'I’ve had to grow up. I’ve become a modern dad': After a devastating miscarriage, the birth of his fifth child has mellowed Gordon Ramsay. He even tried to save Jamie Oliver’s business empire – after secretly making up with his arch rival
Tough guy Gordon Ramsay reveals his dramatic collapse at the birth of his fifth child. I went white... and then I fainted
The hard man of the kitchen admits there is just one thing he hasn’t been able to handle lately – being there at the birth of his son. ‘I genuinely c*****d myself,’ says Gordon Ramsay, tough-talking host of the fiery Kitchen Nightmares, who likes to run marathons and go in for extreme sports as well as being one of the world’s leading chefs. ‘I’ve been giddy flying in a fighter jet at 1,000mph. I’ve done some very dangerous things underwater. But I’ve never, ever felt as vulnerable as I did when my son Oscar was born.’
The hard man of the kitchen Gordan Ramsay admits there is just one thing he hasn’t been able to handle lately – being there at the birth of his son
So what happened? ‘Extraordinary. I’m sat there in the room worrying about menus and ingredients and all of a sudden this little head pops out the sunroof and you s*** yourself!’
He’s talking with amazing candour and emotion about the delivery by caesarean section last month at the exclusive Portland Hospital in London, where Meghan Markle recently gave birth. ‘I thought I was going to faint. Ed Sheeran was playing and I just turned the volume up because I was like: “Holy mackerel, look what’s going on here.” They had to get the clamp on him because his shoulder got stuck. So it was scary.’
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Oscar Ramsay was born weighing 7lb 9oz. The chef held the baby for the first few moments of his life. ‘I’ve never experienced that before,’ says Ramsay, who reveals that he was not at the birth of any of his previous four children. ‘Tana never wanted me to see her in that state. One time I went fly-fishing.’ On that occasion, he was enjoying the peace of the six-acre lake at Syon Park, Middlesex.
Meanwhile, when twins Jack and Holly were born on Millennium Eve in 1999, Ramsay was working alone in the kitchen of his restaurant in Chelsea. When Tana rang to say she was going into labour, he didn’t believe her. She called back two hours later to say she was going into theatre for a caesarean section. ‘She still hasn’t forgiven me for turning up half an hour late,’ he said shortly after. ‘Personally, I’m quite relieved I did – if I’d seen it I’d have dropped to the floor!’
Event meets the celebrity chef to discuss Ramsay’s new pan-Asian restaurant Lucky Cat, which opens in Mayfair this summer
So how was he at Oscar’s birth? ‘I cried my f****** eyes out. All of a sudden you are nobody. You’re standing there looking at a team of experts who are saying, “Right, we’re going to look after you now Tana.” And Tana’s hand was squeezing my hand even tighter. She has thrombophilia [which increases the risks of blood clots], so a caesarean is a big operation. Everyone thinks it’s easy but it’s not. They had to close up very quickly.’
Then big, tough Gordon Ramsay did what he was afraid of doing all those years ago. ‘I was white as a ghost. I fell back into the chair and I fainted. They said, “Tana’s fine. I think it’s you we need to look after next.” It was just a moment of madness, being out of control. I’m a control freak, always in control.’
What about Oscar? ‘I had to hand him back. I was like a sack of s*** on a hot day. And I’m looking in his eyes thinking, “Oh no dude, you’re going to be p***** off with me when you hear about this!”’ Ramsay is full of admiration for his wife. ‘What an amazing performance by Tana. I realised that men are weak and we’ve got it easy. I panicked. It’s very rare I panic. Scary.’
This is a side to Ramsay that few of us ever see. He’ll even reveal that his long-running public feud with Jamie Oliver is over, having made the first move at the start of the business troubles that saw Oliver’s restaurants prepare to enter administration this week: ‘It was just appalling to see Jamie worry, so I reached out.’
Tana and Gordon Ramsay with new baby Oscar. ‘I’ve never experienced that before,’ says Ramsay
We’ve met to discuss Ramsay’s new pan-Asian restaurant Lucky Cat, which opens in Mayfair this summer. But Oscar is only a month old, and the birth is still very much on his mind. It has opened him up to talk in a new way – and to say that there was a very moving reason why Tana decided he should be there this time.
‘We were devastated by the loss of Rocky three years ago,’ he says, referring to Tana’s late miscarriage, when she was rushed into hospital over one weekend in June 2016 and told that she had lost her son, Rocky, five months into the pregnancy. Gordon and the children were with Tana at the time.
‘This – Oscar’s birth – was a big homecoming for us, a big moment. I don’t think you’ll ever forget, in terms of healing. It didn’t smooth anything over, just made it feel even closer because that time was awful. I saw how hard-hitting it was then for the kids, to be there and to witness those little hands and feet, then to say goodbye. So this was full circle, I suppose.’ His voice is uncharacteristically soft. ‘We’ve sort of brought closure to that. Now it’s easier to talk about Rocky, where it wasn’t beforehand.’
Is Ramsay a more hands-on father fifth time around? ‘I can change a nappy now in like 52 seconds. So yeah, way more hands-on than ever before. I just found it hard. Also, I wasn’t there. Now I am.’
What’s changed? ‘I’ve had to grow up! I’ve become a modern dad!’ At the age of 52, despite an international business empire and a career as the potty-mouthed tyrant of the TV kitchen, Ramsay says he has mellowed and shifted his priorities. ‘I’m more content now, happier, relaxed where I am. I say “no” more than I say “yes”. I’ve been so disciplined, empowering other people in my business.’
He seems far less tense than before. How do his older children feel about the change, which perhaps comes too late for them? ‘The kids know how hard I worked,’ he says. ‘Meg is 21 next week. And that was the start of it – four months after she was born, we opened the restaurant at Royal Hospital Road [Restaurant Gordon Ramsay]. But the time we did spend together was quality. None of their noses has been put out of joint and they’re so excited about Oscar.’
The youngest of the four older children, Tilly, is 17 and will soon be of an age to leave home, as the others have. That’s hit him hard, he says. ‘It’s horrible because it slaps you without warning. That empty silence with no one to cook breakfast for at the weekend, it’s grim. There’s no script to prepare yourself for that.’
Meg is about to graduate from Oxford Brookes University. The twins are 19 now: Holly is at Ravensbourne University in London, Jack went to Exeter University in September. ‘I took him there and came back on the M4. Sitting there in traffic, I was a mess, man.’ Again he admits to crying his eyes out – the only other time he has done that in years, apart from Oscar’s birth. ‘Suddenly my best mate wasn’t there. I couldn’t go on the bike with him, couldn’t go for a swim. Thank God I’ve got tinted windows so no one could see how much of a mess I was.’
Jack’s mother was more pragmatic. ‘Tana just said: “You’ll be fine, he’s coming back home next weekend.” But that’s not the point. Do you know the hardest thing? You look in the back seat of the car, and there’s three seatbelts all empty. It kills you.’
Jack’s departure was hardest. ‘It was a tough blow because I only had one son. The three girls are funny. They’re glamorous, they’re naughty and everything you want from a daughter. So respectful. But with their brother going, now I’ve got no one to have banter with. I’ve got no one to be me. I’ve got no one to flex my muscles or have a bit of fun with. So having Oscar has been a massive relief.’
Then Ramsay says something even more surprising. He has found new friendship and mutual support with the person you’d least expect – Jamie Oliver, his great rival for the title of Britain’s favourite TV chef. The pair have been calling each other out in public for a decade now, starting when Oliver had a go at Ramsay for criticising a woman’s appearance and was accused in turn of being ‘a one-pot wonder’. Oliver has hit back over the years by saying his rival is ‘deeply jealous’, a ranter who acts like he’s got dementia and a worse cook than his wife. And Ramsay has responded by slating Oliver’s cooking and his weight. But it all got out of hand in 2017 when Oliver made an offhand comment about having five children to Ramsay’s four. In his sensitive state so soon after the loss of a son, Ramsay took it as a reference to the miscarriage, saying: ‘Tana was mortified, really mortified.’
After all this then, it is astonishing to hear that the war between them is over. ‘I put a phone call in to Jamie last year, seeing the s*** he was going through. We met at the Ivy Club, got absolutely p***** together and I tried to give him as much advice as I could. It was just unfair to see him being taken down.’
Oliver had just been forced to put £13 million of his own money into his company to save at least some of his restaurants from going bust, but he was being criticised for letting his staff down. How was the offer of peace received? ‘Good. We spent time together last year. Jools and Tana have always had a lovely connection. Jamie rented a house next door to us in Cornwall, we had a barbecue together and again we were drinking and talking at midnight. But to see that vulnerability in his eyes at 42…’
The family at home, back row from left, Megan, Holly, Gordon and Tana; front row, Jack and Tilly
Ramsay is a decade ahead. ‘I thought: “I’ve been through what he’s going through ten years ago, fighting to get my name clear and look after my business.’ Ramsay had a long-running court battle with Tana’s father, Chris Hutcheson, who was sacked as his chief executive then hacked the company computers. In June 2017, he was jailed for six months.
‘It was appalling to see Jamie worry, so I reached out. I thought: this is our careers, it’s in our blood. We’re those generous, vulnerable, talented individuals who know that everywhere you turn, left or right, there’s someone trying to take advantage of you. So I said, “What can I do to help this ship stop sinking?” Our CEOs met and exchanged ideas.’
Their collaboration was not enough to save the Oliver restaurants from collapse this week. Ramsay was talking before that news broke.
What about all those nasty words?
‘That’s all banter,’ says Ramsay. ‘We’ve had a dig in and a few little swipes, but it’s no different to two football players, one for Liverpool and one for Manchester City. There’s hatred on the turf, but three weeks later you’re playing together for the national team and you love each other again.’
Are they friends now? ‘Yeah. There’s a level of respect and mutual admiration. We had an amazing time at the barbecue and the kids always get on.’
Those kids must have a lot to talk about.
Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay in 2006. ‘It was appalling to see Jamie worry, so I reached out. I thought: this is our careers, it’s in our blood'
‘Oh my God! Being in the heads of Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay’s daughters must be a nightmare! Poor girls!’
This is definitely a new, softer Ramsay – ‘I think I’ve matured. I’m less anxious.’ But his great passions rise again when we start to talk about Lucky Cat. ‘It’s a modern interpretation of authentic Japanese cuisine, highlighting some British ingredients. I had a pan-Asian restaurant on that site in Mayfair for 14 years called Maze, so how do we reinvent and upgrade that?’
The answer is in the food that starts to arrive in front of us in a private room upstairs at his Heddon Street Kitchen restaurant, where Lucky Cat’s executive chef Ben Orpwood has come to cook.
‘This is Australian kingfish, sliced and served raw with our house soy sauce, which is made from sake, soy sauce, mirin, bonito flakes and kombu – we bring the mixture to the boil and infuse for five days,’ says Orpwood. ‘Nasturtium flowers are involved too.’
The chef also brings English asparagus with an emulsion made from smoked ponzu, a dark Japanese sauce; then crispy pigeon leg with plum sauce and pickled nashi pear. The tastes are unusual and extraordinary. They attracted a lot of love when Ramsay held a pop-up Lucky Cat preview in Soho earlier this year, but there was also a big stink after an online food writer called Angela Hui attacked the event. She described herself as ‘the only East Asian person in a room full of 30 to 40 journalists and chefs’, and said the restaurant’s approach was: ‘Japanese? Chinese? It’s all Asian. Who cares?’
The accusation was that Ramsay was playing fast and loose with someone else’s way of life – or cultural appropriation.
Ramsay sighs. ‘I have to turn a blind eye to that bulls*** now. I’m too busy. If it was ten years ago, I would stand up and tell them all to f*** off. Now I’m a different beast.’
But he just can’t stop himself from responding. ‘Judge the food first, right? I go to some of the best Japanese restaurants in LA: 90 per cent of the cooking brigade are Mexican. I was on the beach in Cornwall yesterday and there’s a place called Taco Boys UK: two young guys in a horsebox on the beach, selling the best tacos. I’ve got a lot friends who are Mexican chefs who would wet themselves if they tasted those tacos. Then there’s Jamie. He’s not Italian, he’s from Essex. So what is this? We can’t go anywhere?’
Ramsay points out that he studied classical French cooking in France as a young man, mastered the art then brought it back here with an English twist that won him three Michelin stars. He’s also run highly successful restaurants in Japan and Hong Kong. So he’s furious. ‘How did we get so oversensitive about this multicultural thing? Can you imagine if British chefs had to stick to British cuisine? Are you saying that cooking in this country can only be about steak and kidney pudding, grilled liver and spotted dick?
‘We’re celebrating 19 years of having three Michelin stars. That’s years of utter perfection. That takes a lot of guts, commitment and passion. I’m certainly defensive of my team.’
Despite his strong reaction here, Ramsay claims to not take social media too seriously. ‘There’s no credibility in comments on social media. I have this argument with my daughters. Holly had her hair dyed pink a couple of weeks back. I loved it. Tana hated it. Holly posted a picture then she said: “Oh my God, everyone hated it.” I said: “No, there are strangers on your feed. You don’t know who they are. So, let’s put this into perspective.”’
This Gordon Ramsay is very different from the one we see turning the air blue on Kitchen Nightmares. ‘People think I’m going to tell them to f*** off every time I see them, and that’s just not true.’
Isn’t that his fault? Didn’t he create the monster for the sake of fame? ‘But you have to be lethal, absolutely ruthless on those programmes. I haven’t got three months to turn a business around, I’ve got 24 hours. When they’re successful, we don’t get praised. When they fail, we get blamed. So you’re f***** either way, but that’s the nature of the beast.’
He thinks for a moment. ‘So yeah, maybe I need to stop doing that. Maybe I need to retire from TV.’ Is he serious? ‘Maybe that’s what I need to do. F*** it!’
Suddenly the press officer who has been sitting quietly with us breaks in to offer coffee, interrupting this dangerous line of thought. A move like that could cost his company millions. Maybe he will retire, though. Ramsay is unpredictable, that’s part of what makes him brilliant. You wouldn’t put it past him in this state, cracked open like an egg by the birth of his son. At least whatever he does next won’t make him faint.
Ramsay's Top Three Dishes from Lucky Cat
1. Orkney Scallop, Yuzu & Sweetcorn Hot Sauce, Finger Lime
“We use hand dived Scallop, seared and served with our yuzu hot sauce and combined with sweetcorn puree. The sauce is cut with finger lime pears.”
Orkney Scallop, Yuzu & Sweetcorn Hot Sauce, Finger Lime (left); Our Pastrami, Milk Buns, Japanese Pickles (centre); Yum Baba Coconut Chantilly (right)
2. Our Pastrami, Milk Buns, Japanese Pickles
“We smoke and slow cook our short ribs at 60 degrees for 48 hours. They are seasoned with a blend of Japanese peppers and spices and served with our soft milk buns and chilli oil.”
3. Yum Baba Coconut Chantilly, Roasted Pineapple
“Our take on a classic and a signature that features on many of my menus, our baba is soaked in rum, sake and yuzu juice before being glazed. It’s then served with roasted pineapple from the robata and a coconut Chantilly.”
