If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.
I train my chefs completely different to anyone else. My young girls and guys, when they come to the kitchen, the first thing they get is a blindfold. They get blindfolded and they get sat down at the chef's table... Unless they can identify what they're tasting, they don't get to cook it.
When you're a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I'll do, and especially when I'm in New York, I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 or 15k on my - and I run to gain my appetite.
Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it's too assertive to the naked eye.
Cooking today is a young man's game, I don't give a bollocks what anyone says.
I don't like looking back. I'm always constantly looking forward. I'm not the one to sort of sit and cry over spilt milk. I'm too busy looking for the next cow.
I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword - two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.
The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.
You don't come into cooking to get rich.
Swearing is industry language. For as long as we're alive it's not going to change. You've got to be boisterous to get results.
Kitchens are hard environments and they form incredibly strong characters.
I don't run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.
I am what I am. A fighter.
I swim like a fish and I have an amazing kick.
We are about creating a new wave of talent. We are the Manchester United of kitchens now. Am I playing full-time in the kitchen? I am a player-coach.
The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it, game over.
There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.
My wife, a schoolteacher, very disciplined. If you think I'm tough, trust me, and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It's hilarious. So we decided that I'm going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.
I didn't get depressed, I don't get depressed.
I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that's it.
Running started as a way of relaxing. It's the only time I have to myself. No phones or e-mails or faxes.
I've never been a hands-on dad. I'm not ashamed to admit it, but you can't run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.
When you cook under pressure you trade perfection.
If I relaxed, if I took my foot off the gas, I would probably die.
They say cats have nine lives. I've had 12 already and I don't know how many more I'll have.
I don't think it's a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef's a fat pig.
I've had a lot of success; I've had failures, so I learn from the failure.
I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.
I still love football, though, and I think cooking is like football. It's not a job, it's a passion. When you become good at it, it's a dream job and financially you need never to worry. Ever.
I cook, I create, I'm incredibly excited by what I do, I've still got a lot to achieve.
I hid myself in food.
I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.
If I can give you one strong piece of advice, when you go away for that romantic weekend, whatever you do, do not accept or take the upgrade to the honeymoon suite.
Chefs are nutters. They're all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.
The problem with Yanks is they are wimps.
Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.
I'm quite a chauvinistic person.
As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner's medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it's three-Michelin's stars, there's no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.
I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.
It's very hard when you eat out every day for a living, and a new restaurant comes along and you haven't got that same vigour that you had 10 years ago.
I'm Gordon Ramsay, for goodness sake: people know I'm volatile.
I'm not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.
It's vulgar, coming from where I do, to talk about money.
I was a naturally aggressive left-back, a cut-throat tackler.
I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God's sake, not a television personality.
You know how arrogant the French are - extraordinary.
I've got nothing to hide.
Find what's hot, find what's just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.
There is a level of snobbery and fickleness in L.A.
When you find a guy who is powerful, a big father figure, you latch onto him immediately.
I am a grafter.
I'm not trying to take New York by storm. I just want to sneak in there, keep my head down, batten down the hatches and cook.
I won't let people write anything they want to about me.
I grew up in a funny way.
I'd like to think I'm a great teacher.
I mean, families are weird.
My father was a swim teacher. We used to swim before school, swim after school.
No one saw the recession coming.
I came up from a difficult background.
I shoot from the hip.
