Quotes by Gordon Ramsay

Every once in a while a chef comes along whose personality and clarity of vision to help to revitalize people's interest in cuisine.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double edged sword -- two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

In any situation, location is crucial.

I'm not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

I've got nothing to hide.

When you have the arrogance, the confidence and you can't cook, then you're only going to look stupid.

That's common sense Joe! And your tiny mind is not common!

However amazing a dish looks, it is always the taste that lingers in your memory. Family and friends will appreciate a meal that tastes superb-even if you've brought the pan to the table.

We're fragile, fragmented souls who are very sensitive to criticism.

If you think customers are impatient in New York, wait to you see how impatient they are here in L.A.

I quite like that jeopardy, those up-against-the-wall odds. I don't like it when it's over-comfortable, too easy, something that can be done in two or three weeks. I like a challenge.

The parents are the issue, because it's not the kids' fault. They're the ones on the playground getting the s -- and the jokes and the bullying, because of their size and they're obese. It's not the kids, it's the f -- ing parents.

Given that level of responsibility with your 25-year old or 35-year-old chef, it's just quite nice to see how they handled that exposure. Not every chef deals with it properly; they get slightly excited, a little bit overconfident and then they miss out on the most important part.

In order to create a little bit of confidence, start cooking with pasta. Pasta is phenomenal. Once you've cooked pasta properly for the first time it becomes second nature.

When you're cooking in the premier league of restaurants, when things go down, it has to be sorted immediately.

No one saw the recession coming.

First of all, for me the secret is in the ingredients. You don't need to start spending fortunes on organic foods and start becoming way over budget. The better the ingredient, the littler that needs doing to it.

Chelsea has always been a foodie heaven and it will never change in that respect.

That's the problem. Anyone can go and buy a restaurant. I want to be at that f -- ing dinner party where they say, Hey, Bill, your food's great. You should buy yourself a restaurant. That's not right. Taking it less personally.

Bread Street Kitchen is a big operation, a unique beast, and it needs bedding in.

Very few restaurants do five services a day -- breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, cocktail, theatre and dinner -- and because of that we can offer something for everyone.

If you become a chef because you're obsessed by becoming a celebrity, getting my ass kicked and working my nuts off the way I did in France and getting pushed around those kitchens wasn't about becoming famous.

I train my chefs with a blindfold. I'll get my sous chef and myself to cook a dish. The young chef would have to sit down and eat it with a blindfold. If they can't identify the flavor, they shouldn't be cooking the dish.

I love eating out. I don't deny that. But I don't want 12 or 15 courses because the chef wants me to taste this or taste that. I just want to be able to decide.

What's frustrating more than anything is when chefs start to cut corners and believe that they are incognito in the way they send out appetizers, entrees, and they know it's not 100 percent, but they think the customers can't spot it.

To have 95% of the ingredients sourced, food and wine, within 100 miles radius, that's a dream come true for any chef.

Can you imagine the headlines if I gave someone food poisoning? They'd hang me off Tower Bridge by my ballbag!

Growing up in Britain, we didn't have much, worked for everything. To leave food on the plate, Mom classed it as being rude and so we ate because we were hungry, not ate because we had a choice in the fridge.

Eating out doesn't have to be a formula. Eating out is about having fun. I get really frustrated when it's badly done.

It has always stood for f***ing great food.

When you find a guy who is powerful, a big father figure, you latch onto him immediately.

Why can't it be a curriculum? Why can't it be a life skill that they learn just to look after themselves in terms of a healthy way of eating? I think we need to shake up that whole curriculum and give them a little bit more of a lifestyle early on, before they leave school at 18.

Everything has to be done for a reason, and everything has to be done to make sense in terms of running a proper business today, and it's not just about the food.

I suppose more than anything, chefs have gotten better, which is great news, which makes my life a lot easier. I can be a lot more creative in terms of the menu.

MasterChef Junior for me was about working closely with these kids and getting them to reeducate their parents to understand that food is as important educationally as Math and English and it's important that we don't take it for granted.

Videoing, lifting it, prodding it, and five minutes later they might even eat it! That first approach to the naked eye is crucial, so when you see pictures coming through on your social media, it does push you to be a little more creative and raise the bar a little bit higher.

I'm a big lover of fish. Cooking fish is so much more difficult than cooking protein meats, because there are no temperatures in the medium, rare, well done cooking a stunning sea bass or a scallop.

Something you need to do three times a day, seven days a week, and something you need to stop worrying about. If kids don't know how to cook, they go to junk, and then the junk becomes addictive, and then all of a sudden they're left with no choice.

I like finding talent. That's what really turns me on, I suppose.

Cooking a dish is fine; cooking it under pressure is a completely different ballgame.

I'd like to think I'm a great teacher.

If you want to think about cooking, and it's a high-five, laid back motion, then flip burgers and dress Caesar salad, don't try to pitch in the premier league of restaurant. Build up to it, by all means.

One thing I can't afford to get sucked up in is the trend formation of restaurants here. I've invested heavily. We have a ten-year lease. More importantly, the style, the feel and the décor of the dining room is vibrant.

Long Island is buoyant, it's on the outskirts of Manhattan, and so they have access to phenomenal restaurants.

I can't say, maybe it's something in the ingredients, but again, we have a couple of contestants from Long Island and a phenomenal array of chefs.

It's amazing. Long Island, I don't know really. It's quite a fascinating area.

It's quite weird knocking that out of them and telling them to forget cooking for chefs; forget what chefs say about your food.

I've been in New York for 15 months. Winning two stars in the Zagat number one best newcomer within ten months of opening in New York has taught me a big lesson.

My childhood favourite is mum's shepherd's pie, Yorkshire pudding and roasted potatoes. I remember coming home from school and going to the kitchen to help her. It's because of her that I discovered my love for cooking.

We launched it in the London branch -- phenomenal sausages, incredible eggs, homemade baked beans, black pudding -- and it's something I wanted to bring to Dubai.

That's what we do on MasterChef, on Junior. No school teachers, no parents, let it go. You're going to go on a challenge. We're going to go to hell and back, and we're going to have some bumps.

I spend more time in the kitchen than I have in the dining room, for obvious reasons, however, I just want to sit and indulge.

My mum doesn't enjoy sometimes listening to me tell staff off, and I say to my mum, it's a kitchen, not a hair-dressing salon.

You can't depend on the exposure of a TV screen to keep your feet on the ground and your food tasting delicious. You've got to push yourself.

Another person tattooed my face on their calf. When they tense, the face moves! That is messed up.

Someone sent me a picture of my name that was tattooed on their a***! The first thing I said was, the least you could have done was spell it properly!

If my last supper was ever going to be cooked by a chef, it would have to be Thomas Keller.

There's nothing new. I think that's the weird thing for me. Over the last couple of months, the keep-fit shows, and then at the end of it you get to lose weight and one of you is going to win a million dollars -- that's not real. In many ways, even 10 years ago that wouldn't have worked.

It's very hard when you eat out every day for a living, and a new restaurant comes along and you haven't got that same vigour that you had 10 years ago.

Here, in L.A., trust me, there will be fireworks from the canapés right through to the desserts.

I think reality TV now needs a big kick up the a -- to get creative and be meaningful, I think. Otherwise, people are becoming famous for having no talent, based on pure exposure. That's the grating part.

Rude staff, bad lighting, and dirty bathrooms are all signs of a bad restaurant and a good reason to leave a restaurant!

There are very few chefs both in Britain and the States that really identify the secret of being consistent. And combine consistency with flavor.

I'm actually not really a breakfast person.

You know how arrogant the French are -- extraordinary.

Being assertive and somewhat really firm has to be backed up with being fair.

I am well aware that a chef is only as good as his last meal.

I came up from a difficult background.

Stopping the junk food and Eating well is partially about cooking well and having the skills to do that.

The secret is to make sure the business is running to perfection, with or without me.

I shoot from the hip.

There's no bigger pain anywhere in the world than a vegetarian.

I hid myself in food.

Put your head down and work hard. Never wait for things to happen, make them happen for yourself through hard graft and not giving up.

Push your limit to the absolute extreme.

Eh! All of you! come here! taste it! taste it, taste it, taste it!

I have to say, opening up in New York taught me a lot about that level of attention to detail. London's a tough market, Paris is a tough market, but New York, well, that's extraordinary.

Long Island for me, it's producing more chefs coming out of there than Paris.

Certainly in business terms, considering how thriving the market is. Understanding what people want is essential. We have a team on the ground whose job it is to keep tabs on what's good, whether it's a tapas bar in Barcelona, or an amazing fish and chip shop in Yorkshire.

I am happy for them all: Angela Hartnett, Jason Atherton, Marcus Wareing, Mark Sargeant.

Making pasta, cooking pasta and baking bread are two essential ideas to create a little bit of excitement, and you learn the basic, and then evolve it. Flavor the bread, flavor the pasta, go to a fish, go to a meat sauce and take it to another level.

I've always said that I think females make the best chefs anywhere in the world.

Being a chef never seems like a job, it becomes a true passion.

Two key ingredients in any successful chef: a quick learner and someone with a sharp brain.

It goes back to the early days in the kitchen where you would be tasting dishes all night long, so the last thing I want to do in the morning is eat. Chefs generally tend to be grazers.

Being a chef is the best job in the world.

Chefs don't do ponytails and we shouldn't do them because I guarantee that whenever there's a discovery of hair in the food, it's guaranteed it's from the chef's ponytail.

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

My father was a swim teacher. We used to swim before school, swim after school.

I grew up in a funny way.

I swim like a fish and I have an amazing kick.

Running started as a way of relaxing. It's the only time I have to myself. No phones or e-mails or faxes.

Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.

I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.

I mean, families are weird.

I'm not trying to take New York by storm. I just want to sneak in there, keep my head down, batten down the hatches and cook.

I'm Gordon Ramsay, for goodness sake: people know I'm volatile.

I won't let people write anything they want to about me.

There is a level of snobbery and fickleness in L.A.

Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.

I was a naturally aggressive left-back, a cut-throat tackler.

I didn't get depressed, I don't get depressed.

It's vulgar, coming from where I do, to talk about money.

I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that's it.

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God's sake, not a television personality.

I train my chefs completely different to anyone else. My young girls and guys, when they come to the kitchen, the first thing they get is a blindfold. They get blindfolded and they get sat down at the chef's table... Unless they can identify what they're tasting, they don't get to cook it.

My wife, a schoolteacher, very disciplined. If you think I'm tough, trust me, and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It's hilarious. So we decided that I'm going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.

The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.

They say cats have nine lives. I've had 12 already and I don't know how many more I'll have.

I cook, I create, I'm incredibly excited by what I do, I've still got a lot to achieve.

I don't run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.

Kitchens are hard environments and they form incredibly strong characters.

We are about creating a new wave of talent. We are the Manchester United of kitchens now. Am I playing full-time in the kitchen? I am a player-coach.

If I relaxed, if I took my foot off the gas, I would probably die.

I've had a lot of success; I've had failures, so I learn from the failure.

I've never been a hands-on dad. I'm not ashamed to admit it, but you can't run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

You don't come into cooking to get rich.

Find what's hot, find what's just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.

I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig.

If I can give you one strong piece of advice, when you go away for that romantic weekend, whatever you do, do not accept or take the upgrade to the honeymoon suite.

I still love football, though, and I think cooking is like football. It's not a job, it's a passion. When you become good at it, it's a dream job and financially you need never to worry. Ever.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword -- two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

I'm quite a chauvinistic person.

I am what I am. A fighter.

The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it, game over.

I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.

When you're a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I'll do, and especially when I'm in New York, I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 or 15k on my -- and I run to gain my appetite.

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

Swearing is industry language. For as long as we're alive it's not going to change. You've got to be boisterous to get results.

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it's too assertive to the naked eye.

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

Cooking today is a young man's game, I don't give a bollocks what anyone says.

When you cook under pressure you trade perfection.

I don't like looking back. I'm always constantly looking forward. I'm not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I'm too busy looking for the next cow.