Focus on your customers and make that restaurant synonymous to where you are in terms of area.
I hid myself in food.
I've always said that I think females make the best chefs anywhere in the world.
I am well aware that a chef is only as good as his last meal.
I cook, I create, I'm incredibly excited by what I do, I've still got a lot to achieve.
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.
Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.
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 am what I am. A fighter.
You know, running a restaurant is something you have to be working at each and every day; it's not a foregone conclusion that you're a success.
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.
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.
Rude staff, bad lighting, and dirty bathrooms are all signs of a bad restaurant and a good reason to leave a restaurant!
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.
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.
I'm Gordon Ramsay, for goodness sake: people know I'm volatile.
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.
Eating out doesn't have to be a formula. Eating out is about having fun. I get really frustrated when it's badly done.
In any situation, location is crucial.
Cooking a dish is fine; cooking it under pressure is a completely different ballgame.
I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.
The level of jealousy and insecurity in this industry [restaurant] is far greater than ever before.
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.
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.
Stop taking things personally. Throughout the time with "Kitchen Nightmares" and "Hotel Hell," when they work, you don't get any praise. When they fail, you get blamed. You're f - ed either way, but it doesn't stop me doing them, I think.
