Gordon Ramsay has revealed how strict he can really be when it comes to staff at his restaurants.
Between his television shows Hell's Kitchen and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, Ramsay has built up a reputation as being a chef with quite a few swear words up his sleeve, should the need arise for it. And the need often arises for it. But one mistake from his staff would get the offending waiter fired on the spot.
Gordon Ramsay was appearing on The Late Late Show with James Corden, sitting alongside actress Piper Perabo, who starred in Lost, Coyote Ugly and The Prestige. Perabo was recounting her time as a waitress, and recalled a few of the mistakes she had made.
Once, Perabo spilled an entire chocolate martini over a customer. "I was just rushing," explained the 42-year-old actress. "And I also like to chat, so I would sort of try to finish a conversation and do the drink service at the same time. I had to pay for her dry cleaning," said Perabo.
It was then put to Gordon Ramsay - what would he do in a similar situation, should one of his waiters spill a drink on a customer? Right away, Ramsay replied: "You don't watch Kitchen Nightmares?"
"I imagine you'd be pretty chilled about it," joked James Corden, but if you've ever seen Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, you know that it wouldn't be pretty for the server involved in the spill. "First of all, I'd fire the person who dropped it," he said, much to Perabo's horror.
But then, the charming side of Ramsay came out, and he detailed how he'd handle the situation, and from the sounds of it, he would do so quickly and effectively. "Before she finished that appetizer, I'd have that dress ready, waiting, sparkling [clean]," said Ramsay.
Piper Perabo still wasn't happy that she would have hypothetically been fired in that situation, but Gordon Ramsay runs a tight ship, as we all know by now. Tash Pericic is well versed in the ways of Ramsay; she worked for the chef for a year at Maze in London, but quit due to the demanding nature of the work.
She said that dressings-down similar to what you'd find on television were common, but curiously, they never came from Ramsay himself: instead, Pericic often had to work with a fiery head chef.
"He was like what you see on 'Kitchen Nightmares.' I saw him throwing pots and pans at staff, and he'd scream at me in the middle of service... There was a night where I had the chef literally standing right in my face, screaming at me, and I had to pretend like that was fine."
Gordon Ramsay himself, however, was an apparent gentleman... most of the time. "He'd come in, say hi, come into the kitchen, check that everything's okay," she said.
"It was fun, and quite entertaining."
