Given that Being Gordon Ramsay is a six-part documentary about a middle-aged man’s “all-or-nothing” attempt to erect a £20m restaurant complex at the top of London’s second-tallest skyscraper, it does not take much reaching to find hallmarks of Ramsay’s fragile masculinity.
Part Grand Designs construction jeopardy, part The Bear’s sweaty-angry study of culinary genius, part Beckham-style happy-families brand extension posing as a documentary, it follows a year in the life of the world’s most famous chef. During this time, he takes on the muscular feat of opening 22 Bishopsgate, alongside preparing for his daughter’s wedding, rearing two children under five, and steering four in their twenties.
And while it – being a shameless and protracted PR exercise – obviously swerves sincere introspection, engaging with difficult subjects (like son-in-law Adam Peaty’s feud with his parents), or really exploring anything Ramsay and his wife Tana haven’t discussed before in 25 years of ubiquity, it does reveal that the fixation with power and manliness and victory that has defined Ramsay’s career simmers on, even as it tries to paint him as softened, emotional and calmer.
He arrives at his Cornish holiday home in a helicopter, he scowls down from giant Las Vegas billboards in chef’s whites like a wrinkled, vengeful god, he laments his absence from the youth of his older children, before deciding it was probably a blessing because he’d have ruined sports day trying to beat the other dads.
‘Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares’ – including the US version, above were enthralling platforms for his rage, charisma and culinary skill (Photo: Channel 4)Ramsay’s masculinity is what made him a superstar. The tortured artist, the sneering perfectionist, the bullying, feuding bad boy, and the testosterone-fuelled endurance athlete chasing Michelin stars while training for marathons all feel like insufferable, toxic clichés now, but 25 years ago they were enthralling.
It is no wonder Ramsay was so magnetic to watch. Whether on Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares orThe F Word, he was charismatic and clever and his rage and unpredictability were thrilling. Celebrity chefs – he continues to deny being one, despite a global media empire, more than 90 restaurants worldwide and an estimated wealth of £162m – were once friendly, unthreatening home cooks who helped you to make better food.
Then exploded Ramsay, in maniacal, uncompromising pursuit of excellence, both unpleasant and exciting at once. He had no interest in being liked or being popular, or in what people cooked at home, but his towering influence changed British restaurants and food culture anyway, permitting ordinary people into that rarefied, clandestine world.
There was nothing attainable about his food or his standards but he demanded respect – you might hate him, call him arrogant, but everyone believed he knew what he was talking about. And in the chefs vying for his approval, the businesses he tried to turn round and the protégés he trained, he inspired loyalty and diligent, obsessive hard work.
Ramsay in 1999 (Photo: Julian Barton/TV Times/Future)It wasn’t the snarling and swearing and sweating that made him intimidating, it was the dominance and ruthlessness of his presence. But – and what was so redemptive – you really could impress him. He would not deny recognition when it was due. He did not withhold criticism, but nor did he withhold praise. The moments when someone did made excellent TV.
Masculinity ran through Ramsay’s origin story, too. He was the working-class wannabe footballer who abandoned his dream when Rangers dropped him and whose volatile, alcoholic father never forgave him. And because his father died young, he never managed to prove him – the man who called him a “poof” for going to catering college – wrong.
Everything he did was to correct the mistakes of his dysfunctional childhood: to be a different kind of man. It left him with an addiction to his work; his brother fell into an addiction to heroin. Ramsay came from nothing, he sacrificed and cared, and his success really was hard-won. That was even more potent in America, where self-made men are heroes, especially when they come in the form of a cartoonish British tyrant.
Matilda, Gordon and Tana Ramsay in Las Vegas (Photo: Arnold Jerocki/Getty)But in 2026, audiences are not impressed by big egos any more, and Ramsay’s public image has changed. He is the glossy name above the door of overpriced average establishments in airports and Emirati shopping malls. He is the best friend of the Beckhams who spends half the year in a mansion in LA. He is the face of too many uninspiring TV series, playing up the naff dad on Gino, Gordon and Fred or aping Alan Sugar on Gordon Ramsay’s Future Food Stars.
He is richer and more successful than he could ever have dreamed, but he has lost the edge that made him intoxicating in the first place. And being driven by that fragile masculinity, no one is more aware of that than him.
So, in Being Gordon Ramsay he attempts to reassert his power by empire-building on the grandest scale yet. Upwards, literally, into the sky at 22 Bishopsgate, with its culinary school and three restaurants (one already has a Michelin star, one is yet to open). And downwards, into his family. Not only with his second generation of young children – he is 59 and his youngest son is two – but his 24-year-old daughter Tilly.
Already she has enjoyed successful CBBC series, has published books, has appeared on Strictly Come Dancing, is now training to be a chef and primed to take over the family business, and, we are told several times, she is “the most like” her father. He is, naturally, immensely proud when taking her to try on her first chef’s whites.
Gordon Ramsay at 22 Bishopsgate in the City of London, which will feature a culinary school and three restaurants (Photo: Netflix)Ramsay clearly sees his attractive brood as an extension of the business (and his virility), and has involved them in his work and media appearances since they were very small, and scared of cameras. He stresses more than once that the most important family is “the family you build”, and it is impossible to ignore his preoccupation with his legacy. Not just through his children, and where they will take the Gordon Ramsay empire next, but what that empire stands for.
Because he is indeed the most famous chef in the world, but no longer the most respected restaurateur in Britain, no longer the mesmerising TV hitmaker, and definitely no longer the chippy, talented young underdog compensating for his lack of privilege with loud anger, posturing and physical strength (though we do catch him working out, and witness a few terse words to clumsy wait staff on the 22 Bishopsgate soft launch).
So who is he, if so much of what made him such a force has been diluted? A brand. Being Gordon Ramsay turns out to be a battle between shamelessly embracing that – flying around the world, flattering the influencers, indulging to the Americans – and defending his reputation and prestige to the critics who call him a sellout by taking on ever more obscene challenges. He might have conquered the world, but Ramsay’s fragile masculinity is still his life force, and he will always have something to prove.
‘Being Gordon Ramsay’ is streaming on Netflix
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