Honour among chefs

The media are having fine sport with chef Gordon Ramsay this week. Both his culinary empire and his private life have been under the microscope for a couple of years, as a result of the financial crisis and rumours that Ramsay had been involved in a lengthy affair.

Not long ago, Ramsay "parted company" with his long-time business manager, who also happened to be his father-in-law. Unsurprisingly, this did little for relations within the family, which would have been nobody's concern but for the fact that this week Ramsay took the thoroughly bizarre step of hauling the dirty linen out into the open, by sending an open letter to the London Evening Standard. (The Standard, Gordon??? Things really are slipping). The letter, ostensibly addressed to his mother-in-law, was a heartfelt (if not entirely literate) plea for her not to let the whole nasty business estrange her from her daughter, Gordon's wife Tana.

Over the past year, Ramsay's company Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH) has had to close some of its restaurants outside the UK. The group has parted company with a number of distinguished chefs who have gone out on their own, amid rumours of fallings-out with Ramsay. Ramsay's latest TV series has achieved abysmal ratings. The media are now gleefully speculating that the whole Ramsay empire may be about to crash and burn.

Maybe so, but here's something to keep in mind. A good number of famous chefs have run into trouble in the last couple of years as customers have thought twice about paying £30 for a plate of seaweed foam. More than one has declared bankruptcy, leaving large and small creditors and suppliers high and dry -- then immediately re-opened for business, scarcely missing a single service, and attracting almost no criticism from the media. When GRH ran into financial trouble, it was rescued by an injection of personal funds from Ramsay himself, and, ironically, from his now estranged father-in-law. Honourable, that, and reason enough to hope that Ramsay will be able to hold on to what remains of his little empire -- and his family.