Master Your Craft: Gordon Ramsay's Secrets to Culinary Success and a Life of Passion

He's a Scottish-born chef and restaurateur. His restaurants have been awarded 16 Michelin stars and currently hold 14. He's known for creating TV programs about competitive cookery and food. He's Gordon Ramsay, and here are his top 10 rules for success.

My advice to young chefs from the age of 16 to sort of 29, 30 is 14 years of a sponge. You're absorbing knowledge. Don't take a job for the sake of money. Don't worry about earning £500 a month or a year more somewhere else. Go and get knowledge, because that becomes a bigger passport for everything. The money will come once you've mastered your craft and you become incredibly talented. Work for big chefs and find a different level of comfort. When things get too comfortable and you're still living with your parents and you've still got your first job and you don't want to move out because everything's too comfortable, get out. Put yourself in a strange situation in the middle of Barcelona. Put yourself in the middle of Paris, put yourself in the middle of Belgium and see what's available. It's amazing how much confidence it gives you. More importantly, it's great to sort of eat and travel at the same time. Fantastic.

If there's one thing I've learned and experienced is that, you know, if you don't open up and you don't delegate, then you'll kill yourself. And if there's one thing that I've managed to understand is the art of delegation, because if I can pass on, you know, to Claire Smith, to Arian, my palate, my understanding, my knowledge, then grab it, run it, and then pass it on to your team. Don't hold that inside. The key to a successful business is remembering the customer's king, because without them, we're nobody. And so I, from a chef's point of view, always put myself in a customer's situation where I see it from their eyes. I don't cook for chefs. Every time chefs come into the dining room, the first thing they do is turn up the place upside down. And start photographing the food, and they're constantly, you know, dissecting the food as opposed to enjoying it. So I always look at it from a customer's perspective, because they're king, and without them, we're history.

It takes years to become a great chef. What you need to do is establish confidence in yourself. Cooking is an amazing journey, and don't think you can learn it within 3 or 4 years. It's like studying medicine. Is over a 10 to 15 year period. I'm 42 years of age and I'm still learning new exciting things now that I bring back to the fold. But more importantly, vision, I think. I didn't think French was important at school and I kick myself now because I went to live in France for 3 years and became bilingual. But I wish I'd studied harder with a second language on my belt. That gives you a different culture, gives you a completely different level of confidence. Learning French, French cuisine, mannerism and cooking in a very robust, tenacious way. So yeah, vision and open-mindedness. And we never cut corners. The minute you start cutting corners in food, time out. There's no worse job to have than to cut corners in food. So attention to detail. Amazing, exciting journey. One of the very few jobs anywhere in the world that you can travel, get paid, and experience phenomenal food anywhere in the world. Brilliant.

I'm going to teach him the common sense rules to ensure front of house runs smoothly, starting with the basics.

On the menu tonight, I think everything should be quite tempting. I don't know if fish or meat is your favorite, but everything tonight is absolutely fresh.

Stop. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Right. What you need to do is fucking relax. A great service is attentive without being noticed. So far, you're making my shit itch. And hasn't come out yet. That's how irritating you are! Right, ladies, sit down with Don and I at the table. Take an order of 4.

Okay.

Right, off we go. Here we go.

Good evening, everyone.

Oh, fuck.

And for your orders tonight, what would you like?

The beetroot starter and the halibut for main, please.

The beetroot and the halibut.

Fuck it, Al. Right, come here, you.

Was that really that painful?

Yes, it was painful. Here's the thing.

Sit down.

Where's the pen? Look at that. I swear to God, it's writing of a 6-year-old. It's all about engaging in the customers. To start off with, darling, what would you like to start?

Madam?

Can I have prawns? Prawns.

And for main course?

Chicken. Certainly. So P and C. And madam? Mackerel and halibut, please. Mackerel and halibut, certainly, of course. Lovely. And it's just there. P, M, M, C, C, C.

That is a goddamn revelation.

Bang! Relax, you don't have to have everything in detail here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Surprise. 3 tables down the line, 30 tables down the line, if you continue to work at it, you start to become incredibly charming. Do you know why? Because your confidence levels are there. Stay in front of the competition, because there's 2 ways in this industry: you move with it or it moves you. And I've seen so many sad stories across the decade where chefs have just got lazy. Got lazy, given up, and lost that hunger to be competitive. Because it's the best job in the world. That's not really a job, it's a passion. Because when you're rubbing shoulders— and here we are now, 10 years later, and I've got a restaurant next door to Jamie Oliver's, and we're both literally 2 meters apart. Phenomenal chef, and we keep each other on our toes. So that's exciting for me, and that's been the one key issue across the 10 years of filming Kitchen nightmares. Never, ever, ever give up.

My first passion before food was football. But I was always a good eater, great lover of food, and I grew up partly in Scotland, partly down south. So we had that sort of token of appreciation of home-cooked food. Then I was very lucky to get on a foundation course, spending the last year of my school at a foundation course, studying maths, English 2 and a half days a week, and then learning to cook for 2 and a half days a week. And it was a sort of new experiment. Yeah, we had trouble with buying my first set of whites and chef knives, and we depended on the Banbury Round Table to come up with something like £85-90 that Mum and Dad didn't have to get my first set of whites. So I still remember that day now and how ecstatic and happy I was when I got given my first set of whites, my knives, and all of a sudden I wanted to go on that mission. Football was a sort of huge burning ambition, and I was trying to Yeah, I had a horrific injury where I smashed my cartilage, and then all of a sudden, you know, what do you do? You sit there and get bitter. But I had this little burning desire of this sort of chef, this ambition. And then I sort of channeled that frustration from football into cooking in a way that I just wanted to learn. The foundation course was huge. Did a City and Guilds 706. I was a mature part-time student. Part-time student, and Mum and Dad didn't have the money to send me to college full-time. So, um, it was, it was hard. But what I did do is take a job in the industry. I worked 6 days a week and went to college 1 day a week. So then everything started becoming clearer. Got my qualifications, the basic, and then went to London, and that's where it really just, you know, took off.

This is my little niçoise, but a specialized niçoise, and it's the kind of thing that I pick myself up after cycling 200K. A beautiful piece of tuna Just gonna brush that first, a little bit of mustard. Stops it from drying out. Now, sesame seeds. Just beautifully roll that down. I always think about food everywhere I go. So when I'm training, you know, I'm never very far away from food. I had that extraordinary moment at the start of Kona 2 years ago where I was paddling at sort of half past 5 in the morning waiting for that amazing cannon to go off. To get rid of the nerves, I just started thinking about recipes and dishes and How do I get through this 3.8K swim? The garnish, very, very simple. Got potatoes. I'm going to start with a little teaspoon of olive oil. I'm going to get these potatoes nice and crispy. Cut them in half and put that side down. So in my bowl, got some really nice shallot rings, olive niçoises, black olives, some green beans. And then in there, I'm just gonna open up some of these little anchovies. A little touch of vinaigrette. This is classic vinaigrette made with lots of lemon juice. And then look, just mix that up nicely with some fresh parsley, your tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, fresh lemon juice in. That lifts everything. You work 14, 15 hours a day to perfect an absolutely stunning dish. It disappears in 2 and a half minutes. And that's what I said, it loses you. You get on that journey and nothing else matters except what you put on the plate. Because you start off with this raw ingredient and you go through that journey. 60 minutes later, you've got this, this bit of magic. Also, it's an incredible passion. It is a huge canvas. Just take your salad leaves. I want to use the little hearts. Just open them up. Gently, without sort of ripping them, get down to the heart and cut the hearts into 4. Potatoes, nice and crispy. And then from there, as they start to cool down, just put a little touch of vinaigrette over there and hit them with your parsley. Food was my calling, I think, because that was the way I could sort of disappear. Disappear, travel, learn, and get really excited about something. And my first dream was to go to France to understand why were they the sort of foundation of cooking. Why did they start it? How did they start it? And I disappeared, I became French, and within 18 months I was fluent in the language, I was holding my own in a foreign kitchen, and I was seriously cooking my ass off. Now for the dressing, very, very simple. Touch of the vinaigrette and then some fresh lemon juice. That gives a nice lightness, vibrancy to the dish as well. Just lightly dress them. My first set of knives was bought by a charity because my parents couldn't afford to send me to cooking school. And this knife wallet was a Swimbow with bright yellow handles. And trust me, they couldn't cut butter, but they looked the part. My mum had a tear in her eye because She was upset she couldn't afford it. My first set of whites and my first set of knives. I've still got them. Finally, the tuna. Get the pan nice and hot. Put a teaspoon of oil in there. Tuna into the pan. 90 seconds each side. Out. And literally squeeze some fresh lemon juice on there. When you slice it, let the knife do the work. Fingers on top and just slice through. Nice and carefully. On. 3 nice slices.

Food—

you're on a journey, and there's something quite amazing about the way you cook, of giving pleasure. My dream when I started out as a chef was to discover every ingredient and never be intimidated and not know what to do with it to that level of perfection. I think I'm about 97% of the way there. There must be about 3 or 4% of ingredients that I still haven't discovered yet. And that's the exciting thing about food. That is what I call my specialized tuna niçoise. Fucking delicious.

When you get all this knowledge and the advice for young chefs that are excited about opening their own business, don't shoot too high. Restaurants become successful because they cook within the vicinity they're sat within. Don't start reaching for stars and stripes. Focus on your customers. They're your biggest critics. Secondly, keep it local. Become the best bistro. Then after the bistro, take it up a little level, but make sure your customers and your brigade go up with you. Don't stand and shoot too high. It'll come back to bite you on the arse.

I'm on a mission to road test some of the best celebrity chef cookery courses on offer to you.

Fish fanatic Al Dente is my next target. The cheeky little bastard said maybe one day I'd learn how to cook properly. Well, now he's got his chance to teach me, so I'm going undercover to Rotessi's cookery course to have a bit of fun and to see what I can get away with.

Zilli's course costs £352, and on it you learn how to make stock, different types of pasta, and how to prepare and cook fish.

Do you want to come and sit up here, sir? Can that gentleman come up here?

I can't wait to learn some nice things today.

To get on this course for beginners, I've told him I'm a novice. But will he notice that there's really an award-winning chef in his kitchen? Time for a bit of fun and the odd clue.

What you don't want to do with stocks is you don't want to mix too many colors into the stock, too many color vegetables.

The stock's overheating, so I take the matter in hand. Will he twig?

See, he's copying. He's listening.

Mr. Zeli, I think it's ready now. I think it's ready.

Okay, put the tomato sauce in if it's ready.

He's impressed but oblivious. Brilliant. Next up, Zilli's shown us how he makes pasta.

Now it's our turn.

Finally, I'm on a course where I get to make something.

See, this is when you've added too much flour too quickly, okay? So it's really hard.

So he thinks it's crap, does he? Time for a second clue. Will he spot that there's Michelin-starred pasta being made right under his nose?

Look at this, man. Look, never made pasta before. Look at that, got pappardelle, we got fettuccine, we got round ravioli.

Blimey, even after all that, he hasn't clicked. Come on, Aldo. 2 hours in and the course moves on to Zilli's favorite Fish. We've got to prepare our own plates of fish for cooking. Let's see what he makes of this. Surely he'll smell something fishy when I've finished before most of the others have even begun.

Have you ever done before this?

I—

Sajak, score, I. That, no. I—

Yes. That, no.

Thank you.

He's never done it before, so there's no excuse.

So Aldo's missed the clue yet again. Or has he?

Do you know what? You remind me of Gordon Ramsay. Doesn't he remind you of Gordon Ramsay? I thought that when I saw him.

Yeah, yeah, he looks—

looks like his dad. Are you sure he hasn't sent me his dad?

Ah, I'm about to get rumbled. Time to come clean.

Mr. Willis, with a little bit of flour. Mr. Gordon Ramsay would season them.

Gordon Ramsay would season them. I'll season— I season after, after cooking because I don't like salt. I can't eat too much salt. And good, good, good Ramsay is a nightmare, and so are you. Do you know, do you know, do you know, I've known you since you were standing there, mate. 2 hours.

I came today to learn something, and, and you've learned nothing. I've learned fr—

all. Hang on, hang on, keep it on. You look much better.

Thank you so much for watching. I made this video because Frank Robert Jean-Pierre asked me to. So if there's a famous entrepreneur that you want me to profile next, leave it in the comments below and I'll see what I can do. I'd also love to know which of Gordon Ramsay's top 10 rules meant the most to you. Leave it in the comments and I'll join the discussion. Thank you for watching. Continue to believe, and I'll see you soon.