Gordon Ramsay - Early Cooking Career

Early Cooking Career

By this time, Ramsay's interest in cooking had already begun, and rather than be known as "the football player with the gammy knee", at age 19, Ramsay paid more serious attention to his culinary education. After weighing his options, Ramsay enrolled at North Oxfordshire Technical College, sponsored by the Rotarians, to study Hotel Management. He describes his decision to enter catering college as "an accident, a complete accident".

In the early 1980s, he worked as a commis chef at the Wroxton House Hotel then ran the kitchen and 60-seat dining room at the Wickham Arms, until his sexual relationship with the owner's wife made the situation difficult. Ramsay then moved to London, where he worked in a series of restaurants until being inspired to work for the temperamental Marco Pierre White at Harvey's.

After working at Harveys for two years and ten months, Ramsay, tired of "the rages and the bullying and violence", decided that the way to further advance his career was to study French cuisine. White discouraged Ramsay from taking a job in Paris, instead encouraging him to work for Albert Roux at Le Gavroche in Mayfair. (While at Le Gavroche, he met Jean-Claude Breton, now his maître d' at Royal Hospital Road.) After working at Le Gavroche for a year, Albert Roux invited Ramsay to work with him at Hotel Diva, a ski resort in the French Alps, as his number two. From there, Ramsay moved to Paris to work with Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon, both Michelin-starred chefs. He continued his training in France for three years, before giving in to the physical and mental stress of the kitchens and taking a year to work as a personal chef on the private yacht Idlewild, based in Bermuda.