Meet the Tyrannical Chef Who Once Made Gordon Ramsay Cry
Chef Gordon Ramsay has a reputation for being tough. Out of all the judges on Master Chef, he’s always been one of the most demanding and difficult to please. If there was ever someone who was going to throw a plate across the room while screaming obscenities, it’s Ramsay.
His friends say Ramsay isn’t a tyrant in real life even if he does appear that way on television. But even if that’s true, it doesn’t change the fact that the British chef and television personality made his career speaking his mind — loudly.
That’s what makes is so shocking that there’s someone even more outspoken and cruel than Ramsay. In fact, this bad-tempered chef even made Ramsay cry once.
Ramsay began his culinary career early
Though he started life as an aspiring football star, a knee injury forced Ramsay to pursue other, less physical talents. He worked in several different restaurants learning the chef’s trade before landing at the legendary Harveys working for Marco Pierre White.
Ramsay had a keen interest in cooking and an undeniable skill for it. However, White was a formidable boss with a reputation for flying into rages and screaming at his staff.
Marco Pierre White bragged about ‘breaking’ Ramsay
White documented the incident in his 2006 autobiography, where he wrote about a kitchen incident that made Ramsay cry. In the book he said, “I don’t recall what he’d done wrong but I yelled at him and he lost it.”
He continued: “Gordon crouched down in the corner of the kitchen, buried his head in his hands and started sobbing. ‘I don’t care what you do to me,’ he said as he wept. ‘Hit me. I don’t care. Sack me. I don’t care.'”
Ramsay admitted the incident happened
These days, White and Ramsay are at odds with one another, though it’s not just about the incident White wrote about in his memoir. A spokesperson for Ramsay did confirm that there was “some truth” to White’s story of Ramsay’s breakdown.
The rep said at the time Ramsay was only 20 and just starting out in the restaurant world.
White was accused of bullying by other chefs, too
Ramsay isn’t the only one who bore the brunt of White’s wrath. Australian chef and TV personality Curtis Stone once said Gordon Ramsay was a “fairy angel” compared to White.
White’s ex-protégé Mario Batali said Chef White flung a pan of hot risotto at him once. “He picked up the risotto, threw the pan and it hit me right in the chest,” Batali recalled. “Hot risotto, it was magnificent. I didn’t quite know what to say [back then], so I threw two handfuls of salt into each of the basic sauces and walked out [of the kitchen]”.
Chef White is proud of his reputation
Rather than trying to deny the accusations or explain them away, White claims that his tyrannical ways are beneficial to his students. He says that pain in life makes you stronger.
“I am the person I am because of the things I’ve experienced, good or bad. The greatest teacher in life is pain. After pain, you attain knowledge,” he said.
