Gordon Ramsay’s Playing with Fire. Gordon Ramsay
we were, knew that the game was up and we would no longer have to dread the monthly figures. We would just hear about profit without the big minus pulling at the rear.
Why didn’t I see it before? It had to be vanity, and vanity – as I discovered – could be fucking expensive. But I had learned about the antidote: a bucket of cold reality and serious action if you want to avoid bleeding to death.
The only thing that I had to deal with was a loss of face in the Scottish press and a distant whisper about a small failure in London, but I was beginning to learn how to do that. Because, back in London, the biggest opportunity so far was about to fall into our laps.
When you find a winner, groom it daily. Protect it with your life.
WHILE WE WERE battling with the problems in Glasgow, two things happened that suddenly shifted us into another gear. In January 2001, Royal Hospital Road received its third Michelin star. It was what I had been working my bollocks off for since I started in my first kitchen, and it broadcast to the world what we were about. It was also to bring the most important opportunity so far, as I was about to learn how to take on a major business challenge, rebuild it detail by detail, and then deal with success on a scale previously unknown to me.
Claridge’s is one of the very few old-style, glamorous places that are the real thing. It has been open since before the Battle of Waterloo, and it was among the first establishments to introduce French cooking to Regency London. The Prince Regent had a permanent suite there. And it was from Claridge’s, out of the blue, that we received another one of those phone calls with an invitation to talks about running its restaurant.
Ironically, Claridge’s new owners, Blackstone Private Equity, had been the very people who had delayed the launch of Royal Hospital Road. I had no idea back then, of course, that they would come to be such an important part of my life.
From the moment I first heard of the idea, I knew that Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s was going to take us into a different league. The deal had everything and, in particular, a new word for me: ‘synergy’, the coming together of two bodies whose combined force would be greater than the sum of their parts. Claridge’s from the history books, and me from a council house. Who would ever have thought it? I learned the significance of this little number rapidly.
The first hurdle was to get the new owners into believing that we could handle this operation. The man whom we negotiated with was John Ceriale, a name that would become iconic within Gordon Ramsay Holdings for years to come. I thought of him as a Bronx bruiser with an uncanny vision when it came to bringing old-fashioned, down-at-heel hotels into the twenty-first century. At this point in time, he had only been with Blackstone Private Equity for a year as their hotel real estate manager and had yet to make his name.
Chris got on particularly well with Ceriale. I think Ceriale saw me as the name above the door, whereas with Chris, he could see someone who could put in place a structure that would carry the whole operation. Their first meeting started with the question, ‘Would Gordon be happy to do breakfast in his restaurant?’ Chris is seated there with Ceriale and at least six of his ‘advisors’ and the senior management from Claridge’s. The answer to the question was about to launch a relationship that, in the fullness of time, would provide Gordon Ramsay Holdings with an incredible billion pounds’ worth of turnover in the coming years. A BILLION pounds. No firm in the world would turn that down, and we certainly weren’t planning on stalling over a simple matter like breakfast.
Fortunately, Chris got the answer right. Without a second’s hesitation, he said that that would be no problem and that Gordon would certainly be up for that, knowing full well that chefs just don’t do breakfast. This had been the stumbling block for all previous contenders. How the fuck Chris imagined he was going to smooth this with me became the funniest thing he ever said. He just looked at me and said that, if it was going to be a problem for me, he would cook the breakfasts himself. Chris can’t cook a breadcrumb.
The early days were difficult. It took an age before we finally got the nod, having been made acutely aware that I was probably the last in the line of those chefs whom Ceriale had invited to talks. Perhaps, understandably, he realized my reputation might not sit comfortably with Claridge’s rearguard. There were certainly plenty of people who were ready to confirm that, and although they liked their eggs boiled, they didn’t like the idea of them being ‘fucking’ boiled. I think what worked in our favour was that Ceriale was clearly a maverick and liked me. He had already realized that the rebirth of Claridge’s was not a move to pander to the hotel’s established clientele. What would happen when they were all dead and gone? What he had in mind was a rebirth of this old lady to accommodate the new money of a younger, wealthier generation. He sought to bring glamour by the bucketful, and he did so with top American designers and investment funds that no one had ever dreamed about.
Ceriale made it clear that, before we went any further, he wanted to meet me. He was one of those operators who was guided by his feelings about people. All his consultants were people he liked, and if we were going to secure Claridge’s, he and I would have to connect. I guess that I am a bit like that myself. It is not easy to work with people you don’t like, and it just so happens that I tend to like people who are good at their jobs. I think that it’s also linked to the search for loyalty. You want to feel that someone is with you for a bigger reason than just a pay packet.
It was arranged for Chris to take John and the general manager of Claridge’s to Royal Hospital Road for lunch, and afterwards, I would come into the dining room and meet them. It gave us a chance to show John what we were about. Impress him, maybe.
Lunch was a hard slog for Chris. The general manager, let’s just call him GM as in General Motors – was clearly not on our side. He couldn’t understand change, and yet was swept along by the energy and vision of his new boss. As Chris said, he had reached the pinnacle of hotel management and was now extending a very tentative toe into hotel realignment. But a step, perhaps, too far for him.
So these two pumped Chris for all he was worth during lunch, asking him all the questions and expressing their doubts about how I would appear as the spearhead for the new restaurant. Both Chris and I knew that I was, without doubt, the right choice, but, for the new owners, there were big bucks riding on the correct decision, so nothing was going to be decided there and then.
As I entered the dining room, I saw the three of them sitting in the corner. Chris did not look happy, and I was thinking that maybe things were not moving in the right direction. We all shook hands, and I could see at once why Chris was so impressed with John Ceriale. He is not tall, he is thinning on top to the point of balding, and he is straight out of the Mafia’s family album. He was dressed immaculately, with blue suit, cufflinks on double cuffs, and a quiet tie. I wondered if I should be kissing his hand. ‘Hey, Gordon, nice ta meet ya.’ He told me that he enjoyed lunch and that he was hoping we might do some stuff together with Claridge’s. He was definitely twitchy, and I saw his eye land on a waiter who had joined the company only a week before. ‘Haven’t I seen him before?’ he asked. My heart sank, as I knew that we had snatched this boy from Claridge’s. ‘Have you been stealing my fuckin’ staff, Gordon? Is this what you do over here? Is this how you operate?’ The man was all over me, and I saw Chris shifting from one foot to the other like he was trying to run through a trough of honey. GM was also uncomfortable with the way the conversation was going. More like a good slapping than a conversation, I was thinking. GM was chewing his top lip like there was a sticky wart on it.
‘If you don’t like me, Gordon, I’m outta here. Do you want me to fuck off out of the restaurant?’
Jesus! What have I done here? I looked at him and it just came out. ‘Yes, he came over from Claridge’s,’ – GM was looking on stonily – ‘and he tells me that the staff have