ON his new cooking-competition series on Fox, Chef Gordon Ramsay screams and curses at the contestants, throws the dishes they’ve just created on the floor or smears the food on their aprons.
And while he admits he’s not 100 percent comfortable with his own volcanic temperament, he defends his behavior as being, at the very least, straightforward.
“I snap,and unfortunately,it ‘s an emotional thing,” Ramsay says.
“But,I tell you what,when I want to get it off my chest,I ‘m going to go straight to the point.”
If Ramsay seems like the world ‘s toughest kitchen taskmaster,then it ‘s a style that has worked for him.
At age 38,he is one of the world ‘s most successful and admired chefs and restaurateurs.Based in London,Ramsay runs at least nine restaurants around the world and has at least three more on the way – one in Japan and two in New York next year.
Married with four children,this former professional soccer player has authored about a half-dozen cookbooks,won all sorts of cooking awards and accolades,and starred in his own reality show on British TV,also called “Hell ‘s Kitchen ” and the precursor for the American version of the show that premiered last week.
On “Hell ‘s Kitchen,” 12 contestants – including five from New Jersey – compete each week in various cooking situations to avoid being dismissed from the show.Chef Ramsay does the firing somewhat in the manner of Donald Trump on “The Apprentice.”
At the conclusion of the series, the winner receives an unknown prize that Fox seems to want to keep under wraps until the end.It may be an actual restaurant, according to rumor,but Ramsay will only describe the prize in vague terms.
“It ‘s the equivalent to being given the perfect head start [in the restaurant business ],almost on par to having your own restaurant,” he says. But before anyone wins anything,they have to withstand a withering assault from Ramsay,
who feels that the exacting standards of the restaurant business require an almost military level of discipline.
“You know,the closer you get to someone the more you can really discipline them,but it ‘s nothing personal because I didn ‘t hate them,” he says of the contestants.
“I think at times they hated me, but if you look at the transformation over a period of six or seven weeks,there was a turning point, and that ‘s not to be missed.”
HELL ‘S KITCHEN
Monday, 9 p.m. Fox