There seems to be so many similarities in how the fictional chef runs his kitchen and how we see Ramsey in his two TV shows. I haven't seen anything of this but always wondered...
shareSpeaking from experience that's how many top chefs are.
Nick
Don’t interrupt me when I’m talking to myself.
Chef is from 1993 so I think that Ramsey learned a lot from the show
sharehe wasn't even famous back then...
shareAs Chef predates Ramsay by several years, I'd think the opposite, if Ramsay was a character. Lenny Henry has noted several times that Gareth Blackstock was based on the celebrity chefs he saw around at the time.
shareJohn Burton-Race who was the food consultant on the show, and is quite the celebrity chef in his own right, was certainly an inspiration for the portrayal by Lenny Henry.
He's also the one who taught Henry how to 'cook' on the show.
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I often think of Chef! when I see Gordon Ramsey. When I watch Gordon Ramsey, I enjoy him but still think that he could take some lessons from Chef Blackstock. Calling someone a "donkey" for instance is nowhere near as interesting as calling someone a "mud-dwelling unicellular speck of jelly with a predilection for consuming its own excrement."
"It's a real burden being right so often." Captain Malcolm Reynolds, Firefly
Ramsey was around then, but he was not famous.
So no.
However. I do know one of the main "consultants" on the show was a Chef by the name of Paul Headman.
A lot of the close up Chef skills (chopping, etc) were actually Paul Headman's hands.
Paul Headman was Head Chef of the Cobden Hotel on Hagley Road, Birmingham (England). No longer there.
I know this as I trained to be a chef and I tranied under Paul Headman at the Cobden between 92-93.
I even recall a few times when I'd be standing next to Lenny while we were both trained on the basics.
Paul was similar to Lenny's characrer in this. Except Lenny's take ws more cartoon, OTT.
Wow, thinking about this brings back some memories.
The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is God.
I think Lenny mentioned that Marco Pierre White was the inspiration regarding temperament!
Its that man again!!
I briefly went to cooking school (French-based) and from what I understand, it's more about the way French chefs behave and treat apprentices -- possibly so as to ensure they reduce food wastage. Gordon Ramsay (not Ramsey) was, I believe, trained in French cooking. But even if not, in nearly every restaurant I worked in (about a dozen very different restos over 4 years, different cuisines), there was a lot of shouting going on. I know that the very first time I heard Ramsay shouting, I thought of Lenny Henry's portrayal of Gareth Blackstock.
shareWould have thought it to be the other way around. Lenny Henry did study up big-time on chefs and cooking so he could make Gareth authentic in presentation. Dunno if Ramsey was a big TV star back then but it's possible Gareth had talked to him when he was a chef?
Either way, I'll rewatch "Chef!" and not bother with the "reality show" (reality shows are so groomed and phony to begin with). There's far more creativity in the writer's kitchen than in the "reality show".