Gordon Ramsay - Gordon Ramsays Playing with Fire

Work and opportunity come hand in hand,
but dont miss the big picture

M ONEY ONLY CAME into my life when I received my first weekly wage. It came in a brown envelope with my name on it, and its contents disappeared faster than Jack Rabbit looking down the barrels of a sawn-off shotgun. Whatever money might have come in during my all-too-brief football days, my dad handled for me. Whether it paid for his booze or his musical dreams, I dont know, but very little of it came my way, and Im pretty sure Mum didnt see much of it either. To be honest, I was far too busy trying to be good at football to worry about it much, but in later years much later years I think it brought on an almost pathological need to know where my earnings went, who was handling them, and God help anyone who couldnt explain what was happening.

This way of working, to climb the greasy pole of recognition rather than earn a living, followed me right through the early kitchens, where the only aim in this war zone was learning how to be the best. I think that this need to be the best was something that was always with me. It was, in the first instance, nothing more than a competitive streak. If I was racing my snail against the field, then mine would have to win. If I was washing pots, then mine were the cleanest, driest, and finished in the shortest time.

But after a while, this changed. I began to take notice of the competition around me and, in doing so, I realized that I was much keener to get on and do things in a way that blitzed everyone around me out of the water. Being the best was like a vanity, and I became ever-conscious that just being better was nowhere near enough. I had to attain a height that was unassailable by others.

To do this was to search out teachers, example-setters, heroes, whatever. Anybody that could point the way forward was someone whom I needed to know. The early chefs of my teenage years were not always easy to get near, but, in time, they picked up on me. They knew that there was one hungry little bastard in their kitchens and that I would do anything, work without stopping, and consume every scrap of guidance.

All I wanted was to understand how to do something, and I was the fastest learner they would ever meet. Those chefs who were good (and by that I mean lived in three dimensions) watched and encouraged me. Those with a single dimension carried on frying eggs.

As I continued along this culinary towpath, I began to see that, not only was it necessary to learn my trade thoroughly, but to try and move it up a gear. What I also noticed was that, while it was relatively easy for me to do this, nobody else seemed so driven. For me, it was just natural, the only route, and I used to listen to my mates argue and complain about conditions, the hours, the pay. All these things I couldnt give a flying fuck about, to be honest.

Was I ever jealous of anyone who seemed to be ahead of me? No, that was never going to happen. That person became just a milestone and someone I would overtake as fast as possible. It was just like being a car in a race, and all the other cars were there to be overtaken. Even now, that is very much the case. The only difference is that its no longer about being the best pot washer. Now I look for more Michelin stars than anyone else, I need to have the highest audience ratings on my TV shows, and I need to sell more books than all the other celebrity chefs.

Am I always successful at being the best? Am I fuck. Instead, I just think of Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over theCuckoos Nest when he tells his fellow inmates that he can tear the faucet from the floor and throw it through the window. They take bets because this boast just isnt going to happen. The camera watches him struggle, sweat and grunt until it is clear that the faucet is staying where it is. Nicholson eventually stops and looks around. Well, at least I tried, which is more than you bastards did, he says. Thats me. Just sometimes I aim too high and fail, but it will never stop me shooting for the stars. I might quietly have to accept that Jamie is going to sell more books than I am. For now.

In the meantime, the hours were forever and blotted out any time in which to think about money, far less spend it. Time off was also for sleeping. Seventeen-hour shifts, an hour each way for travel, and the rest was for sleep. A day off once a week was also for sleeping. All fucking day. I needed rent money and I needed cash for fares, and then it was all gone. No movies, no restaurants, no cars, and I never drank.

After kitchens in London, my days in Paris were no different. I had gone there, as I knew that that was still the home of fine dining, and I was searching for the places that would inspire and teach me. This was my choice, even if at the beginning I couldnt speak any French and knew no one. There was a constant obsession with learning, with looking for respect in a kitchen where the culture was to be as dismissive as a fly swatter. Asking for a rise was as far from my mind as ringing in with a sickie.

In time, I returned to London and started working with Pierre Koffmann at La Tante Claire. It was while I was there that I was approached by a diminutive Italian with an offer to start a new restaurant down some back street off the Fulham Road. When you have nothing except your knives, when everyone insists that you are nothing but a piece of shit on their shoes, a kind word with the promise of recognition and money is like discovering a high pair in your dysfunctional poker hand. Suddenly, there was someone inviting me to run their kitchen for them. I was going to be called Chef, with my own small brigade and, moreover, there might be some proper money on the table. The restaurant was to be called Aubergine.

A pair in cards seems a lot when you have nothing. It blots out the fact that all the other players might have a better hand, and the last thing on their minds around the table is your welfare. But, suddenly, here was this godforsaken, beaten-up old restaurant site that had already had a long history of failure. Had I but known it, this was the last-chance saloon for the Italian owners who had somehow gotten it into their minds that I could save the day for them.

Too bloody right. The salary was better than I could ever have imagined, and all I had to do was what I do best.

I had come back from Paris in 1993 and started Aubergine not long afterwards, by which time I was twenty-seven and the owner of a flat. Well, not quite a whole flat, as I went halves with a mate and we and the Building Society were the proud owners together. We let one room out, but were either too busy or too exhausted to collect the rent. The tenant didnt come up with the goods very often, so one way or another, it was always a fucking fight to pay the mortgage.

From this early desperation, I suddenly had a boat to steer in the form of Aubergine, and it would not be long before I was getting married. Another thing happened that would also have one fucking big effect on my life, and that was meeting the father of my wife, Tana.