"Gordon Ramsay"

Speaker 1 The show is always a good time, but it's the guests who truly take things up a notch.

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Speaker 1 Hey guys, it's 2025. Okay, it's 2025.
What are your dreams for this year?

Speaker 1 Oh, God, I don't give a shit. Welcome to Smartless.

Speaker 1 Smart,

Speaker 1 Lettis.

Speaker 1 Smart.

Speaker 1 I got to tell you, you know, when it's not my guest,

Speaker 1 I never really know what kind of tone to take with the coffee chat because, like, what if it's like you know you can go balls out literally really i can start cursing right now yeah saying bad words by the way the shorts shorts i'm wearing i could go balls out real easy we will stop it you don't

Speaker 1 know

Speaker 1 i mean there don't show us your balls i'm not going to what how dare you all right now listen oh now listen now listen hang on a second yeah no no no first of all don't don't go to your script what are you talking about i have been working working on

Speaker 1 your material. No, now here's my thing.
No, I was going to say, I was going to say that

Speaker 1 Jason missed Willie's birthday last week. We missed you.

Speaker 1 How'd that go? But listen to this.

Speaker 1 I told Will, I was going to say this on the show to you, Jay.

Speaker 1 You can never make fun of me for, well, you can, for my eating habits and my diet. This fella right here at his own birthday dinner.
He's a big sit pig. I know.

Speaker 1 Brought, but Jay, he brought his own Hershey's caramel syrup

Speaker 1 in his pocket. In his pocket.
By the way, and then I asked if I could have a film. You dropped a nice weight for this film.
You're going to be 420. No, no, no.

Speaker 1 I'm still on

Speaker 1 one cheat meal a week. By the way, I didn't bring in my pocket.
I made Archie, my 16-year-old, put it in. Bring it.
He muled it. I had too much shame.
He muled it in for me. Then, then,

Speaker 1 I brought it out. Kimmel said, is that your tanning lotion?

Speaker 1 And then, by the way, so everybody made fun, at which point they bring Sundays out for everybody, and every person asks

Speaker 1 for it. Yeah.
It was a good call. It was amazing.
Everybody had individual hot fetch Sundays brought.

Speaker 1 Well, it's like when you drive past a car crash, you're going to look, you know, but you don't want to.

Speaker 1 It's human nature.

Speaker 1 But it was just so rich watching people making jokes. Look at you with your car.
We'll get it over here. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 And then I tried to, you know, because I missed it. So then the next day, I

Speaker 1 texted Willie on the day of the first Maple Leaves game. Next round.
Yeah. And I said, hey, I feel bad.
I'm going to fly into town and I'd love to see you. I'm going to pick you up at five.

Speaker 1 Now, five o'clock was when the puck dropped. He didn't, he's so,

Speaker 1 I know he didn't know what I was, what the joke was there. He was just like, oh, you did?

Speaker 1 Of course I knew what the joke was. Really? Because I did it on game two, and you still didn't get it.
I get it. I don't get what the joke is.
The joke is like, you must not be busy.

Speaker 1 I need to see you right at the point that the puck drops.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it can't be talked to. Yeah, no, I did.

Speaker 1 But anyway, yeah, with the beliefs, who knows what's going to happen when they go forward in this? Because this will be way later.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but we've got a real series now. We've got a real series.
I was in Toronto this weekend. I did my hospital gig for the Michael Guerin Hospital.

Speaker 1 We raised millions of dollars for the hospital, which is amazing. We loved it.
This is a hospital I like to be in.

Speaker 1 Do you still take Lira?

Speaker 1 Do you still take Lira? Michael Guerin Hospital. We take Lira.

Speaker 1 That's really funny. I have $600,000 lira here.
$2.

Speaker 1 Remember, it used to be like $100,000 lira for $2.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 You know, there's nowhere else to go. And if you get like $100.

Speaker 1 So that's unfortunate that it didn't time out with the Leafs being in Toronto, right? They were playing down

Speaker 1 in Florida. They were playing in Florida, but we watched.
I watched with the whole family and my dad and my sisters and everybody.

Speaker 1 We went to our pub, The Queen and Beaver, which is James and Kerr, which I'm also a part of that's a rough title the queen and beaver it's pretty good the queen and beaver yeah and uh it's a great pub if you're in toronto and um you ever sub out that n for an s

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 queens queen's beaver oh the queens oh oh queen and beaver add an s and take an n out

Speaker 1 you take a queen and queen and beaver and beaver queen apostrophe and beaver you take out the apostrophe and you put in apostrophe s well queens

Speaker 1 queen's beef well here's first of all it's and it's not it's not the i'll meet you at the queen's beef it's not

Speaker 1 it's not queens

Speaker 1 i had the greatest meal at the queen's beef

Speaker 1 god

Speaker 1 but that's the joke the joke is too salty there at the queen's beef wow

Speaker 1 guys my guest today uh-huh is a father of six

Speaker 1 no he won't be he's a father of six former soccer hopeful football yeah His resume includes washing dishes in an Indian restaurant and once cooking lunch for Princess Diana.

Speaker 1 These days, he's got a soft spot for in-and-out burgers. I just had two yesterday, which is a true story.
Two,

Speaker 1 I did. I got two.
I ate them in my class. Let me check out the believability scale on that.
No, no, I don't.

Speaker 1 By the way, and some of the beef fell in between my seats, and I had to get it out because I knew it would smell. So you had to suck it out.

Speaker 1 I did with my straw. Is that the first time you sucked beef out of seats?

Speaker 1 Sorry, gang. At the Queen's Beef.
At the Queen's Beef. At a beech suck even.
That's a different rest. That's a different one.
The Queen's Grease. Then we went over for dessert.

Speaker 1 We went for dessert at the Peach Crease afterwards.

Speaker 1 Guys, we're losing listener in the moment. I know.
Sorry. He has an obsession with cold plunges, Will.
You love that.

Speaker 1 And a few Michelin stars under his belt, all while turning swearing into a love language. Today, he's bringing the fire in and out of the kitchen.
It's the wonderful, delicious Gordon Ramsey

Speaker 1 who I've loved forever. Guys, just Just met him a couple weeks ago with you, Willie.
Wait, what? We just ran into you, Gordon. What are you talking about? Where?

Speaker 1 Yeah, over at our friend Bradley's place. Yeah, that's nice.
Oh, I didn't know that. Now,

Speaker 1 how do you all know each other, Willie? How did that all was that? That wasn't the first time you met me. No, we met through our friend Robin.
Gordon, we're going to let you speak in a moment.

Speaker 1 Rob Wade, right, Gordon? Gordon, we had dinner with our friend Rob Wade. That's right.

Speaker 1 Guys, good to see you all. And thank you.
Great to see you.

Speaker 1 Wait, this is amazing. I've never met you, Gordon, and I'm a huge fan.
And meanwhile, I didn't know you knew these two guys. Yeah, catch up, Sean.
And here, that's why I can't wait.

Speaker 1 Gordon, this is what I want to know. Thank you so much for being here.
You're such a good dude. Where are we finding you right now?

Speaker 1 Because you're always, every time I see you, you're always coming from the airport or going to the airport.

Speaker 1 We've got the upfronts today, so in New York. Oh,

Speaker 1 people still have those, even though the network television business is kind of. Fuck me, yes, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 They do. They do.
And they're painful. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 The first one I ever went to, so for Tracy, the upfronts are where

Speaker 1 networks put up their shows. They display kind of what the fall season is going to be and the ad agencies are going to commit to ad dollars before they.
They pre-sell all the commercials. Right.

Speaker 1 And now streamers are doing it too. I'm on my way there for Netflix.
Oh, wow. So the first time I went to Gordon was...

Speaker 1 See you there, Gord.

Speaker 1 The first time I went to an upfront, I was like, can't we handle this into a fax machine? Like, can't we just send an email saying, like, what the shows are?

Speaker 1 And why do you have to like the dog and the pony?

Speaker 1 How are the laughs to that joke? Hey, listen. No, it wasn't a joke.
I was serious. Like, can't we just

Speaker 1 Gordon is keeping, single-handedly keeping Fox on the air. I know.
That is true. That needs to be said.
That needs to be said. 20 years.

Speaker 1 20 years. 20 years.

Speaker 1 2004 we came over. As you know, there was not many mainstream foodie programs on the network.

Speaker 1 And how many shows in 20 years?

Speaker 1 I think we've,

Speaker 1 is it 10, 11 or 12? Wow. It's unbelievable.
It's unbelievable. Good lord.
It's really impressive. I've watched every single episode of Kitchen Nightmares.

Speaker 1 I love it. Stop it.
For real. I really have.

Speaker 1 He's obsessed. I love it.

Speaker 1 Has there ever been a celebrity edition? Could Sean be on a celebrity edition? How do I get killed at? Please don't open a restaurant, Sean. Please, please, please don't open a restaurant.

Speaker 1 I got a good name for it. Go on.
The Queen's Beeve.

Speaker 1 Queen's Queen's Beef. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 That's the problem. You know, that's the one big problem in this industry that anybody can open a restaurant.
It's not like an actor. It's not like a doctor or a lawyer, a basketball.

Speaker 1 I go back to that dinner party when they say, hey, Sean, your food's fucking delicious, man. You should open a restaurant.

Speaker 1 So the next day, you start looking at taking leases out in the neighborhood for these incredible little bistros. And then that reality turns into a nightmare because they sort of...

Speaker 1 They don't fully understand that it's a business. Right.
It's a business.

Speaker 1 Like, I'm just going to cook for my friends and other people will like it too. Yes, right.
Right.

Speaker 1 And pardon the pun here, but do you have you cracked what maybe the secret sauce is to keeping a restaurant open?

Speaker 1 Because I would imagine when it first opens, you need sort of to be somewhat of a popular restaurateur where you've got a certain client base that they're going to come in and they're going to populate it for the first week, month, whatever.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, the food's got to be good and that can carry you for another couple of months. But how do you get into years after years after years? How do you keep it hot and fresh?

Speaker 1 And yeah, great question. First of all, you need to keep it local, right? The The secret of any great restaurant is filling it Monday to Wednesday.

Speaker 1 Thursday, Friday, Saturday takes care of itself.

Speaker 1 And so that's the essence of getting it right, filling it Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, especially in the middle of November and early into January. So stay local, okay?

Speaker 1 Keep the produce simple. Don't overcomplicate things.
And don't go crazy on the prices because it's a lot easier to make money on alcohol than it is on food.

Speaker 1 So if we go into a restaurant locally and you know it's

Speaker 1 decently priced, honestly, you'll spend more money naturally on a cocktail or a bottle of wine and so that's where you make your percentages but it's got to be seasonal it's got to be local and you've just you've got to know your market you've got to really know that market and you've got to know how to you know so all jokes aside so the queen and beaver is a gastro pub in toronto that my friend jameson kerr started and he was a restaurateur so he had another restaurant and then he opened a few and and and including the queen and beaver and the oxley now he runs exclusively queen and beaver and i have a small interest in it and have since it's since the beginning oh so good time then but that is his that is his business and that's what he does, right?

Speaker 1 That's his full-time thing and he runs a business and we are we're in the penny business. That's weird.
So we have to count everything and everything matters and everything is locally.

Speaker 1 We make everything in the restaurant. All the bread is made in the restaurant.
It's well priced and the menu is very good and it's very simple.

Speaker 1 Again, it's just a gastro pub, Queen and Beaver, just above Dundas, almost seven days a week.

Speaker 1 But that's the thing. But like Jason was saying, after all those years of, like, because I go to this restaurant, restaurant we all have our favorite restaurants one of mine and zint

Speaker 1 well Jason's like it's McDonald's. No, it's chin chin.
It's I love chin chin, but no

Speaker 1 and after after years and years

Speaker 1 How do you find the energy and the passion to maintain and sustain that restaurant? Yeah, I think it's

Speaker 1 important to change the staff every three to four years so they don't get complacent and lazy. I've been a great motivator of planning succession as well.

Speaker 1 This industry is an absolute bitch and it's notorious for the burnout. And so when I start to spot that in the team, it's time to take a bit of a sabbatical and move them on.

Speaker 1 Restaurant Gordon Ramsey this year celebrates 28 years and 25 years at three-star Michelin. So

Speaker 1 that's

Speaker 1 amazing. That's in Chelsea, a tiny little restaurant just

Speaker 1 after getting screwed over by so many partners, you know, at the age of 30, when I convinced my wife to sort of sell any form of asset we had in order to conjure up some form of deposit to get my own restaurant.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 back in 1998. Yeah.
Wow. And what type of stuff do you guys serve there? What's

Speaker 1 highly seasonal? Again, it moves from going into summer now, coming out of spring.

Speaker 1 It functions five days a week. It's one brigade.
We're closed Sunday, Monday. And so it's sort of one team, one dream.

Speaker 1 And that's how you conceptualize something that can run for decades because you keep it small and powerful. Right.
I love that.

Speaker 1 And for, and for, for a dummy like me, the Michelin star obviously is sort of like the,

Speaker 1 you know, gold medal of a restaurant.

Speaker 1 One is great. Two is better.
Three is the best. 14.
He's had, you've had 14, is that right? Yeah, we've won, yeah, over the years. We've got currently just under 10.
But three stars is the ultimate.

Speaker 1 And it's not just about the pompous wine cellar and the thick linen. Yeah.
It's about the food being consistent and the food being immaculate.

Speaker 1 And it's not easy to get, as Gordon, what he's not going to ask is

Speaker 1 the process. It's so hard to get just one, let alone two, let alone three.
It's the most difficult thing to do.

Speaker 1 But like, like there are, for,

Speaker 1 I'm slightly smarter for some reason about hotel stars. Like there are, there are certain things a hotel has to do in order to qualify for four stars versus three, five stars versus four.

Speaker 1 What is it that gets gets you a star? What is it that gets you two? What does it get you three? Sure. So the first star is based on consistency and good food.

Speaker 1 The second star is a level of excellence that is very rarely found, again, with great service.

Speaker 1 And third star is, you know, it's utter perfection, but perfection every day, not just when the head chef's there, it's on a daily basis, lunch and dinner.

Speaker 1 So go back to Region Gordon Ramsey, we've only got 10 tables. So everyone says, how do you maintain that? Because we cook 40 lunch and 40 dinners, 80 guests a day, but we're on what 64 staff

Speaker 1 in that entire place.

Speaker 1 So you look at the way. Yeah, but then you got your lease and you got to pay overhead.

Speaker 1 And then how does it? So is it like a team of these Michelin folks that kind of go around the world? They don't let you know that they're coming, I would assume.

Speaker 1 And they just kind of pop in every once in a while. And then like Ratatouille, like the Pixar menu.

Speaker 1 That's exactly that. I mean, they're all incognito.
You never get to see or hear them. Maybe they'll introduce themselves once a year.
And you know, hello, it's nice to meet you, Gordon. And

Speaker 1 I will give you one star, maybe.

Speaker 1 They don't, they say nothing. They just pay the bill.
Can I have a quick word with the chef? How's it going? And they keep it very, very minimal. You know that.
Except for the big fat tire guy.

Speaker 1 Except for the big fat tire guy.

Speaker 1 He's hard to miss. He's the fat fucker that ate everything.

Speaker 1 By the way, you know,

Speaker 1 it is Michelin tires, right? As you know, Gordon will tell you. Oh, it's the same company.
So, Gordon, will you tell that? Will you tell the story of how?

Speaker 1 Do you know the story of how they originated, right? I would like to know. Yeah.
And by the way, Gordon, before you get it, you've had 17 Michelin stars.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 1 17. So Gordon, tell them how that started.

Speaker 1 So it's in the southwest of France. And this company, as you know, was formidable for tires.
And so they came up with the idea back in 1900 to sort of formulate this guide.

Speaker 1 So as you travel across France,

Speaker 1 you sort of stop off and you pick up and you sleep in these little hotels and they start sort of sprinkling stars over them. But it's the longest serving guide in the world.

Speaker 1 It's one of the most prestigious and it's the guide that you never get to know. So

Speaker 1 isn't that amazing? Yeah, that is. So it started.

Speaker 1 I've only been once. I've been to one three-star Michelin restaurant and I was in Tokyo.
I went to Jiro.

Speaker 1 Yeah, beautiful. And

Speaker 1 he made me my dinner in front of me, Jiro.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this

Speaker 1 in 2015. As he growled.
The documentary was amazing because he was

Speaker 1 amazing. He's got the sons there, but he won't hand it over to his sons because he don't think they're sort of competent enough.

Speaker 1 Sean and Jason, have you seen that documentary? Jiro dreams of sushi? So he has the one guy, the apprentice. Jiro Dreams of Sushi, J-I-R-O.

Speaker 1 And he has an apprentice who's making that one special dish that I think is a sort of a cake type thing.

Speaker 1 And he doesn't let him make it to serve. He has to be an apprentice and practice for 10

Speaker 1 years. Five years to wash the rice and then 10 years to sort of get up to speed.
It's

Speaker 1 time to be. Yes.
And that raises the level of perfection that it takes to become a three-star Michelin three-star person. Well, you have to really want to do it.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I'll be honest, once you get there, you've got to delegate. You've got to get it off your radar in a way that you bring the next tier of talent through.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, you're going to get chain to that stove. Yeah, I want to get into like

Speaker 1 where did you find, like, who was your inspiration to be fearless? Because you're the, I mean, you're fearless in business, in

Speaker 1 your restaurants, in life. I mean, you just go and go and go and you attack life.
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think, I'll be honest, I think that's growing up in poverty in a way that, you know, coming from a councillor state,

Speaker 1 a sort of deprived area, going to school with like holes in your trousers, and your mum having to put leather patches on your knees, which then actually turned out quite cool.

Speaker 1 Getting called out by your mates because you're having to line up in the queue for dinner tickets because you didn't have the money to buy food.

Speaker 1 And then, of course, the biggest embarrassment: I had my big sister and my little brother at the same school.

Speaker 1 Mum and dad could never, we never bought independent independent individual photos so we had to go for that family shot that all three of us together that the school were paying for so you you were pulled out of class on the sort of last day of those shots and made to feel so bad because they knew you weren't doing individual shots and anyone got called out in the middle of the lesson when did you know when did you know so growing up in that uh when did you know that like I'm going to make it out of here.

Speaker 1 I'm smart enough. I have the tool.
I have the brain to get me out of my situation was

Speaker 1 from that moment. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 First off, as you know, I started in soccer. So I had a really strong sporting background.
At the age of 18, I got released from Las George Rangers in a way that I was in their academy.

Speaker 1 And I got you played that. You played under 14 football, right? Yeah, under 14, under 16, under 18.
Yeah. But because I was so big and sort of lanky and fast, I sort of played...

Speaker 1 two years above my station. So I was playing in a game, and it was a friendly game, pre-season friendly game, and I got involved in that horrific tackle.
And I smashed my

Speaker 1 cartilage and tore my crucial ligament, my left knee. Naturally left-footed.
Back in those days, you weren't amber decks. You were never sort of kicking brilliantly with both feet.

Speaker 1 So naturally left-footed was quite rare. And then I got sort of released, I got let go.
They told me they'd keep an eye on me and all that bullshit that comes with, you know, a

Speaker 1 sorry goodbye. And then I got into a catering course,

Speaker 1 just a basic college course where I'd spend two days a week at college and five days a week in a local hotel. And that's how it started.

Speaker 1 And so football, but initially football really saved you, would you say,

Speaker 1 from your situation early on? Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 1 yeah,

Speaker 1 exactly that. Because it sort of not just kept me out of trouble, but it got me into a level of discipline that I enjoyed.
But most importantly, I excelled. You know, I really did.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 And now back to the show.

Speaker 1 That's interesting you bring up the discipline because you are, and Sean said it, you're so so driven, but you also come across as a very disciplined person.

Speaker 1 As I mentioned, you travel a lot. You have

Speaker 1 so many things on your plate, forgive the pun, but you do have so many things on your plate.

Speaker 1 And I wonder, do you attribute some of that to the discipline that you did learn early on from being part of a team, from being involved in sports so heavily?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, listen, restaurants are dangerous games, right?

Speaker 1 When you start indulging, when you start drinking, when you start sitting down with customers and you start opening a bottle of wine and you start looking for the second and third, all of a sudden, you're then a customer.

Speaker 1 And so, I've got that level of discipline that it's not there to be indulged. Restaurant called Ramsey, would you believe? We've only eaten there as a family.

Speaker 1 God, we've only eaten that restaurant in 27 years three times. Once with Megan to celebrate her 16th birthday,

Speaker 1 once was with friends. And the last time I ate there, would you believe, was with Coop when he was filming Burnt.
Oh, no. With Bradley.
And we had dinner together. And he said, Do you come here often?

Speaker 1 I said, No, I'm embarrassed. Yeah, what? Of your success? No, not so much of the success.
I'm just embarrassed about how plush this thing is because we never grew up with this. I created this.

Speaker 1 I worked for it, but I don't want to indulge. I think that's the discipline coming back again.
But having that opportunity to excel so early in soccer and giving yourself a sense of

Speaker 1 excellence,

Speaker 1 now that you, well, once you came into a leadership position, did you find that you were eager to give that opportunity to your staff, whether they be

Speaker 1 a sous chef, prep chef, or I mean,

Speaker 1 how did that inform the way in which you led folks?

Speaker 1 Unselfishness

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 the non-control freak in me. And I suppose, you know, getting to the very top and winning that third mission star,

Speaker 1 I grew up watching mum handle three jobs and she was a a cook in a beautiful little restaurant in Stratford-Avon. So after soccer practice, I'd go there and prep the veg for her.

Speaker 1 So it was mainstream food, but she installed that work ethic in me early.

Speaker 1 And so I knew when I got to the very top, if I didn't delegate at the age of 33 and teach beneath me in a way that you got everyone up to that platform,

Speaker 1 I would kill myself because it is that relentless.

Speaker 1 Unless you take a step back, so one minute you're playing in the orchestra, next minute you're conducting the orchestra, and that orchestra is those 25 chefs on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 You then have to teach quickly and offload what you've got to empower the others to get on that platform.

Speaker 1 You know, it's so funny because oftentimes when you see, especially when they cut the commercials together for your various shows,

Speaker 1 they sort of cast you as the guy who's coming, you're being really hard on the people who run the restaurant and they're quite slow and they're dumb and you're smart and you're the villain or you're the star, but you're the villain or you're the good guy, you're saving them, but you're wearing.

Speaker 1 And I think that there's like this, certainly before I had ever watched the show, when I saw those things, the misconception I had was that it was all ego. And in fact, it's the opposite.

Speaker 1 You understand that you've actually got very, there's very little ego in it.

Speaker 1 You understand that the restaurant or the business is the star and that everybody has to be on board pulling towards making that thing succeed. Exactly.

Speaker 1 Otherwise, you've spent decades as a busy idiot. And I'll be honest,

Speaker 1 seriously, because you just spent, you know, listen, the hours are unsociable, you know, the money shit on the journey up, like in any career. And so you've got to value that process.

Speaker 1 And so when I started realizing all these issues, it was about,

Speaker 1 you know, the lack of empowerment. You've got to get them on the same page.
And so, yes, it's brutal. Yes, I'm honest.

Speaker 1 Yes, I am absolutely in their face because it's bloody frustrating when they're not listening, right? And kitchen nightmares, let's not forget, I don't rock up unannounced.

Speaker 1 They do ask me in there, by the way.

Speaker 1 Okay. And they promise me they have cleaned up before I got there.
And I'm thinking, holy shit. So you cleaned up.
Yeah. And it's still a shithole.
What was it like two weeks ago? Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 1 but the psychological journey that you take them on is so funny. One of the greatest one-liners you had was

Speaker 1 you walk in there to somebody, you said, you're like a one-hit wonder, except your one-hit is fucking burnt.

Speaker 1 Jesus.

Speaker 1 I got accused once of bringing a mouse in my pocket. And

Speaker 1 I think it was outside Philly in a restaurant. And

Speaker 1 there was a mouse running across the floor. And I said, look, we're about to open the doors.
And there's a fucking mouse on table seven. Said, stop it.
You brought that in.

Speaker 1 I said, sorry, beg your pardon. He said, yeah, roll the cameras back.
I said, what do you mean, roll the cameras back? Yeah, play the tape. I said, what do you mean play the tape?

Speaker 1 I don't do that shit. Are you saying that I put this mouse in my...
Yeah, I saw you shake your leg as you came through the door. You shook the mouse out of your ankles.
That's rattatouille, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Honestly, I swear to God. What's the grossest, without naming it, what's the grossest situation you ever walked into in a restaurant? It's every episode.

Speaker 1 I know, but there must be one that stuck with you that's like...

Speaker 1 Oh, God. I think

Speaker 1 recently I was in one restaurant and, you know,

Speaker 1 sort of the hot plate, the past, that's what everything comes to, right? And they had all these parfait jars up there with like rice and lentils and grains.

Speaker 1 And I thought one of those jars had smashed because it's full of all these little grains and until I got up close personal I didn't realize it was actually full of rat shit yeah and so I said to the chef hey

Speaker 1 have you seen what's on top of the pass you know this stuff could be dripping into the food well it's not I said yeah but it's rat shit he said yeah I'm gonna clean it I said but when are you gonna clean it he said what do you expect me to do fucking shoot the rats I said no clean your shithole and so he was cooking food serving

Speaker 1 under the hot plate with all these little tiny curds that had dehydrated, become like little bullets on top of the pass. Gross.
Oh, Jason, Jason. God, this hurts you so much.
I can't. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Another, another, another one-liner. Sorry, this is the last one.
You said to, it might have been recently, you said, you're so fucking useless, you make a bloody brick wall look intelligent.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I don't even know if I'm coming out with them. You know that.
Sometimes it's just in the heat of the moment.

Speaker 1 They push your buttons, man. Yeah.
Well, what, what, what really does? And if it changes, let us know.

Speaker 1 But I would imagine that your button gets pushed when you see people really not kind of rowing in the same direction, like not really being a good team member.

Speaker 1 Or is it, or is it lack of work ethic or concentration? What is it that really gets you?

Speaker 1 Laziness. Yeah.
Yeah. Laziness.
Yeah. It's the worst thing anyone can bring into anything.
Especially when you're working hard and people around you aren't, is aren't where you are. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Exactly that.

Speaker 1 And there are so many tiny details and I always consider 10 little problems become one big problem at the end of the day but when chefs start cutting corners in our business you're screwed it's it's the beginning of the end and also hygiene um

Speaker 1 no but seriously i you know

Speaker 1 there is nothing worse than a sweaty fat fuck that comes out of that kitchen and goes to the table and he's got dehydrated skin, he's got a beard that's untrimmed, he's sweating from the armpits, his fingernails are black and he asks you, how is your fucking lunch?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, the worst question, the worst question, first of all, you should never have sent that food if it wasn't good anyway, so don't ask that question.

Speaker 1 Secondly, it's a bad advert for the restaurant. Right.
You know, and it's gross. And today's chefs need to be a lot more prolific, not just as a marketing tool, but just common sense.
And so

Speaker 1 I hate laziness. I hate slobs.

Speaker 1 I'm not good at that. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 What do you guys, what do you, I know what my pet peeves are when I walk into a restaurant, and they're really pretty trivial. Do you guys have a bad thing? Does it start with welcome in?

Speaker 1 Well, first of all, welcome in. Welcome in.
If I own a restaurant, whoa, I do want to. If anybody at the Queen Beaver says welcome in, you're gone.

Speaker 1 I fucking hate that sort of faux folksy bullshit. And it's new, right? Isn't it just? Have a day.
It's like when you play golf, they go, have a day. Fuck off.
Please. Exactly.
Please fuck right off.

Speaker 1 That took over for touch base and circle back. Circle back.
Malcolm in his gone. But also,

Speaker 1 when a waiter says, so tonight Chef is preparing, I'm like, I don't know Chef. So stop referring to.
And Chef is doing a braised beef again. Where it's going to be.
It's going to be. Yes.
Oh, yes.

Speaker 1 It's going to be put on a plate. Oh, is it? I hope so.
Yeah. Or soup of the day.
What was it? Well, it's a roasted carrot and cumin. And what was the soup of the day yesterday?

Speaker 1 Roasted carrot and cumin.

Speaker 1 And what was the soup last week? Roasted carrot and cumin. So it's soup of the fucking month.

Speaker 1 And isn't soup really just sauce?

Speaker 1 Can we dispel the whole

Speaker 1 it really is sauce, right? It's

Speaker 1 all bread. It's creamy.
Like you could put it over a chicken. No, no, no, no, no, no.
I mean, soups are magical. I remember going to Paris at the age of 22.

Speaker 1 I said to you earlier, without a pot to piss in, and I had to become French. And not only was I running away from the hurt in soccer, but I just wanted to memorize myself in France and become French.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 my first job on the gamanger, the sort of starter section, was making this broccoli soup with ghost cheese ravioli. So they gave me these heads of broccoli and a pan of water.

Speaker 1 And I thought we'd need garlic, shallots,

Speaker 1 vegetable stuff. But all it was was rolling boiling, beautiful water, nicely seasoned.
The florets, the little flowers of broccoli, cooked for two minutes so we didn't lose the colour.

Speaker 1 Then you drain those broccoli

Speaker 1 florets and then from there you use the water the broccoli was cooked in and you puree the broccoli and add the water back to it. And it's the most natural, delicious, flavored broccoli soup.

Speaker 1 Two ingredients, broccoli and water. And then, of course, it gets sent into the Premier League with those little tiny goat's cheese raviolis.
And it was so... beautifully done.

Speaker 1 So no, soup is not a fucking sauce. No, it's not.
And Sean, and Sean, and Sean, just for Sean, broccoli is a vegetable

Speaker 1 that is.

Speaker 1 It looks like a tree. Yeah.
It's not a Pop-Tart flavor. All right.
Now,

Speaker 1 Gordon, why?

Speaker 1 My mother is British, and she was always sort of just like, well, you know, Britain

Speaker 1 was never really known for its great food, she would always say. Why is that? And I hear that it has changed now.
Can you walk us through that? Yeah, I mean, I got the piss and you take it out of me.

Speaker 1 Yeah, when I was in Paris in the 90s, because we had such a bad reputation. Yeah, it was like roast beef, fish and chips, mushy peas, and it was dreadful.
It was gray.

Speaker 1 it was dark it was it was horrendous because it was heavily influenced from um i think it was the mining the mining towns in a way that it was like meat and two veg and you know it was that sort of uninspired way of cooking with just absolute crap and so i couldn't wait to get out of the uk to go and sort of get on that journey and start searching and so france was

Speaker 1 It was this bedrock.

Speaker 1 It gave birth to odd cuisine. And then from France, I went to Italy.
From Italy, I went to Spain.

Speaker 1 And then from Spain, you know, I came across and spent a year on this incredible yacht traveling around the world, picking up multiple cultures. So

Speaker 1 now the UK is this stunning melting pot. We're Central Europe.
We're 26 miles away from France. And it's got some of the best.
best food in Europe now. We can rub shoulders with the French.

Speaker 1 We can rub shoulders in the US. And

Speaker 1 yeah, it's a nation to be proud of now. Not to get political, but do you think Brexit kind of is dulling the cuisine influence?

Speaker 1 I think it's putting a bit of a sort of wedge between

Speaker 1 those incredible countries. The crossover is

Speaker 1 blue cheese and bacon. Sorry.

Speaker 1 So, yeah,

Speaker 1 I never get into politics. I stay out of that shit because customers come to be neutral and to break bread without some chef's.

Speaker 1 But the influence of all of those countries that are so close to England, I'm sure, helped to influence the cuisine there. Massively, no longer.
Massively.

Speaker 1 What would you you say?

Speaker 1 Later, Russell, explain if you can, for our listener,

Speaker 1 when an Englishman describes having his dinner, his supper, his tea,

Speaker 1 and where they all fit and what time of day they fit and how they can be distinguished one from the other. Yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 1 First of all, I went to school with porridge, which is your oatmeal, right?

Speaker 1 We didn't use milk.

Speaker 1 We used it with salt. I remember my father saying to me once that

Speaker 1 you're going to be making your oatmeal with salt. And I said, Dad, why puts hairs on your bollocks? I'm like, okay.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So we start off with porridge, oatmeal. And then lunch is just a basic sandwich.
And then you come home for your tea. And tea is a dinner, but it's called tea because you never asked for dinner.

Speaker 1 Dinner was a posh word. You went home.
for tea and sometimes that would be a jam sandwich sometimes that could be fish and chips dating kidney pie but you had your tea and back in those days,

Speaker 1 you got what your mum served you, right? You never questioned that. Is that not traditionally at four o'clock? No, I think you're thinking of the sort of

Speaker 1 the afternoon tea. That's different.

Speaker 1 That's what I thought it was. Yeah.
So, yeah, tea's dinner.

Speaker 1 So you hear like a guy coming back, especially 50, 60 years ago, a guy come back from, you know, when they used to have the coal mines and that's all gone now, but they'd come back and he'd say, you know, he'd come back,

Speaker 1 go home to have his tea, right, Gordon?

Speaker 1 That's exactly that. Going home for tea.

Speaker 1 Does the United States, in your opinion have elevated cuisine at all i mean like oh my god definitely yeah absolute definitely without doubt um okay i mean you have to you all of us have to go to the cities like the big cities to get it right yeah i think the biggest shock when i first came over here uh years ago was just the size of the breakfast yeah and then on the side of the breakfast you've got a fruit salad on your breakfast as well so it turns into like a mini dessert that's not the way you want to start the day right oh my god they say it's the most important meal of the day but it should be your lightest meal of the day and then you build up to that so yeah but chefs are notorious for sort of eating because we graze so everyone says you're not eating

Speaker 1 you're not hungry no we've just grown up grazing because if you don't taste everything before it goes out then how do you perfect that level of utter beautiful stunning food so we have small spoons and so i can't go out and eat i think will last time you saw me like you're just picking you're not eating properly do you have an eating disorder i'm like no, no,

Speaker 1 we just can't eat starter apps, main disorder. Yeah, you did it.
That's exactly right. You didn't.
You didn't go through the whole thing. You just sort of little bits and pieces.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Gordon, I work a bit in Atlanta and I'm always really surprised. Oh, here we go, plugging Atlanta again.

Speaker 1 And excited about how great the restaurants are there.

Speaker 1 What's the last city that surprised you in the States with its cuisine?

Speaker 1 I'd say Austin, Austin, Texas. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah.
Powerful. Oh, my goodness, me.
And I'm just talking about barbecue. There's some incredible ethnic restaurants there.

Speaker 1 And from Filipino to great Greek restaurants and

Speaker 1 Japanese, Asian-inspired. Yeah.
Austin, Texas.

Speaker 1 Other than naturally

Speaker 1 French cuisine, which is sort of almost like the sort of

Speaker 1 granddaddy of them all in a way. And other than going out for that,

Speaker 1 what is your sort of guilty pleasure meal to go out for that you're like, just go and and have a Chinese or whatever? You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, you know, I spent three years training in France. It's two years in Paris and a year down the south of France.
And I absolutely adore France. It's just the French I can't fucking stand.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 don't worry, they're not listening. Do you speak French? I do, yes, I do.
Do you speak Italian too and Spanish? Yeah, but not fluent. The French is where it's at.
And we've still got Russians.

Speaker 1 Gordon, I had a French waiter once say to me, I said, everybody else is ordering drinks. And I said, I have a Diet Coke.
And he goes, oh, American champagne. And I was like, hey, fuck you.

Speaker 1 Fuck you, dude. They just have the most romantic ways of describing food.
We have grilled cheese, cheese, and toast. They have fucking hot monsieur.

Speaker 1 We have mashed potatoes. They have pom-pure.
We have apple pie. They have dotte de pomme.

Speaker 1 But it is good. It is delicious.
So,

Speaker 1 other than French cuisine, what's your guilty plate? What's your thing that you're like, oh, I'm going to go and have that? Oh, God. I'm a big fan of, yeah, In-N-Out Burger.
I love burgers, honestly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I do too. A great Smash burger.
I just love burgers. I absolutely adore burgers.
Did that just start the smash burger? And what it is literally, you just make the patty not fat and juicy.

Speaker 1 You make it thin and a little cameraized. Yeah.
And they smash it.

Speaker 1 Social media has popularized it for sure, isn't it? Yes. And the bun, the bun too, right? So it kind of becomes a little bit more sort of dense.
Like a sandwich.

Speaker 1 Because whenever I would go to a hotel and order, it'd be gigantic, the burger, and you couldn't even get your mouth in it. And then it was like how you want it to.

Speaker 1 Jesus, Sean, your blood pressure is going up. Relax, okay? They're going to fix the burger.

Speaker 1 Christ. But also, you get a much better cameraization on that smashed burger because you roll and then literally smash it immediately the minute it's being pressed onto that griddle.

Speaker 1 And then literally 90 seconds each side is cameralized, it's juicy. And you can do a double stack on that as well and really identify the flavor.

Speaker 1 That means what's the dish you think that what dish are you most proud of? What dish do you think you make them? Because you make so many. What dish do you think you make really well?

Speaker 1 And it could be as simple as an omelette. What's the thing that you do really well?

Speaker 1 In your opinion?

Speaker 1 There's two things. When we took over Clarities back in 2004, I sort of

Speaker 1 reintroduced the Phillip of Beef Wellington, which is a showstopper. And that's just like your perfect sort of dough drawing.
It's a beef and a pastry, right? Yeah. I love it.

Speaker 1 I don't think I've ever had it. I don't think I've ever had it.
I'll send you it. It's delicious.
And then second is scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs for me are

Speaker 1 so important. And because anything rubber, anything overcooked, undercooked, there's nothing worse, honestly.
And then every time I say she has put fucking eggs in a microwave, I scream. I just

Speaker 1 some of the best scrambled eggs I ever had in my life was at the Hotel Georges Cinque in France. Oh, there you go.
Amazing. Of course.
I asked for a little cream in it, right?

Speaker 1 Well, I asked the guy, I said, How do you get them so soft and creamy? And I don't know if he's joking with me.

Speaker 1 Go fuck yourself, Gal. With just a dash of go fuck yourself.
With all these questions, stupid American, shut up.

Speaker 1 You'd like to know the magic?

Speaker 1 In French, it's fat for fut. Yeah.
Fat for foot. Yes.

Speaker 1 what do that mean?

Speaker 1 You go fuck yourself.

Speaker 1 Wait, but so I said, I don't know if he was joking or he said, uh, American cheese, right? And I'm like, No, that can't be. I come, wait, I come home.
Listen to this. I come home.

Speaker 1 I make scrambled eggs, soft scrambled eggs, really slow, and I put craft singles in them.

Speaker 1 It's incredible. Let me tell you, let me tell you.

Speaker 1 I'm going to make it for you. Stop it.
It's Gordon just punched a hole in the wall.

Speaker 1 It makes it

Speaker 1 sweet and creamy. Somebody once put a little cottage cheese in scrambled eggs.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 it was pretty good. No, no, no.
The secret behind any great scrambled egg is stopping the cooking because if you don't stop the cooking, they'll just overcook and turn into rubber.

Speaker 1 So it's a teaspoon of creme frache or a little tablespoon of cream, and that just slows the process down. All right.
Sean, he was fucking with you. He just wanted to keep you in America.

Speaker 1 He wanted you to go home and stay home.

Speaker 1 You know what? The one thing I do like, here's my guilty pleasure eggs. I will say this.
My guilty pleasure eggs in Southern California, especially

Speaker 1 is

Speaker 1 chorizo and eggs with a little bit of cheese. That'd be lovely.
Fantastic. And corned beef ash.
Yeah, there you go. Eggs we can eat, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
That's the nice thing about eggs.

Speaker 1 That's the simplicity behind eggs. And it's something I taught all the kids, you know, our kids to make from the ages of six.
Great scrambled eggs.

Speaker 1 And is it true that the cholesterol in eggs has been dispelled? They're fine for you, is what I hear.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's the balance, isn't it? I mean, you don't eat that every day. And so we'll do scrambled eggs maybe at the weekend, Saturday or Sunday.
Okay.

Speaker 1 We'll be right back.

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Speaker 1 All right, back to the show.

Speaker 1 Wait, but go back to your kids because you have six kids. Good for you, right? Oh, Joe.
Six children.

Speaker 1 And I read that you missed the birth of your first four kids on purpose. Is that right? Well, hold on.
You're going to get me into shit here. Let's make one thing absolutely clear.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I know, but my wife didn't want me in there. Yeah.
Why? She said, first of all, I want my mom and your mum in here. You're not going to fucking see me in that state.
Right, yeah. Okay.

Speaker 1 You're not being that side of the curtain. Get out of there.
Okay, okay, okay. So that was her decision.
I had to respect that decision.

Speaker 1 And then when I did finally arrive in the theater for our fifth baby, I fucking clapped like a wimp and I blacked out holding Oscar in the air. Yes.
I was so fucked up. Holding the baby? Well,

Speaker 1 they said, what do you want to listen to? And it was coming through the sunroof. And so there was a lot of commotions going on.
It was a C-section? Yes. Yeah, yeah.
I've been there.

Speaker 1 Did you call that the sunroof? Yeah.

Speaker 1 i've been after all three all three of my sons i said oh can you play ed sheer and so they started playing there she turned up the volume i can hear all these noises turn up the volume and all of a sudden i saw two more doctors dive in i looked on the floor and there was blood everywhere and all of a sudden

Speaker 1 they popped him up and then they came straight over to me and i went whoa whoa whoa shit yeah and i sat back and then i clapped like a fucking idiot my second son my second son that came through on the radio you could just hear very low young huts be free

Speaker 1 I love that soul. I know, me too.
It was so, so bizarre. So bizarre, bro.
And then, Gordon, how do you, forgive me for asking, but I think it's incredible. You have all of these business ventures.

Speaker 1 You go, you just go, go, go. The drive, the ambition, the success.
How do you, what is your rules of balancing all of the family life and the work life? Yeah, that's a great question.

Speaker 1 So balance is critical.

Speaker 1 We got the right kind of support.

Speaker 1 Every time we were filming throughout the U.S., the kids would come with us and then we would take take them out of school two weeks early, put them back two weeks late.

Speaker 1 So we'll do the sort of filming schedules around the school schedules. It's a lot easier now.
We had four amazing kids and then Tana and I had this crazy idea to go back for more.

Speaker 1 And so there's quite a big gap. Megan, she's our eldest, she's 26, she's an incredible police officer back in London.
Oh, that's wow. Then we have the twins at 25.
Jack's a Royal Marine Commando.

Speaker 1 Holly's into a fashion. And then there's Matilda, who's 23, who's literally just come back from culinary school, would you believe? And I'm in a beautiful school called Bally Malo.

Speaker 1 I am a little bit miffed at the fact that she didn't ask me to train her. And

Speaker 1 she's gone off elsewhere. She's seen you.
She'll come back to the fold. Yeah, she's seen the shows.
That's the problem.

Speaker 1 So it sounds like you made all your, did all your kids have, did they all work sort of as they were growing up and have jobs and do things and have direction? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 And you never flew, you always make them fly coach or something?

Speaker 1 100%. And I've tried to explain to them what they could do with the money when they land because we're all getting on and getting off together.
So understand the difference.

Speaker 1 And secondly, no disrespect, an eight-year-old or a 10-year-old, they don't need fucking business class or first class. Or even as a teenager, they shouldn't be used to that kind of exposure.
Right.

Speaker 1 So you get up, you'll walk a bread roll from first class back to them.

Speaker 1 Bread roll.

Speaker 1 Oh, the bread's so hot up front. Here's a couple.
I'll be right back. I'll be back in about an hour to check on you.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I said, turn fucking right and do not disturb us for the next 12 hours.

Speaker 1 You're really, you're doing them a service, though.

Speaker 1 They're really you're because otherwise you're depriving your kids of learning how to live life and how to do things if you don't if you don't provide that for them I think.

Speaker 1 Yeah and also removing the hunger, right? And so it's not about excelling at school with A stars and you know A's and everything. I think this is about creating

Speaker 1 individuals. Well give them a direction of something that they want to do.
Right. And values, Will.
Give them the values. Install those values.
And they gotta, they can't depend on the mum and that.

Speaker 1 I'm not perfect at it. I'm not suggesting that I am, but I'm you know, because I got net chats on the other line.
They want to to talk to you about your parents next week.

Speaker 1 No, but I made, you know, look, look, you've got your daughter. You got her into directing and she came and worked on your show and you got her sort of into the thing and did an address in it.

Speaker 1 I got my kids who are working this summer. They're teenagers.
They've got jobs. Give them a start and then you see what they do with it.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I want them to have an idea of what it takes to make their own living and take care of themselves. I worked at a furniture shop.
We don't care.

Speaker 1 How is that mic still on? Fucking it's unreal. Gordon's here and he's talking about his family.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to speak. Let the guy be our guest.

Speaker 1 I didn't know what I was doing. Gordon, how do you feel?

Speaker 1 You know, so the restaurant business, you know, you love, you killed it. And then you get into the television business.
You know it, you love it. You're killing it.

Speaker 1 Is there a similarity between the two?

Speaker 1 Is there an appeal that is shared with both? Or do you love one over the other? Or how does that all fit in? Yeah, that's a good question.

Speaker 1 I mean, I think it's the level of creativity, I think, that I enjoy most about the TV.

Speaker 1 I hate it when shows are cancelled, so I'm always a firm believer in taking your own show and down first before you

Speaker 1 get cancelled. And so there's nothing worse when something gets cancelled.
So fuck it, I'll come up with a better idea so you don't take me down and we'll replace it with that.

Speaker 1 Also, I think not standing still. I think that's one thing growing up watching mum handle three jobs.
Even on Christmas Day, we wouldn't see it till 5 p.m.

Speaker 1 in the afternoon because I knew she was coming in from the night shift working in a hospital. So you grow up with that work ethic.
And I mentioned it earlier.

Speaker 1 You know, not just the fear of not having it there one day, but just the value you have where you are and how long it's taken to master your craft. And that crossover into the TV world is

Speaker 1 sort of hand in glove because it's real, okay? The shows are real. I take it serious.
It's not about light. camera action.
I'm not a big fan of the shiny floor stuff.

Speaker 1 I love the raw stuff, if I'm honest. Oh, Rob is mad at you for saying that.

Speaker 1 He's always mad at me. He loves the shiny floor.
No, no, but even when we are on the shiny floor, I want to keep it real. Okay.
I want to keep it really real.

Speaker 1 Right, right. Are you able to just to stop and enjoy the fruits of your labor and all the success? I mean, because every time we talk about your shows and your work, you just...

Speaker 1 you love what you do and you go go like you said you just go go go are you able to just stop and go wow look at this and and actually vacation and like you know calm down for a bit pat yourself on the back uh yeah i'm not very good at patting myself on the back if i'm what i do do when i'm off i'm off.

Speaker 1 Every six months, there's

Speaker 1 either an I-Man or a marathon. And so there's this sort of date that I build up to.
My next I-Man is coming.

Speaker 1 It's an I-Man? An Iron.

Speaker 1 It's a Iron Marathon. A tri-roll.
Triathlon. Oh God, it got it.
And so my wife competes as well. She loves it.
We spend a lot of time together swimming, cycling, and running.

Speaker 1 And so we have that nice little balance.

Speaker 1 Do you have a first gear?

Speaker 1 Do you ever shift out?

Speaker 1 a lot of people are scared of that level of exercise for me it's it's a way of relaxing i know it sounds crazy but it is

Speaker 1 that what drug is that what keeps you zip fear yeah yeah yeah just fear of exercising yeah i might start sweating fear of exercising yeah yeah i don't want to sweat

Speaker 1 what's what's what's your what's your what's your strongest uh sport or what's your what's your weakest is it the swim and the bike are strong no everyone straightes out over the swim and then to be honest everyone overworks that swim to shave two minutes off their time which is crazy I remember sitting in the deep water start in Hawaii for Kona Iron Man, and there's two and a half thousand athletes where we had to swim out 200 meters and then wade, you know, tread water for 10 minutes before the cannon went off at half five in the morning.

Speaker 1 I thought, my God, this is the most beautiful moment of my life. And then the visibility was 30 meters.

Speaker 1 The swim was 3.8K, no wetsuits because there's a lot of salt in that water, so you're naturally buoyant. And I put my goggles on, and I'm looking underneath.

Speaker 1 I'm like, fuck, it's like being in a live finding Nemo down here. The fish were everywhere.
I started to conjure up ideas for dishes, et cetera.

Speaker 1 And then I got out of the swim super relaxed and then onto the bike because I do relax when I train because I just get into that rhythm and I de-stress and I offload and then I'm uncontactable.

Speaker 1 I think that's the most important part about

Speaker 1 shutting off. No one get hold of me.
And everyone knows that. JB, you like that.
You have a meditative quality to your workouts too. Like you like to run for six miles and be kind of non-contactable.

Speaker 1 I do. Yeah.
It is it's just nice. I think just the discipline, right? And it's solitary.
It's just you against your body, your will,

Speaker 1 your discipline.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I do enjoy it. Hey, Gordon, you mentioned your mom a couple of times.
She sounds like she was a huge influence on you. Is she still with us? Was she able to see and appreciate your success? Yeah.

Speaker 1 My mom's 78, actually down in Taunton, southwest of England.

Speaker 1 My first ambition after winning our third Mission in Star was after selling our house to go and get that lease because the bank wouldn't back us. So that was the only tangible asset I had.

Speaker 1 After winning our third star, the first time we ever came into any money, I went and bought mum her first house.

Speaker 1 And so for her to have that in her 50s, something that she's never grown up with, was just one of the most exciting moments of my life. We have so many similarities.

Speaker 1 Sean, you did the same thing. Yeah, I brought your dad a new set of tires, right?

Speaker 1 Because he really burned through those first ones, getting the hell out of there.

Speaker 1 A real flat spot.

Speaker 1 And he ripped the rear views off, too, right?

Speaker 1 Shit, you guys.

Speaker 1 Honestly.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 While the wheel was spinning, he ripped the rear view gear off, threw it out the window. I think he hit Sean and Tracy both in the forehead with it.
Then the tires tracked up and off he went.

Speaker 1 And we haven't been closer

Speaker 1 My girls.

Speaker 1 Wait, Gordon, but so many similarities. We don't have to go into it, but my mom, super hard

Speaker 1 workhorse.

Speaker 1 I learned everything from her. Grew up really poor, five kids.
Dad was nowhere. And similar.
I just have a lot of the same drive that you do.

Speaker 1 And it's just, it's great to talk to you about all of that.

Speaker 1 I get it. I get where it comes from.

Speaker 1 You bought your mom a house.

Speaker 1 I bought my mom's house too. You did the same thing.
Yeah. Yeah, but it's the best gift you could ever give.
By the way, I've told this story story a million times. I'll tell it later.

Speaker 1 It's my mom,

Speaker 1 I did this big moment for her where I moved her into a condo. You were over the monocle? Yeah.

Speaker 1 My mom is one eye gordon. She had said, she

Speaker 1 had one eye. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And so she I moved into a condo and while I built her this big mansion for all of us to live in, and she, and I had that big movie, that bust moment where I filled it, you know, with the furniture and the silver.

Speaker 1 Literally, she just had to bring her toothbrush. And she walks in and she was so shocked and so surprised.
She was crying her eye out.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 she's literally touched the couch and she said,

Speaker 1 I don't know that I would have picked out that couch, but everything else is like that and that instead of like

Speaker 1 and that, that all three of us have the same mom.

Speaker 1 That's mothers. That's what that's.
That's crazy.

Speaker 1 I remember when she came to Clarity's for the first time and she was like the guest of honor for the opening party and they put her upstairs in the penthouse suite and the butler came in and said, Mrs.

Speaker 1 Ramsey, can I kind of run your bath? And she said, Certainly not. I can run my own bath.
Thank you very much. I'm like, Oh my god, honestly.
And then I flew over to LA.

Speaker 1 And we got this beautiful house up in Bel Air Crest. And

Speaker 1 it's beautiful. The views are stunning.
It's a dream. And she was looking after the kids while Tana and I went for a run, funny enough.
I came back and I said, You're okay.

Speaker 1 She said, Yeah, I'm just wondering. You're the neighbours.
I said, Yeah, what's wrong with them? She said, No one's got their washing out. I said, Oh, fuck.

Speaker 1 No one hangs their washing out.

Speaker 1 Our neighbor for 10 years was Stevie Wonder, who lived next door to us. And the sweetest guy, the sweetest guy.
Yeah, I bet. And mum didn't even know it was Stevie Wonder.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, mum, I had to sing her the fucking song. Oh, is that? I'm like, for God's sake.

Speaker 1 I'll pop around and ask if you'd like a cup of tea. I said, no, no, no, no, mum.

Speaker 1 You don't pop round to your neighbor's house. You can't do that in LA.
Security will take you away. I love that.

Speaker 1 No, so by the way, you have a new show coming out, which I'll i'll completely watch called gordon ramsey's secret service right when does that come out by the way um um like may

Speaker 1 yeah just when does it come out maybe it's already out

Speaker 1 may 25th fuck so i should know that rob's gonna kill me okay so it's already out by the time this comes yeah by the time this comes it's already out why do you think this is the one of the dumbest questions but i can't get enough of food shows and why do you what is the huge appeal what is it that taps into people that are obsessed why is why is everybody obsessed with watching how food gets made something we do three times a day, seven days a week, breakfast, lunch, we eat.

Speaker 1 I know.

Speaker 1 Why would you want to watch somebody do it?

Speaker 1 I think to make yourself feel better. And everyone wants to be better at it.

Speaker 1 Exactly that.

Speaker 1 I think, you know,

Speaker 1 there's so much to learn. about food.
There's so much enjoyment to

Speaker 1 cooking. And it's emotional.
And so those emotions, as you know, run high.

Speaker 1 And Secret Service is everything I've learned over the last 20 years working in the US from talented producers to great creators

Speaker 1 is in this show. Yeah, yeah.
I can't wait to see it. It looks so funny.
I can't cook. Can you guys cook at all? No, I can't even boil water.
No, no, no. I can make slappy joes.
That's it.

Speaker 1 But is it a fair will? Is it something that you is intimidating? No, it's one of those things. Every once in a while, out of the blue, it'll occur to me like, I should learn how to cook.

Speaker 1 And then it goes out of my head. And I don't think about it again.
And I don't know what it is. No? Sean?

Speaker 1 No, it's just, it's like,

Speaker 1 I'm not interested.

Speaker 1 In the winter, I'll get into baking and I'll bring these guys like over over stuff like that I make a lot of the times and like and then and then once I get into the rhythm of like making cheesecakes and cookies and whatever it is,

Speaker 1 I'm like, oh, it kind of I kind of and I kind of see it, but it's the mess and then the cleaning up. Yeah, that's the thing that keeps me away from it, the ratio between the

Speaker 1 prep, the cook,

Speaker 1 the cleanup versus the eating and the enjoyment. It's such a small wedge of, you know, is the eating.
I almost don't want to eat it after I make it. I know.

Speaker 1 It's just so much time to clean it it up and to prep it. I should get into that.
And I also love the fact that there's a roadmap, like a recipe book.

Speaker 1 You can just like, it literally tells you step by step what you need to do to get what that looks great and it's going to taste great. And you just, it's dummy-proof.
But the fulfillment is immense.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay.
When you get it. When you get over those bumps and you see that thing on the plate, it's like,

Speaker 1 but I will say that. You will do it with your kids.

Speaker 1 But I will say that

Speaker 1 the thing I do understand about what you do is when you do make something great and you serve it and somebody says, that's the best blank or whatever I've ever had, there is like a ego boost that you're like, oh, I did that.

Speaker 1 Like, that's, you know, it's a great payoff. But you can be taught, okay, all this bullshit about you have to be bought into it.

Speaker 1 Do you have an educated palate? And, you know, do you have to be natural? Absolute bullshit. How do I go from a, yes, yes, yes, yes.
And so

Speaker 1 I'm a little bit different to a lot of chefs. I teach my chefs to taste first before we learn.
to cook because if you don't understand how it tastes perfectly, you shouldn't be cooking it.

Speaker 1 Too many chefs don't taste their food.

Speaker 1 and so we go through a little sort of series of blind taste tests where we'll have five, seven, nine, eleven items on the plate, and they cannot get to cook those items unless they understand the taste.

Speaker 1 So, blindfold on, yeah, teaspoon at a time, and describe the taste, describe the texture, describe the perfect

Speaker 1 flavor. Do you hate doing the washing up? That's the other thing.

Speaker 1 Um, yeah, I mean, the kids always complain that I never do the washing up. I said, Well, come on, guys, you want me to cook and wash up? Jeez,

Speaker 1 um, growing up around mum, there was no such thing as dishwashers back then. You just got in and dug deep and washed up.
But I am a very smart and tidy worker. I don't make a mess.
And so

Speaker 1 I sort of clean down everywhere I go, a bit of OCD going on. So yeah, the kids are good at cleaning.
Yeah. All right.

Speaker 1 A couple of rapid fires here because I know we got to let you go. You love, you're a car fanatic.
What car do you drive? What car do you wish you had? It depends where I am. It depends who I'm with.

Speaker 1 Majority of the cars we have are all in this incredible hangar that we've just built. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 I'm embarrassed about the collection. I've been collecting for over 20 years.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 the only way I really get to understand these cars is on the track. So three or four times a year, we'll rent a track out.
Wow.

Speaker 1 Truck them down there. I bring in makes Silverstone? Silverstone and Thruxton are two big tracks.
Thruxton's the biggest track in the UK. And what's your favorite one to drive?

Speaker 1 Oh, it's like saying who's the favourite kit.

Speaker 1 I would say I still love that little Super Laguera Aston Martin DB4 or the Ferrari SP3 Monza. Extraordinary piece of kit.
How many cars do you think you got?

Speaker 1 I think it's about 94. Jeez, 94 cars for you, Gordon.
That is really cool. That's really cool.
I love that.

Speaker 1 So you hate pineapple on pizza. I do too.
What is the other shit that you can't? What's another thing that you absolutely cannot stand combined? food with

Speaker 1 cold foams, man. When I see foam on a plate.
Which cold foams? Foam. When chefs start aerating stuff and putting foam on a plate,

Speaker 1 that's for your fucking chin. You shave with foam.
Don't fucking eat it.

Speaker 1 And that disgusting, sticky, insepid balsamic glaze. I love it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm with you.
Yeah, I don't like it either. It's too sticky and I hate that chef.

Speaker 1 And one, and I think you already answered this, but the one food that you, if you know how to live with one dish for the rest of your life, I think it would be a hamburger. Probably.

Speaker 1 No, it's going to be eggs.

Speaker 1 It would be a hamburger all day long.

Speaker 1 Yeah, same.

Speaker 1 Smash burger. Smashburger.
With cheese?

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no. No, no.
Just a beautiful smash burger. Don't deter from the flavor of that.
Lettuce and tomato? No. No, no, no.
Just the burger and the bread. And there you go.
Are you serious? Nice.

Speaker 1 Really? No, they don't put lettuce and tomato. No, they put lettuce and tomato on there to make you feel fucking better as if it's healthy.
Right.

Speaker 1 And as you sell it, all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 We've become a customer.

Speaker 1 I like yellow mustard. I've become a big component in the last five years of old school plain yellow mustard.
It's the best. It's so good.
It's the best. In New York, they don't sell it.

Speaker 1 You can't find it anywhere.

Speaker 1 No, because everything's Dijon or some sort of version of it.

Speaker 1 Like spicy, whatever.

Speaker 1 Anyways, talk about spicy. We're the best ones.
Yeah, really. It's such an honor to meet you.
I've been such a fan for so long, and I really have watched every episode.

Speaker 1 And I was just in the UK a couple months ago for a stretch, and I found, and I never knew it exists. Kitchen Nightmares.
It was Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares before you came here to do it.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh my God, it was a channel that had it on 24-7. I watched every episode of that.
I just, I'm just, I love it. I love you.
I just love everything you do.

Speaker 1 So I thank you for being on the bus. Thanks for being on.
Congrats on Smartless, by the way.

Speaker 1 It's my one-two go-to every week when we download. And yeah.
Very nice. Thanks, guys.
It's an honor to have you. Thanks, man.
So good to see you. Thank you so much.
Thanks, Fred. Cheers, guys.

Speaker 1 Thank you, guys. Thanks, Sean.
Thanks, Will. Bye-bye.
Bye, guys. Thank you, Jason.
Bye-bye. Bye, buddy.

Speaker 1 He barely thanked you at the end there, JB. Did you hear that? Like Like at the last time, he was like, oh, yeah, thanks, Jason.
Couldn't remember the name. No.
It's hard. It's a tough one.

Speaker 1 Because he was going to say Justin like everybody else, right? He was going to say thanks, Justin.

Speaker 1 I got one the other day. It had been awesome.
I'm so bummed because I'm such a, I really watch everything he does. And I was so excited to bring him on and surprise you guys.

Speaker 1 And there's like, you're like, oh, hey, hey, Gordon, what's going on? I was like, I didn't know you were doing it. Jason and I saw him recently.

Speaker 1 I'm sorry, we're not like some crazy super cooking show fans, freak.

Speaker 1 I didn't know you were.

Speaker 1 In fact, I've never seen one of his shows, but i uh i i will now and i do enjoy a cooking show but i have not seen one yeah no that's so good so good it's so good and he's he's uh well i mean like who's like he has so i walked through the airport the other day and i saw this restaurant called plain food

Speaker 1 p-l-a-n-e. I was like, oh, that's clever.
It's Gordon Ramsey. Yeah.
There you go.

Speaker 1 And an airport.

Speaker 1 In an airport of all places. Got a restaurant.
I mean, he's. Yeah, he's doing very well.
You got to do well to buy 93 cars. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. It's insane.
90. May three.

Speaker 1 Did you say 94? I think he said 94. Yeah.
Did he say 94?

Speaker 1 Yeah. He just bought another one.
God lord.

Speaker 1 Good for him. You know? I know.
I know. Yeah, he's great.
I love him.

Speaker 1 I'd love to go to his. Where did he say it wasn't? Chelsea? Yeah.
In Chelsea. Let's go.
Let's go. You know what? Let's go see Shawnee's play.
Yeah. And we'll go for dinner there.
Let's do that.

Speaker 1 And then what about when you're in England doing it?

Speaker 1 Yeah. No, no.
Oh, it's Chelsea?

Speaker 1 In London, I think, isn't it? Oh, oh, great. Okay.
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, yeah.
Yeah. It's

Speaker 1 let's do that. And we'll get to, and how Bradley's been there.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. How about that? End of story? Yeah.
I mean, just like that he's held out on us. We didn't know that.
I didn't know that he'd been to

Speaker 1 Michelin star. Right.
Yeah. We'll go to the restaurant.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 We'll sit down. We'll have

Speaker 1 it's rare that he doesn't build up. So let him.
I know. I'm like letting him.

Speaker 1 We'll

Speaker 1 sit down and we'll just have a nice quick bye

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