Gordon Ramsay Isn’t Going Anywhere

With the new season of Next Level Chef, reality TV’s most enduring villain still reigns supreme. How much longer can he keep it up?

Gordon Ramsay insists he never wanted to be a bad boy. His image as a brash, aggressive chef and restaurateur who is a master of culinary ruin is largely, he says, a matter of false starts.

Ramsay was introduced to British audiences in Boiling Point (1999), a five-part Channel 4 series that chronicled his tumultuous efforts to open his first restaurant. Around the same time, BBC Two aired The Naked Chef, a lighthearted, upbeat cooking show starring young chef Jamie Oliver. The two shows and the two chefs couldn’t seem more different.

On one hand, you have Ramsay, a demanding perfectionist, firing a waiter for drinking in front of customers. “And then at the same time, on another channel, there was Jamie,” he recalled in an interview last week, “this shaggy-haired Essex boy, sliding down the stairs and doing amazing things with just a pot.”

“The whole country fell in love with him,” Ramsay said. While to himself, he added, “the whole country was wondering what the hell was going on.”

Advertisement

Ramsay’s explanation may not entirely explain his enduring reputation as an explosive TV tyrant—after all, it wasn’t Oliver who named Ramsay’s signature series “Hell’s Kitchen,” and he’s hardly forced Ramsay to criticize countless chefs and restaurateurs with colorful laments over the past 25 years on air. But it’s remarkable that Ramsay still brings up old feuds when discussing his reputation, a glimpse into the competitive intensity that’s been central to his continued success.

That competitiveness is one reason the host of some two dozen shows over the years, including “Next Level Chef,” which returns Sunday for its third season on Fox, still spends much of his free time binge-watching other food shows. It’s why, during the pandemic lockdown, he’s been diving headfirst into social media. And it’s also why, at 57, Ramsay has no plans to stop.

“When I started this career, it wasn’t about money — it was about passion and the drive to be the best,” he says. “Longevity is about not taking anything for granted.”

If Britain ever truly doubted Ramsay, it’s safe to say it and much of the world have changed. Today, he is one of the most recognizable names on television, the producer and star of hit reality shows on the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 in the UK and on National Geographic and Fox in the US. “Hell’s Kitchen,” the competitive cooking series he has hosted on Fox since 2005, wrapped up its 22nd season on Thursday; Ramsay estimates he has shot more than 1,200 hours of content for Fox alone.

“Next Level Chef,” one of his latest shows, is a culinary gauntlet in which a mix of home cooks, social media influencers and professional chefs compete in an elaborate three-story arena. Ramsay calls it “a smorgasbord of all the best parts of what’s been on a lot of different shows,” combining the fast-paced live action of “Hell’s Kitchen” with the ultra-strict supervision of “MasterChef.” It also showcases Ramsay’s softer, more encouraging side, seen on shows like “MasterChef Junior,” where he’s more of a dad-buzz man than a screaming despot.

“Gordon really appeals to everyone in the family,” Fox Entertainment chief executive Rob Wade said in an interview. “There’s enough edginess to entertain older viewers and enough humor to entertain younger viewers, and I think his authenticity is so palpable that people are drawn to him.”

But even after a quarter-century in front of the camera, Ramsay insists he doesn’t consider himself an entertainer. “I’m not a TV chef,” he insists when asked about his show business career, despite the impression some people might have. “I’m a serious chef and I happen to work on TV,” he added.

It’s true that Ramsay had already established himself in the culinary world before becoming a TV star. A former apprentice of famous chefs such as Joël Robuchon and Marco Pierre White, he opened his first restaurant, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, in 1998, earning three Michelin stars within a few years. He was the first Scottish chef to achieve that distinction, and has since amassed a total of 17 stars, of which he currently holds seven.