Gordon Ramsay Clapped Back On Twitter About 'Basic' Restaurants
South London's Battersea Power Station, which was built in the early 1930s, once supplied around 20% of London's electricity needs, according to the Power Station's website. It was decommissioned in 1983, but 2022 promises to be the year that this historic site opens once again and begins supplying energy to the people of London. However, said energy will not be in the form of electrical impulses, but rather culture-enhancing and community-building initiatives.
Specifically, when ongoing conservation slash renovation efforts have been substantially completed – which some predict may be the case before the end of 2022, the Battersea Power Station is expected to become home to at least 100 shops, bars, restaurants, and other "retail and leisure destinations," as well as offices, event space, a public riverfront park, and an adjacent riverside neighborhood to be known as "Circus West Village."
In fact, just this week, Battersea Power Station announced its preliminary lineup of bars and restaurants slated to open inside the renovated historical site starting in September 2022. "Visitors will be able to enjoy a variety of British and international eateries with Le Bab, Where the Pancakes Are, Poke House, Clean Kitchen Club, Paris Baguette, Joe & The Juice and Starbucks joining the Power Station line-up," Hospitality & Catering News reported. In addition, everyone's favorite curmudgeonly celebrity chef, Gordon Ramsay, will be opening a Bread Street Kitchen & Bar in Circus West Village. Now, if only he could just get a little gosh darned respect.
Gordon Ramsay may not be the BEST advocate for the hospitality industry
On February 21, British food journalist Josh Barrie tweeted a list of restaurants that are expected to be part of the Battersea Power Station lineup, including Ramsay's Bread Street Kitchen. Another British food journalist, the restaurant critic Marina O'Loughlin, responded with the metaphorical side-eye. "What phoning-it-in consultant did they pay to come up with this lot??" O'Loughlin asked, in due course adding that while she feels "Le Bab and WTPA are good at what they do," the lineup is, on the whole, rather "BASIC" – in all caps.
Well, that just wouldn't do, apparently, not for Gordon Ramsay. However, Ramsay wasn't thinking only of himself. When he clapped back, he did so with a bit of pro-hospitality industry righteous indignation on behalf of ALL the so-called "BASIC" restaurants of Battersea Power Station. Including his own. "Does BASIC stand for: Bash All (food) Service Industry (until) Closed ???" Ramsay tweeted in response to O'Loughlin. "We haven't even turned the lights on! Time to support hospitality coming out of these times."
As admirable as Ramsay's aforementioned virtue-signifying tweet may be, Twitter did not necessarily engage with it as such. Rather, some of the replies to Ramsay's tweet chose to dwell on its indeterminate ratio of sincerity versus hypocrisy (Ramsay infamously fired a lot of staff during lockdown). Others seemed more interested in what else "BASIC" might stand for. But only GenX will know what BASIC really stands for.