Foods Gordon Ramsay Couldn't Eat
Few chefs are as popular as Gordon Ramsay. The British chef has been on television for decades, and he's earned a reputation for being hard to please at best and vitriolic at worst while at work in the kitchen. Ramsay has restaurants around the world, and his hot temper and good food have made him incredibly rich.
There are plenty of celebrity chefs whose skills have been questioned, but Ramsay is well-respected in the culinary world. His London establishment, Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, has three Michelin stars, and his work has garnered him a lifetime total of 17. Only two other chefs in the world have more Michelin stars than Ramsay. Ramsay clearly knows good food — he's got the credentials. And although he'd clearly prefer to eat good food, most people are more interested in what he thinks of bad food. Luckily, he's never been afraid to share his opinions.
Some foods Ramsay can stomach, but there are others he literally couldn't swallow, and we've got the list for you. Here are foods Gordon Ramsay couldn't eat.
Gordon Ramsay hates pineapple on pizza
Pizza is one of the most popular foods in America, but favorite pizza toppings vary from person to person. And one of the most hotly debated pizza toppings is pineapple. This debate has raged on for years now with people arguing whether the topping should actually go on pizza or not.
Because he is highly opinionated, especially when it comes to food, Gordon Ramsay has shared his take on whether pineapple belongs on pizza multiple times. In 2017, while hosting his one-season talk show "The Nightly Show," the chef ordered pizza. He asked the audience for flavor suggestions, and he was not pleased with one of the responses. "You don't put pineapple on a f*****g pizza," he replied.
That same year, Ramsay expressed his opinion once again, this time on Twitter. "Pineapple does not go on top of pizza," he tweeted.
Ramsay must fancy himself a pizza aficionado because he has a chain of pizzerias called Street Pizza. Its website says, "Street Pizza restaurants embody pizza without rules." And apparently, it does not follow Ramsay's rule about pineapple on pizza, because it sells a ham and pineapple option. Ramsay won't eat a pineapple pizza, but he will make some money off of one.
He won't eat airplane food
If you've taken a long enough flight, you've likely experienced the atrocity that is airplane food. Plane food is typically reheated meal that has a rubbery texture, and most of us scarf it down because, well, we're in a giant metal tube in the sky and our options are pretty limited. However, some people, including Gordon Ramsay, absolutely refuse to eat plane food.
As Ramsay told Refinery 29 in an interview, "There's no f*****g way I eat on planes. I worked for airlines for 10 years, so I know where this food's been and where it goes, and how long it took before it got on board." Instead, Ramsay likes to eat prior to boarding and have something like "a nice selection of Italian meats, a little glass of red wine, some sliced apples or pears with some parmesan cheese." We have to admit, that sounds much better than plane food.
Ramsay isn't the only one who's against eating plane food. Reader's Digest noted that we should all avoid eating on planes if we can. Apparently, it can exacerbate jetlag. If you want to avoid that, follow Ramsay to a nice Italian place prior to boarding.
Gordon Ramsay spat out chicken and blackberries
In addition to his refined taste, Gordon Ramsay is well-known, perhaps even more well-known, for his intensity in the kitchen. Ramsey puts his temper on full display in "Hell's Kitchen," where he regularly berates the chefs who present dishes to him. In one episode he came across a food pairing he had never heard of and quite frankly had no time for.
When one cook brought him a dish of chicken and blackberries, Ramsay promptly asked, "Where did that come from?" When the cook shared that it was a dish she prepared while working at her corporate dining job, Ramsey replied by spitting out the dish and adding, "That's definitely corporate."
Ramsay isn't totally against chicken, though. He's got plenty of chicken recipes that don't include blackberries, like sticky, spicy chicken wings, chicken fricassee, and grilled chicken with chickpeas, feta, and watermelon salad. He doesn't hate blackberries paired with meat, either. One of Ramsay's most famous recipes is beef Wellington with a blackberry sauce. It just seems like this particular cook didn't pull off the combination.
He's not a fan of bugs
Gordon Ramsay's career has taken him all over the world, and in "Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted," his television series with National Geographic, the chef has traveled to remote places like the Sacred Valley of Peru and mountains in Morocco to learn what the people who inhabit those areas eat.
In one episode, the people he visited cooked bugs for Ramsay. Before serving Ramsay some, one man told him, "This has a lot of protein. If you eat it, you won't be hungry all day." Ramsey must not have cared about the amount of protein in the bugs, because he couldn't handle eating the food and spat it out. "It's like a crispy cockroach," Ramsey said (via YouTube).
The people were right about one thing, though: Bugs are a great source of protein. Per the Food Science of Animal Resources, the average protein content of an edible insect is higher than the protein content of plant-based sources like cereal, soybeans, and lentils, and some insects are even higher in protein than meat and chicken eggs. Though eating bugs is not a common practice in the United States, many people in other parts of the world, like Asia and Africa, eat bugs on a regular basis.
Gordon Ramsay couldn't eat this pan-seared chicken
Gordon Ramsay has been a fixture on television since the late '90s, but he didn't make his debut in the United States until "Hell's Kitchen" premiered in 2005. And when it premiered, viewers were immediately introduced to Ramsay's temper.
On the very first episode of the show, a cook presented Ramsay with a plate of chicken breast stuffed with portabella mushrooms and goat cheese. Ramsey was repulsed by the looks of the dish, and he told the cook, "It looks like a dehydrated camel's turd" before he even took a bite.
Ramsay then invited the cook to try part of the dish — carrot tops — himself, and after confirming that they tasted bitter, Ramsey flung the carrot tops at the cook. When Ramsay finally took a bite, he spat out the chicken dish. "It's dry, overcooked on the outside, raw on the inside," he told the chef (via YouTube).
Ramsay hasn't hated everything he's eaten, though. Some cooks have created dishes that Gordon Ramsy enjoyed, like clam chowder and rice pudding, and in one episode of "MasterChef Junior," contestants impressed Ramsay with his own signature dish — beef Wellington.
He won't eat anything in front of the television
Gordon Ramsay is not only particular about what he eats, but how he eats it. in 2017, The Sun reported that Ramsay looks down upon people who eat their meals in front of the television. "No, that's pretty gross," he said about the practice. "I like to eat properly, hold conversations, divide and conquer, find out who's doing what, who's fallen behind at parents' evening, and then retire to the sofa, with a drink," he said about his preferred way of eating.
Even if you disagree that it's gross, Ramsay does have a point about eating dinner together as a family. Per the Harvard Graduate School of Education, there are plenty of benefits family members, particularly children, stand to gain when they engage in regular meals with the family. As one family therapist said, "Regular family dinners are associated with lower rates of depression, and anxiety, and substance abuse, and eating disorders, and tobacco use, and early teenage pregnancy, and higher rates of resilience and higher self-esteem."
If, for some strange reason, you ever find yourself serving dinner to Gordon Ramsay, don't suggest eating in front of the television.
Gordon Ramsay couldn't stomach this carrot gratin
Gordon Ramsay has long been vehemently against plant-based food. In 2007, he famously said, "My biggest nightmare would be if the kids ever came up to me and said 'Dad, I'm a vegetarian.' Then I would sit them on the fence and electrocute them." But over time, Ramsay's attitude toward vegetarianism, and even veganism, has changed. However, there was one vegetarian meal that he could not stomach, and that was a carrot gratin on an episode of "Kitchen Nightmares."
Ramsay isn't always against carrot gratin. As he said before eating it, "if done properly, [it] should have a gorgeous bubbling cheese crust." Unfortunately, the carrot gratin did not have what Ramsay was looking for, and he spat it out before swallowing it. "It's almost a bit of an insult to a vegetarian," he said of the dish (via YouTube).
Over a decade after proclaiming a vegetarian child was his worst nightmare, Ramsay is more than willing to eat plant-based foods. In fact, he's even said, "After all these years, I can finally admit that I actually love vegan food." Just don't try to feed him a bad carrot gratin.
He hated this dish of flounder, scallops, and shrimp
In another episode of "Kitchen Nightmares," Gordon Ramsay was fed the restaurant's fisherman's platter, which consisted of scallops, flounder, and shrimp, and Ramsay was not a fan. The waiter stood watch, and when she saw him spit the food out, she returned to ask his opinion. After saying, "Oh my god, that's gross," Ramsay continued, "Soft, bland, rubbery, I didn't realize it could be this bad" (via YouTube).
The cook took Ramsay's opinion particularly hard. "You're here 16 years so you think your food is decent. To hear otherwise, it's kind of shocking," he said. Other dishes he tried at the restaurant included French onion soup and shepherd's pie, and though Ramsay didn't like either dish, he did manage to swallow both.
If you'd like to try some fish that Ramsay does like, you can try one of his chain restaurants, Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips. There are multiple locations across the United States, and the menu features cod, lobster, shrimp, and more prepared in fashions that we imagine Ramsay will not spit out.
Gordon Ramsay sneered at this chicken parmesan slider
In addition to knowing good food, Gordon Ramsay has made himself an expert on all things luxury, and he aired his opinions on the television show "Hotel Hell." The show was only broadcast for three seasons, but while it was on the air, Ramsay visited different hotels to advise changes meant to improve their operations.
In one episode, Ramsay arrived at his room and almost immediately ordered room service to judge the quality of the food. When it arrived, Ramsay's first complaint was the packaging of the food. He was confused as to why it came in a takeout box. Nevertheless, Ramsay continued eating.
After pouring his soup out of a takeout box and into a porcelain cup, Ramsay tried the chicken parmesan slider. "That's dreadful," he said upon eating it, and he promptly spat it into the takeout box. "Now I know why they got the boxes. It's a takeaway puke box," he said.
This episode was filmed in 2012 at The Keating Hotel in San Diego, California, and per Yelp, the establishment is now closed. Ramsay couldn't go back for another chicken parmesan slider even if he wanted to. But we're guessing he wouldn't want to.
He doesn't eat frozen meals
Although Gordon Ramsay spits out a lot of the food he tastes, we do have to give him credit for at least trying the dishes. Whether he is eating disgusting food on a late-night television show segment or putting food in his mouth that we wouldn't want to eat ourselves, the man is not afraid to try terrible things. He has, however, shared that there are some foods he just will not eat.
For example, Ramsay said on Reddit, "The only thing I draw the line at ... is eating overcooked food," but he also has apparently drawn the line at frozen meals. As he told Bon Appétit, he won't eat "Any ready meal [frozen meal]."
Ramsay explained his decision by saying, "It's so easy to prepare a quick meal using fresh produce, such as a simple stir-fry, but people still resort to ready meals that all taste exactly the same."
Viewers saw Ramsay's disdain for frozen meals in an episode of "Kitchen Nightmares." After rummaging through the restaurant's freezers and finding copious amounts of premade frozen food, Ramsay was incensed. "This is not a restaurant. You are mad," he told the restaurant's owner. Note to self: Never offer Gordon Ramsay frozen meals.
Gordon Ramsay can't eat overly salty foods
Gordon Ramsay is very specific about spices, and that includes salt. Per MasterClass, the chef recommends having French fleur de sel or Maldon salt in your pantry at all times. Salt is a kitchen staple, but it shouldn't be overused. Ramsay is very sensitive to food that is too salty.
In one episode of "Hell's Kitchen," Ramsay proved just how much he hates food with too much salt. After trying a dish of macaroni and cheese, Ramsay spat out the noodles and called all of his kitchen staff to gather around. He had every cook taste the dish and exclaimed, "That is disgusting!"
Most cooks agreed with Ramsay — the dish was far too salty — and the chef was determined to discover who had made the error. One cook, Michelle, copped to adding some extra salt, and as a result, another chef had to prepare a new batch.
Michelle apparently had a habit of oversalting her food. In another episode that same season, the cook put too much salt in a spinach dish. Although Ramsay didn't try the dish himself, another member of his kitchen had clearly taken cues from the chef and yelled at Michelle for her mistake. Ramsay asked Michelle, "Are you sabotaging?" Salt is a serious matter for Ramsay.
He hated this bacon and chocolate pizza
Gordon Ramsay is known for his television projects, but he'll use any medium he can to critique another cook's work. Ramsay has over 34 million followers on TikTok, and he uses his profile to duet videos and offer his unsolicited opinions on random users' food. Some of his harshest critiques have been on foods one might deem creative, like a Cheeto-covered steak. But his aversion to overly creative foods long predates the video-sharing app.
On an episode of "Hotel Hell," Ramsay ate at Merk, and for dessert, he was served bacon and chocolate pizza, which did not appetize him. Before Ramsay even ate the pizza, he told the restaurant manager, "It's like we've had a crisis with the toilet paper department. Someone's wiped their a** with my dough."
Aside from one expletive after eating it, Ramsay let his actions speak for themselves by spitting it out to show his distaste for the culinary concoction.
Gordon Ramsay couldn't finish this seafood crêpe
One of Gordon Ramsay's best traits is his honesty. He never holds back. On an episode of "Kitchen Nightmares," Ramsay was fed a seafood crêpe, and in his regular fashion, he shared his exact thoughts on the dish. "That is hideous," he said after taking a bite and spitting it out, unable to finish. "It's hot in parts, like in the middle, but on the side, they're stone cold," he continued (via Dailymotion).
The waiter returned to take the food away after seeing Ramsay wasn't pleased, and he asked, "Is the oven not working?" You know the food is bad when Ramsay wonders if the reason is a faulty appliance.
We're guessing that if Ramsay is going to eat a crêpe, it'll be his own recipe for a savory crêpe. For all cooks who'd like to replicate it, Ramsay filmed himself cooking the crêpe, and he detailed his exact steps. Ramsay's crêpe includes mushrooms, freshly grated parmesan, and chopped chives, and we have to admit that his crêpe looks far better than the seafood version he spat out.