There is a level of snobbery and fickleness in L.A.

Find what’s hot, find what’s just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.

It’s vulgar, coming from where I do, to talk about money.

I won’t let people write anything they want to about me.

I hid myself in food.

I came up from a difficult background.

Kitchens are hard environments and they form incredibly strong characters.

I don’t think it’s a good advert for any restaurant, a fat chef, and secondly, who wants to eat a dessert when the chef’s a fat pig.

I cook, I create, I’m incredibly excited by what I do, I’ve still got a lot to achieve.

I’m not trying to take New York by storm. I just want to sneak in there, keep my head down, batten down the hatches and cook.

When you cook under pressure you trade perfection.

You don’t come into cooking to get rich.

I am the most unselfish chef in Britain today.

When you find a guy who is powerful, a big father figure, you latch onto him immediately.

As a soccer player, I wanted an FA Cup winner’s medal. As an actor you want an Oscar. As a chef it’s three-Michelin’s stars, there’s no greater than that. So pushing yourself to the extreme creates a lot of pressure and a lot of excitement, and more importantly, it shows on the plate.

I act on impulse and I go with my instincts.

My wife, a schoolteacher, very disciplined. If you think I’m tough, trust me, and wait till you see when the children are on the naughty step. It’s hilarious. So we decided that I’m going to work like a donkey and provide amazing support for the family.

If I can give you one strong piece of advice, when you go away for that romantic weekend, whatever you do, do not accept or take the upgrade to the honeymoon suite.

I am a grafter.

You know how arrogant the French are – extraordinary.

Would I swap what I have achieved as a cook if I could have been as successful as a footballer? Definitely.

Running started as a way of relaxing. It’s the only time I have to myself. No phones or e-mails or faxes.

I was a naturally aggressive left-back, a cut-throat tackler.

I am a chef who happens to appear on the telly, that’s it.

Cooking today is a young man’s game, I don’t give a bollocks what anyone says.

I swim like a fish and I have an amazing kick.

I’d like to think I’m a great teacher.

I’ve had a lot of success; I’ve had failures, so I learn from the failure.

When you’re a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don’t actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I’ll do, and especially when I’m in New York, I’ll go for a run. And I’ll run 10 or 15k on...

I mean, families are weird.

I’m Gordon Ramsay, for goodness sake: people know I’m volatile.

I’m not critic-proof, and I still take it personally, but I take it less personally now.

I still love football, though, and I think cooking is like football. It’s not a job, it’s a passion. When you become good at it, it’s a dream job and financially you need never to worry. Ever.

I train my chefs completely different to anyone else. My young girls and guys, when they come to the kitchen, the first thing they get is a blindfold. They get blindfolded and they get sat down at the chef’s table… Unless they can identify what they’re tasting, they don’t get to cook it.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword – two jackets, one that’s driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

Cooking is about passion, so it may look slightly temperamental in a way that it’s too assertive to the naked eye.

I shoot from the hip.

They say cats have nine lives. I’ve had 12 already and I don’t know how many more I’ll have.

I’ve got nothing to hide.

We are about creating a new wave of talent. We are the Manchester United of kitchens now. Am I playing full-time in the kitchen? I am a player-coach.

I’m quite a chauvinistic person.

I didn’t get depressed, I don’t get depressed.

The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody’s ego, that’s it, game over.

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that’s exactly what I did.

I’ve never been a hands-on dad. I’m not ashamed to admit it, but you can’t run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

Chefs are nutters. They’re all self-obsessed, delicate, dainty, insecure little souls and absolute psychopaths. Every last one of them.

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God’s sake, not a television personality.

I grew up in a funny way.

I don’t run restaurants that are out of control. We are about establishing phenomenal footholdings with talent.

I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.