Chefs attack Ramsay for 'awful' Hell's Kitchen

Fiery chef Gordon Ramsay was today accused of harming his profession in a quest for further stardom with TV hit Hell’s Kitchen.

Fellow chefs said the hot-tempered scenes in the ITV show did not represent life in most professional kitchens.

Others in the catering world feared Ramsay’s foul-mouthed performance would deter young people from entering the job.

The reality TV series, which started last week, follows 10 celebrities as they work as chefs under Ramsay’s guidance in a London restaurant.

But the pressures of cooking for celebrity diners have taken their toll with Ramsay at times ordering the kitchen to stop serving – despite many guests not having eaten.

Professor David Foskett, Associate Dean at the London School of Tourism, Hospitality and Leisure in the UK, said of the show: “It leaves me speechless. Words fail me it’s so awful.

“I was speaking to a number of chefs recently and they are all saying the same – this doesn’t do the image of the industry any good at all.

“I have parents phoning me up saying they won’t put their son or daughter in the business.

“People are asking, ‘Is it really like that?’ and it’s not like that at all.

“It’s a poor shop window for catering.”

A senior chef at a top London restaurant also attacked Ramsay’s image.

“His man management skills are not what we should be portraying in this industry,” said the chef, who declined to be named.

“It’s a tough industry but not the way it’s portrayed. It’s done simply for Gordon Ramsay to increase his profile and his bank balance.”

Peter Harden, editor of the Harden’s UK Restaurant Guide, said: “The programme bears as much relation to a real kitchen as Wacky Races does to Formula One.

“It seems all Gordon Ramsay is dishing out is humiliation of celebrities and confrontation.”

Chris Galvin, head chef of The Wolseley in London, recently voted one of the 50 top restaurants in the world, worried that people may get the wrong impression of kitchens.

“People being sworn at all day is far from the truth,” he said.

“I would love to see people concentrating on the positive aspects of being a chef because you can travel the world, meet people you wouldn’t dream of and have a fantastic time”.

Morale in Hell’s Kitchen is said to have improved despite the departure of two chefs, athlete Dwain Chambers and DJ Tommy Vance.

But ratings for the ITV1 show slumped to just 4.8 million last Wednesday - down from a high of more than eight million on Monday.

A spokeswoman for Gordon Ramsay said: “You could never compare the celebrities in the show with real chefs and they have never pretended to be that but it is an example of what it can be like.

“Some people are going to love the show and some people aren’t. There are those in the catering industry who think it’s fantastic.”