Ramsay feels bite of French critic

BRITISH celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay will add a jewel to his crown this Wednesday with the launch of a restaurant in the royal city of Versailles, but an acid review by France’s most feared food critic has threatened to sour the occasion.

The Scottish-born Ramsay cut his chef’s teeth in Paris, working three years in the kitchens of giants Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon, as he scoured the French countryside for champagne cellars and other foodie treasures.

“I came here when I was 22 and got my arse kicked in Paris, under the top chefs in the world,” Ramsay said in the light-flooded dining rooms of the Trianon Palace, a luxury hotel overlooking the grounds of the Chateau de Versailles.

The 42-year-old footballer-turned-chef says he jumped at the chance to take over the kitchens of the Trianon, which houses a fine-dining restaurant and sister brasserie, the Veranda.

“I’m not coming here now to teach the French how to cook but I am here to compete,” he said.

“From a chef’s point of view, I can’t think of a better playing field, of anywhere more difficult, more demanding, more sought after, more finicky, more fickle, more arrogant.”

But Ramsay’s guns-blazing approach — and habit of yelling obscenities at trainee chefs on television — fell foul of Francois Simon, food writer for Le Figaro newspaper, who savaged his project in an acerbic pre-launch review.

The verdict?

“You are in the heart of a brand with its label: Gordon Ramsayland,” he wrote of the Trianon.

“Our advice: go to the brasserie, the Veranda, instead — but honestly, there are hundreds of tables just as good.”

Though he concedes Ramsay is an “excellent chef”, Simon accuses him, and his French mentors Robuchon and Alain Ducasse, of spreading themselves too thinly across their Michelin-starred empires, leaving sous-chefs in charge of the kitchens much of the year.

“Do I look bothered? Do I f**k!” said Ramsay in response.

“F**k ’em! I got my nuts kicked in when we opened up in New York — we won two Michelin stars in 10 months.”

Between his eponymous restaurant in Chelsea, London, and eateries across Britain, the US and Asia, Ramsay holds a total of 10 Michelin stars.

Working with 30-year-old Italian chef Simone Zanoni, who for five years maintained three stars for him in London, Ramsay makes no secret of the fact he is aiming for top marks in Versailles.