11 surprising moments from Gordon Ramsay's new Netflix documentary

By Anneta Konstantinides

The iconic chef might have been known by a completely different moniker — one that, it seems, he would have preferred.

"Scott's a lot better than fucking Gordon," Ramsay quips to his wife Tana.

Ramsay elaborated in a recent interview with BBC Radio 2, revealing he was named Gordon after his father.

"They christened me and mum said, 'We're going to name you after your father,'" Ramsay said, noting that doctors originally believed he wasn't going to live for longer than two hours.

"Scott's a cool name," he added. "I would've preferred to be called Scott."

In the docuseries, Ramsay recounted how he watched his family struggle. His mother worked three jobs — as a cook, a night nurse, and a cleaner — while his father was an alcoholic. His younger brother started using heroin and has "been an addict for four decades," he said.

Ramsay, who was born in Scotland, grew up poor. His family moved to England when he was young and lived on a council estate for low-income families in Stratford-upon-Avon. Ramsay said his mother would sew black patches on his secondhand trousers, and that he'd get made fun of in school for using vouchers to afford lunch.

"I'm not embarrassed of my past," Ramsay said. "I got dealt a dysfunctional card, big fucking deal. That drives me, that puts fuel in my tank, because I was so close to not making it. That's what keeps me going."

Ramsay said his father believed that cooking wasn't a job for real men. He never ate at one of his son's restaurants before he died at the age of 53 from a heart attack.

"Deep down inside, I would love for my dad to have tasted something and even said, 'Yeah, good job,''' Ramsay said. "I would've loved him to have understood, even though he didn't back what I was doing or believed in where it was going. You want validation from your parents."

Both Ramsay and Tana were in relationships when they first met while attending a mutual friend's wedding.

"I was looking at my mate thinking, 'Oh my god, your girlfriend is fucking gorgeous,'" Ramsay recalled. "She looked like a young Julia Roberts."

Tana, who was 18 when she met Ramsay, said it wasn't love at first sight with her future husband.

"I thought he was really arrogant, really full of himself; he used to really irritate me," she said. "It took about a month, and then we were both single."

"I honestly thought for many months that Tana was out of my league," Ramsay added. "I won her over with food."

Ramsay said he was "transformed" by the legendary chef, who became the first Brit to ever win three Michelin stars.

"He was like a father figure," Ramsay said. "He had the gift of this Picasso; he put food on the plate like no other."

Ramsay said he was White's "right-hand man" at The Restaurant Marco Pierre White, working 18-hour days six days a week during his early 20s.

"I became very good very quickly," Ramsay added. "He brought the natural talent out of me."

Ramsay said that The Restaurant Gordon Ramsay "started with nothing." Since he couldn't buy expensive cuts of meat, he sold oxtail instead.

"But I still won two Michelin stars with oxtail," Ramsay said.

By 2001, the restaurant had earned three Michelin stars.

"When you get that third star, everyone says it's a sigh of relief, but it's not a sigh of relief," Ramsay said. "It's fucking magical."

The Restaurant Gordon Ramsay remains open today and still has three Michelin stars to its name. During the docuseries, Ramsay hit back at critics who claim he cares more about being a "TV chef" than his actual restaurants.

"I didn't sacrifice the restaurants for TV, and I haven't used the TV to fake what's going on in the restaurants," he said. "They go hand in glove."

Ramsay had to close his Michelin-starred restaurant Amaryllis in Glasgow in 2004. It opened in 2001 and earned one Michelin star in 2002, which it held onto until closing.

In the docuseries, Ramsay said the restaurant was always "fully booked for six months" on Fridays and Saturdays, but it was a "freaking ghost town" during the rest of the week.

"No one could justify spending 120 quid for dinner on a Monday night in Glasgow," Ramsay said. "I left Glasgow with my tail between my legs. It was painful."

The closure was a "big wake-up call" for the chef.

"Everything I've failed, everything I've closed, everything I've opened, everything I've learned, will go into Bishopsgate," Ramsay added, noting his new project in London.

When Ramsay hosted a preview event for Bishopsgate, he opted to invite influencers to see the space instead of food critics.

"Ten years ago, we were depending on their pens," he said about critics. "Ten years ago, we were depending on their insults. Ten years ago, we were depending on their egos, and they destroyed restaurants."

Ramsay noted how critics would often get personal throughout his career. He recalled one writer who called him a "failed footballer that had a shotgun wedding."

"How does that relate to food?" Ramsay asked. "How do you write about a restaurant experience with that headline?"

Now, Ramsay believes that influencers are "the most powerful critics on the planet."

Ramsay believes he could have "been there a bit more" for his four oldest children, who are now all in their 20s. So he's planning to do things a bit differently for his 6-year-old son Oscar and 2-year-old son Jesse James.

"I'll make more time for them because I never want them to say, 'You weren't there my first day at school. You missed my play. You missed my football match,'" Ramsay said.

"But I'm shit at Nativity plays, I'm shit at Christmas carols, I'm shit at sports days because I want to compete and beat all the dads," he added. "So maybe it's a good thing I didn't do all those."

22 Bishopsgate will feature the restaurants Lucky Cat, Lucky Cat Terrace, Bread Street Kitchen, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High, and the culinary school Gordon Ramsay Academy.

Lucky Cat is a 250-seat Asian-inspired restaurant, while Lucky Cat Terrace has 60 seats in a rooftop garden with a retractable roof. Restaurant Gordon Ramsay High is a 12-seat fine-dining restaurant, and Bread Street Kitchen will be an all-day brasserie.

Ramsay said he wants to make sure 22 Bishopsgate has "some of the best restaurants in the world."

"It's sort of one of my final stakes in the ground, something I'm going to be best remembered for," he added.

Ramsay, who has a 20-year lease on the building, called it one of the "most fraught projects I've ever done."

"The pressure with this project is that if it doesn't go to plan, it's my neck on the line, and I have to guarantee that every penny that we're borrowing, if it doesn't work, I have to pay that back personally," he said.

"We have to create something incredibly special to keep alive for 20 years, without a doubt."