A Struggling Chef Asked Gordon Ramsay for Advice and Received the Best Response Ever
Gordon Ramsay wouldn’t exactly win the nicest boss award judging from his demeanor on the competition cooking show “Hell’s Kitchen.” Instead of empathizing with his cooks’ problems, he scolds them and curses them out of his kitchen.
Last week, the master chef held a Reddit AMA, where users asked him whatever questions they wanted.
One fellow chef had the guts to ask Ramsay advice on what to do about the roadblock in his cooking career. The Redditor poured his heart out to the chef:
“I’m working in a Michelin kitchen right now, toiling away, hours after hours, days after days. My dreams are nowhere to be found as I scale and portion salmon after salmon, shelling pods after pods of broad beans.
“The closest thing to feeling any kind of joy I get is those rare moments when I walk through the dining room near the end of service to get some coffee for everyone, and there will be a few diners left, idly sampling those little petite fours that we’ve painstakingly ensured are all perfectly round, identical, and just plain delicious. Then, one of them will stop the conversation they’re having with their company, look up from their food and say, ‘Thank you, chef. This is delicious,’ and making the previous 14-hours of sweat and tears kind of worthwhile.
“My question is, how did you deal with it? How the fuck did you deal with all the bullshit, Gordon?”
While one might expect Ramsay to have said something along the lines of “suck it up,” his response was much more encouraging.
He genuinely empathized with the cook and revealed that he once found himself in a similar place. Ramsay was encouraging and gave some really practical advice:
“Cooking at this level is so intense. So don’t give up. Be honest with yourself, and take a month out.
Now if that month out—just stepping back—if there’s one thing I’ve taught my young chefs today it’s to work hard, not get disillusioned with the bigger picture.”
He even offered to help the Redditor out:
“Listen—if you send me your resume, I could look at putting you into one of the restaurants as a work experience, if you want to see something different, in order to make sure you don’t come off the rails, to see something different, to create that level of interest.”
The restaurant business is a tough industry to be in, and Ramsay clearly understands that. Lacking any formal culinary school training, he once worked long hours for low pay in kitchens around the world.
Ramsay may not be as mean as his persona on television indicates.
See Ramsay’s response in full below.
