Either way, Tana fell out with this other dickhead of a chef and, before I knew it, we were dating and got married in December 1996. In the meantime, Aubergine was fast becoming a big hit and I was earning £6,000 a month. £6,000 a month! My mate, the Building Society and I sold the flat, and Tana and I were able to put down a deposit on part of an old school building in Battersea. We moved in, and suddenly there was a seismic shift in my life because Aubergine had become a phenomenon.
The Aubergine phenomenon is interesting. This was the stage, this tiny little fledgling restaurant, where I started to make a name for myself, where I was suddenly the unknown winger who was filling the goal net every Saturday to the extent that the press looked up and started mapping out my future as a name in their columns. Newspapers, magazines and the restaurant media are always looking for the next story, and they hooked on to me big time. Why did this previously unknown, off-street restaurant suddenly have the most sought-after reservations book in London?
Celebrity status didn’t exist. Gordon Ramsay was a name that rolled off the tongue like broken glass, and the place had started on a shoestring with no big design budget, no PR and no launch party with 200 C-list celebs. If the truth were known, I didn’t really know what PR stood for. What worked was that I was putting superbly executed, modern European dishes on the menu at the lowest prices. When I look at an old Aubergine menu now, we were selling – no, giving away – three courses for £18. I also had the makings of a strong, motivated staff in both the kitchen and the dining room. The staff were all young and all looking for classical training. The hardship that we were enduring in the kitchen was probably the glue that bonded us all together. They could see me pitching in, and maybe stories of my days in Paris, mixed with the obvious dedication of working like a hungry dog, bonded us together. What would seal this bond was the success that suddenly swept over us. I had proved, with the help of my staff, that hard work and self-conviction really will work. What we all knew about was obsession and the pursuit of perfection, so every guest who came into the restaurant liked what they saw and went off to spread the word. It appealed to affluent locals who boasted about the little restaurant that they had discovered as though it were their own. No wonder I didn’t need a poncy PR firm.
On the other hand, it was also a question of timing. I can’t take any credit for that. We just happened to be pursuing perfection at exactly the right time and place. And there also were at least two vital things I didn’t yet understand.
One was that those days were producing what would be a fantastic stable of chefs-in-waiting who, one day, would put Gordon Ramsay on the world stage. I didn’t know that’s what I was doing when I hired them or when we worked alongside each other to get it right every time. I didn’t know it then, but they would be one of the most important factors in my later success.
The other issue was that, as successful as Aubergine was, I was doing everything wrong if I wanted to make money and run a business. The restaurant was certainly making money, but it wasn’t my money, and my head was buried in a hot stove all day. I had no understanding of the horizon, no wider picture, and – at least then – I didn’t realize how much I had become a means for others to feather their own nests.
The situation would not last.
CHAPTER TWO
FIRST STEP ON THE LADDER
Before diving in, break the ice and think through the basics.
AUBERGINE WAS OWNED by people who were more interested in the money than the food, and this was the lesser known side of the story. The constant rowing and the politics that spilled over from the boardroom were soon having an effect on me, and as the restaurant grew more successful, plans were being hatched for laying a string of golden eggs. And they would be spilling out of my arse. Pizza parlours and roll-outs featured regularly in the boardroom plans, and I knew that it was time to go.
I had been given 10 per cent of the shares in the firm that owned Aubergine and, occasionally, a few thousand pounds came my way as a sort of drip-feed to keep me happy. But with each director trying to secure my support against their opposing number, I soon began to look around in spite of the stratospheric reputation of Aubergine. My problem was that I just hadn’t thought through what I was really after. That was the first lesson I needed to learn.
From out of the blue, a small hotel operator called David Levin approached me to take charge of his restaurant, which had just lost its Michelin-starred chef. Before I knew it, he had offered me £150,000 a year and 5 per cent of the profits. Fuck me. This was double what I was earning, and I could see that the site in Mayfair was just right for the three Michelin stars. They shone in my mind much brighter than any share certificates or, come to think of it, any roll-out Italian pizza parlours.
However, although I had had lots of talks with David, I was a bit confused about how this might all pan out. There was a son who was clearly going to take over the business at some time, and in the back of my mind, I was wondering why the other chef had left. I can’t say that it was a case of once bitten, but I had acquired a sixth sense about who really might be my friend and who might ultimately sell me down the river in a leaky sieve.
So I spoke to the one person who would have my interests at heart, and that was Chris, my father-in-law. I explained the offer and asked if he would meet with David and let me know what he thought. I didn’t know it then, and I am fucking positive that Chris didn’t give it a further thought, but this was the very first step we took together in the world of commerce. It was to be the initial, tentative coming together of two people who were totally different in their skills and ages. As time went on, these differences were to meld together in an unusual alliance, and it became clear that we were as alike as two wings on a plane.
The two old-timers met for lunch at The Capital and, like so many successful businessmen, David failed to listen to a thing Chris said about my ambitions or dreams. As far as he was concerned, it was a done deal and Chris was in the way. Be courteous enough to the father-in-law and he will, no doubt, go along with the grand plan.
I think that Chris was a little wary of trying to muscle in on my life and into a business that he knew very little about. Either way, it was not long before I was invited to the offices of Withers for what I thought was just another meeting. Chris agreed to come along, and there we were in front of three lawyers, none of whom was mine, and David’s son. Apparently, David was on the golf course, treating today’s procedures as a done deal. Chris looked puzzled as he scanned the documentation in front of him. One of the three lawyers smiled and indicated that this was a contract now awaiting my signature.
The kick under the table from Chris came as a surprise and fucking well hurt. It was to become a regular method of communication in later meetings when things were going wrong. Chris asked if we could have five minutes, and out of the room we went. He looked at me and asked two simple, amazing questions. ‘Gordon, what do you really want to do in life? Do you want to work for someone, or do you want to go it alone?’ I was beginning to realize, at last, that the world was beginning to rotate.
Ten minutes later, we had proffered our apologies to the signing committee, who, no doubt, relayed news of our departure to the golf course, and we were on our way out of this firm of very expensive lawyers.
We had, in that one moment, agreed to go it alone. Two unlikely partners and only a dream between us, and I had just learned an important lesson: you need to know what you’re aiming for in order to reach it.
The saga at Aubergine still had another torturous six months to run. I was still refusing to sign any contract, especially as one of the clauses would bar me from opening a restaurant within a twenty-five-mile radius of Aubergine if I ever left. Franco Zanellato and Claudio Pulze sold their shares to Giuliano Lotto, giving him 90 per cent of the company, which meant he could do what he liked. What he liked, at this point, was to raise prices, move my staff around, and talk about strange plans for bistros in Bermuda. Of the three Italians, Giuliano, a former stockbroker, knew the least about the restaurant trade.
What we were now looking for was the big chance, and that chance suddenly appeared with a call from my old boss.
CHAPTER THREE
ROYAL HOSPITAL ROAD
When the time is right with plans, designs, borrowings and staff, mix them in a bowl with a spoonful of intense passion.
