Gino D’Acampo, with whome Ramsay worked, alongside Fred Sirieix, for two series of Gordon, Gino and Fred’s Road Trip, is facing allegations of sexually inappropriate behaviour. Ramsay is reported to have cut ties with D’Acampo, but says: “I have reached out to Gino, checked in to make sure he and the family were doing okay.
Fred too.” Elsewhere in the Ramsay galaxy, last week Jason Atherton — once his right-hand man — was widely criticised after telling The Times he hadn’t witnessed sexism in the kitchen. What about Ramsay? “The industry is in a very different place today, from where it was, and that’s a really good thing.
In my kitchens, all around the world from Kim Ratcharoen in London, leading the team at our beloved three Michelin-starred Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, to Bea Therese Qua doing brilliant work over at Bar & Grill in Manila, we have talented women delivering incredible food,” Ramsay says. “I absolutely believe there is a genuine and continuing push for growth across the restaurant industry, for greater equality, and inclusivity, and that growth will hopefully help us appeal to the next generation of young chefs.” The mention of Ratcharoen is a reminder that the Ramsay empire is in flux.
At Royal Hospital Road, things are set for a change as longstanding chef-patron Matt Abé leaves to open his own place. “Matt is absolutely ready to make his mark with his own restaurant,” Ramsay says. “To secure Brook Street for him is pretty special, and he’s under no illusion that opening up on the site of Le Gavroche, those are big shoes to fill, let me tell you.
” But perhaps, by now, change and even scandal are par for the course. Ramsay’s been famous for three decades, and through the ringer plenty of times: near financial ruin; a falling out with his father-in-law; tabloid rumours of infidelity; a ticking off from the Australian prime minister; well-publicised arguments with critics. He has often had to face difficult questions regarding his younger brother Ronnie, who has struggled with heroin addiction.
“I never walk around thinking you’ve got a reputation that can’t be touched or damaged,” he says. “And I still keep incredibly grounded for those moments.” Besides, Gordon Ramsay restaurants aren’t all about Gordon Ramsay, he says.
“I depend heavily on my team, and they depend heavily on me. I’ve seen too many burnouts, tragic burnouts, and I use those examples as a stern reminder.” One suspects he is thinking of David Dempsey, who more than two decades ago fell to his death from a window ledge in a state of cocaine-induced paranoia, the night after he and Ramsay had met to discuss Dempsey’s future.
The Ramsay of today says he has built a brand that is bigger than he is, and he seems keenly aware of how swiftly an empire can fall. “The Jamie Oliver one was sad. I was a big supporter.
I was the first person to reach out to him and he came up to the house in Cornwall. We had a few drinks and a laugh and both shed a tear. You never want to see that failure on anyone.
” And so, despite an enormous social media following — 116 million across all platforms — Ramsay says his group isn’t a cult of personality. “In order for the company to breathe and function, it can’t be controlled by me.” But can anyone take over? “I’ve got six amazing kids.
Tilly was the first one to break away. She said: ‘Dad, I really want this — but I don’t want to work in your kitchens.’” He grins and shakes his head.
“I’d love to see her into the fold. Not just to continue the legacy, but because she’s a natural at cooking and she loves it.” It won’t happen just yet.
At 58, is he thinking of retirement? “F*** right off!” he says, in a burst of laughter. “But I also don’t want to become one of those philosophers that just bullshits about how nice they were in the Eighties. When I hear Raymond Blanc say, ‘Well, back in my day, it wasn’t like this.
..’ Oh, come on! So I don’t want to start dictating tomorrow’s industry.
I want to be at the coal face. There’s no f***ing chance I’m stopping.” Of course not.
You or I might. But then, Gordon Ramsay is not like the rest of us. Photography by Phil Conrad/Photodrone.
