His new breed of head chefs are certainly being allowed to express themselves in the kitchen, as autonomous chiefs to Ramsay's suzerain.And spare a thought for his wife and four children, whose time with Dad is seriously limited. "The payoff is that they have something I never had," says the man who grew up in a council house, the son of an abusive father. They're partners in the company, an integral part of the team. They have responsibilities."One can sense it's hard for Ramsay to delegate, but if a tragedy such as Dempsey's can teach him anything, it is that creating a legion of mini-Gordons is unhealthy. Every aspect of his life is infused with the same values - attention to detail, caustic humour, brutal honesty. He's the chief spokesman and artist-in-chief of Brand Ramsay.His prot?s - Angela Hartnett at the Connaught, Marcus Wareing at Petrus, Jason Atherton at Maze - must have found it tough.
David Dempsey, a talented former Ramsay trainee, who even named his children after Ramsay's, found it very tough indeed. He killed himself by jumping out of a window heavily under the influence of cocaine, the night after an argument with his boss."No, he couldn't take the pressure, that's true," says Ramsay, maintaining eye contact "And he was more selfish than he needed to be But I don't worry about Jason and Angela and Marcus They wake up every morning with a choice in life. Ramsay is just Ramsay."I do give a fuck what people think, you know," he says. "But I don't walk round trying to charm the nation to kiss my arse Because you get found out eventually And that's the secret of staying successful, too Customers don't tell you you can't cut it any more. They just fuck off to another restaurant."What this oddly jumbled mixture of the personal and the professional shows is that, for Ramsay, there is no division between the two.
But, in a moment of reflection, he asks: "Do you see my television persona as being inconsiderate or inept in today's world?" He seems genuinely interested It's hard to know what to say. A lot of early thirties professional women have spent years getting smashed on champagne, and have no idea how to cook. "I'm so lucky," he says, and he means it.But suggest that he deliberately courts controversy, and he looks genuinely shocked "I don't do it on purpose," he says. "I don't do it to piss anyone off."Really? Is it possible that Ramsay is naive enough not to know that saying, as he did recently, that he wanted to get women back in the kitchen would raise hackles? "Listen, I've been slightly misconstrued," he says, with a wild grin "I never said that women can't cook.