It was hard to turn around last week without hearing the name Gordon Ramsay about every half hour. It’s interesting to reflect that when the British mega-chef was last in Australia, in October 2006, he did cooking demonstrations and signings of his autobiography Humble Pie for a few hundred fans; last weekend an estimated 19,000 flocked daily to the Sydney Good Food and Wine Show, where Ramsay was the headline act. Such has been the success of the motor-mouth chef’s Kitchen Nightmares USA, shown this year on commercial television after languishing for years on Foxtel’s LifeStyle Food, that Ramsay has gone from cult hero to pop culture megastar in months. In the chef’s own parlance, “a-mazing”. Ramsay has also been sourcing sites in Australia for potential restaurants he hopes to open later this year. It’s hard to see where he got the time to fit in show appearances, media commitments, dinners at flash restaurants, late nights at expensive bars, and jaunts around Sydney to look at empty restaurant spaces. Acting Food Detective’s spy reveals that Ramsay would like to open in both Sydney and Melbourne, and has a shortlist of two sites in the NSW capital he’s seriously considering. In Melbourne, it’s probable the venue will squeeze into the already crowded Crown Complex with Channel Nine filming a reality show about the opening of the restaurant and the search for a high-quality young head chef for the venture. Ramsay let slip that the food he wants to bring to Australia will not be of the three-Michelin star variety he pursues in his top European establishments. Weekend Australian, June 28.
Jun 30
