Ramsay’s kitchen nightmares?

Yesterday I followed a link to a Food24 page with details of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant, Maze. The link was tweeted by @SamWilson1 commenting on the bad reviews following the dinner on Friday night.

I read through many of the comments, and slowly I also started to form an opinion. I wasn’t at the dinner, but have a twitter friend that was thrilled to meet Mr. Ramsay at the Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC: “it was awesome! I got him to autograph my book "Get the **** out of my kitchen".


(Thanks @Janaquar for the pic.)

So these are my thoughts, but first some background.

• Gordon Ramsay is one of the chefs who appeared at the Good Food and Wine Show at the CTICC last weekend, and people seem happy with the R300 (including Food Show entry) to watch him in the Chefs in Action Theatre.



• On Friday night there was a charity dinner at Maze (R1500 pp), where diners were let to believe they would be interacting with Mr. Ramsay and have a Question and Answer session. This did not happen, and Gordon Ramsay was only there for a few minutes at the beginning of the evening. Most of the comments on the site show great loyalty to Mr. Ramsay, mentioning that he had a full day at the Food Show and was tired. Some also blame Gourmet SA for false advertising and one says they saw Mr. Ramsay the next day, asked him about it, and he never agreed to the promises made by Gourmet SA.



• Some of the comments do seem to have lost faith, as Mr. Ramsay was spotted at the door of a night club in Cape Town (where he was turned away because he was dressed too casually) on Friday night and in a club in Claremont until around 4h30 the Saturday morning: “.. so was he that tired? we should of perhaps all gone there... saved R1500 WHAT A JOKE!!!”

Although I agree that public appearances can be very tiring (just walking around the Food Show on Sunday made me pretty tired) and it could be true that Gordon Ramsay never agreed the Question and Answer session at Maze, surely the man has some inkling that he is a celebrity chef. And with celebrity, comes public, let’s call it, love.

Gordon Ramsay wants people to buy his books, watch his TV shows and eat at his restaurants. And as he himself is the (very successful) brand, he should have figured out by now that if he is said to be cooking a charity dinner at his restaurant, people are not coming for the charity, they are coming for him and his food.

So even if he was unaware of what was advertised, he should have been smart enough to show his face a few times. According to one comment “a simple table to table whip around between one of the courses would have been sufficient.”


R1500 for a table whip around? Wow, this man is well loved.


It does seem that Gourmet SA is taking much of the blame and possibly rightly so, but reading comments beyond those of Friday night’s dinner, you realise that all is not sunshine at Maze. Comments about the opening night seem rather dire, with steak served well-done (and defended). So maybe Gordon Ramsay supporters will one day get to see the man more up close and personal, when he has to come and make a TV show about saving his restaurant. You know: new simpler menu, quicker turnaround, smaller plates, a new sign and maybe a coat of paint.


Oh, stop groaning, you’ve seen the show, you were thinking the same…