Super U Podcast | 7 Super Tips with Gordon Ramsay
Gordon Ramsay is a British chef, restaurateur, television personality, and writer. His global restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 16 Michelin stars overall; it currently holds a total of seven. After rising to fame on the British television miniseries Boiling Point in 1999, Ramsay became one of the best-known and most influential chefs in the United Kingdom. On today’s podcast learn the one piece of advice that Ramsey gives every aspiring chef and entrepreneur.
5x #1 Bestselling Author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman has performed in over 55 countries and reached over 50 million people this past decade. He was voted the 2nd Most Likable Author in the World behind Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling. Qualman is also the inventor of the bestselling board game Kittycorn.
Need a sneak peek? Below are the main takeaways from the episode.
Super U Podcast | 7 Super Tips with Gordon Ramsay:
[3:30] Tip #1
“My advice to young chefs from the age of 16 to sort of 2930 is 14 years of a sponge, you’re absorbing knowledge. Don’t take a job for the sake of money. Don’t worry about earning 500 pounds a month or a year more somewhere else. Go and get knowledge because that becomes a bigger passport for everything. The money will come once you’ve mastered your craft and you become incredibly talented. Work for big chefs and find a difference. level of comfort. When things get too comfortable when you’re still living with your parents and you still got your first job and you want to move out because everything’s too complex. Get out and put yourself in a strange situation in the middle of Barcelona. We start in the middle of Paris, put yourself in the middle of Belgium, and see what’s available. As amazing how much confidence gives you, more importantly, it’s great to eat and travel at the same time. Fantastic.”
[4:47] Tip #2
“It takes years to become a great chef. What you need to do is establish confidence in yourself. Cooking is an amazing journey. And both either learn it within three or four years. It’s like studying medicine over a 10 to 15-year period. I’m 42 years of age, and I’m still learning new exciting things now that I bring back to the fold. But more importantly, vision. I didn’t think French was important at school. And I kicked myself now because I went live in France for three years and became bilingual. But I wish I’d studied harder with a second language, oh my god, that gives you a different culture gives you a completely different level of confidence, learning French, French cuisine, mannerism and cooking in a very robust, tenacious way. So yeah, vision and open-mindedness. And we never cut corners, the minute you start cutting corners and food timeout, there’s no worse job to have than to cut corners of food. So attention to detail, amazing, exciting journey, one of the very few jobs anywhere in the world that you can travel, get paid and experience phenomenal food anywhere in the world. Brilliant.”
[6:06] Tip #3
“There’s one thing I’ve learned and experienced is that, you know, if you don’t open up, and you don’t delegate, then you’ll kill yourself. And if there’s one thing that I’ve managed to understand is the art of delegation, because if I can pass on, you know, to Claire Smith Aryan, my palate, my understanding my knowledge, then grab it, run it, and then pass it on to your team. Don’t hold that inside. If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last 10 years stay in front of the competition. Because there are two ways in this industry, you move with it, or it moves you. And I’ve seen so many sad stories across the decade, where chefs have just got lazy, got lazy, given up, and lost that hunger to be competitive. Because it’s the best job in the world. There’s not really a job as a passion. Because when you’re rubbing shoulders, and here we are now 10 years later, and I’ve got a restaurant next door to Jamie Oliver’s, and we’re both literally two meters apart. Phenomenal chefs. And we keep each other on our toes. So that’s exciting for me. And that’s been the one key issue across the 10 years of filming Kitchen Nightmares. Never, ever, ever give up.”
[8:37] Tip #4
“Good question and pressures healthy. It becomes stressful when you can’t handle this. And I don’t think we should never sort of misinterpreted the difference between passion and anger. Of course, I get upset when things go wrong. If I was flipping burgers and dressing Caesar salad then I’d be high-fiving everybody. If I was a chef at TGI Fridays, and doing barbecue wings with a sour dip that was sort of sat there for 30 days at a time, then you’d see a completely different background. I decided not to cook at that level. I suppose I get turned on by pressure I that’s how I thrive so some of you, you know, can handle that enormous amount of pressure and I suppose more than anything I don’t I don’t think I’ve peaked yet. That’s a weird thing about it. I don’t I don’t feel I’ve given everything I’ve got in food.”
[9:49] Tip #5
“I’m exposing talent really. I am the most unselfish chef anywhere in the world. My team are no longer chefs, they’re partners. And unfortunately, I’m always the one that’s sort of regarded as spreading himself too thin, but there’s 1500 of now there’s 1,550 in the team. So if I wasn’t propelling talent and exposing talent and pushing them at the forefront in modern, odd cuisine, then they wouldn’t be as talented as they are. So, for me, it’s a way of not giving back to the industry. I hate that scenario, but in terms of finding talent, nursing it, and then exposing.
[10:37] Tip #6
“…I was begging to become French. I went to live in Paris for two years. Again, every time I got into a new kitchen, I started at the bottom, then go into senior-level didn’t, because the higher you go, the less you learn. And so I went to the very bottom every time I went into a new kitchen, and even leaving Marco which I was two and a half years go into the garage, I could have got a senior position. Now, start at the bottom and understand the tools in the box before you’ve been given them. You have to become a baker. It was the worst job in the house because you started Sunday night as sort of five, six o’clock in the afternoon and went right through till midday on Monday. Then I perfected the bakery, desserts, fish meat. And so for me, I never wanted to be in that situation. One day I had my own kitchen was not knowing what was going on. From desserts, to the bakery for 24 hours, I needed to know everything.
[11:49] Tip #7
“<y advice to any young chef anywhere in the world. Get out of your comfort zone, and put yourself in a scenario where you have to build a character, learn a second language, and find out a lot about yourself on your own. Without mum without dad without a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, or without any money. Please avoid the situation and build a character. You’d be surprised three years down the line. What that does for your self-esteem, phenomenal, more importantly, margin language, when I was very fortunate to be taught by some of the best chefs anywhere in the world, and the most important lesson I learned was to pass that knowledge on and always ask that amazing question. Just your hands-on chef restauranteur who does the cooking way up there? Well, it’s the same people. When I am there, there’s no difference. So I have an unselfish way of teaching people to invest in their palate to get it as strong as mine. I tried to save them as lazy coffee. Anybody can copy. So take 25% of everything you’ve learned from other chefs. And then put yourself on the plate. And over the years of experience, reduce me less and improve yourself. And that’s the foundation to becoming a great chef.”
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Connect with Gordon Ramsay:
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/gordonramsay
Instagram: @gordongram
Twitter: @GordonRamsay
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The Super U Podcast is hosted by #1 bestselling author and Motivational Speaker Erik Qualman.
