What is Gordon Ramsay’s net worth and salary?
Gordon Ramsay is a British chef, restaurateur, writer, television personality, and food critic who has a net worth of $220 million. As a reality television personality, Ramsay is known for his fiery temper, strict demeanor, and frequent use of expletives. He often insults contestants about their cooking abilities.
Chef Gordon Ramsay has a larger-than-life personality and makes “to-die-for” food. At least that is what the people who can actually get a seat in and afford a meal at one of his many restaurants say. His multiple cooking competition shows have made him a household name in areas where his food is not available. His penchant for basically verbally abusing anyone who stands within eight feet of him in the kitchen has rocketed him from merely well-known into the realm of cultural icon. From swearing so much on television that he received citations from review boards in the UK and Australia to engaging in multiple sparring matches with other chefs and celebrities across various programs to admitting to serving meat to vegetarians at his restaurants, Gordon Ramsay has built quite a reputation for himself outside of the kitchen, as well as in it. After throwing the famed restaurant critic, A.A. Gill, out of one of his restaurants, the critic wrote, “Ramsay is a wonderful chef, just a really second-rate human being.”
Early Life
Gordon James Ramsay was born November 8, 1966, in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland. When he was five, his family moved to England, and he was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. He is the second of four children. His family moved constantly when he was a child due to the aspirations and professional setbacks of his father. His father was a sometimes violent alcoholic and womanizer. At the age of 16, Ramsay moved out of his family’s home and into an apartment of his own. As a teen, Ramsay was quite good at football/soccer as a teen but his playing days were cut short by injury. By this time, Ramsay had already developed an interest in cooking. At 19, he enrolled in the Hotel Management program at North Oxfordshire Technical College.
Restaurant Career
In the mid-1980s, Ramsay worked at the Wroxton House Hotel as a commis chef. From there, he went on to run the kitchen and 60-seat dining room at the Wickham Arms. He then moved to London, where he worked in a series of restaurants before landing a job working for the infamously temperamental chef Marco Pierre White at Harvey’s. He worked at Harvey’s for two years and ten months before growing tired of White’s “rages and the bullying and violence.” Ramsay e decided to study French cuisine and went to work for Albert Roux and Le Gavroche in Mayfair, where he met Jean-Claude Breton, now his maitre d-hotel at Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. After working at Le Gavroche for a year, Roux invited Ramsay to work with him as his number two at Hotel Diva, a ski resort in the French Alps. From there, then 23-year-old Ramsay moved to Paris to work with Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon, both Michelin-starred chefs. He continued his training in France for three years.
After a sabbatical for a year as a private chef on a yacht, Ramsay returned to London and was offered the head chef position under three-Michelin-starred chef Pierre Koffman at La Tante Claire in Chelsea. Not long after, his old boss, Marco Pierre White, offered to give him the head chef job (in exchange for a 10% share) at the Rossmore, which Ramsay renamed Aubergine and won his first Michelin star 14 months later. In 1997, Aubergine received its second Michelin star. Ramsay left the partnership in the summer of 1998 over disagreements about the direction the company should go in.
That same year, Ramsay opened his own restaurant called Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London’s Chelsea neighborhood. In 2001, the restaurant gained its third Michelin star, making Ramsay the first Scotsman to achieve that feat.
From there, his empire expanded rapidly. He opened (and closed) a number of celebrated restaurants, launched his U.S.-based TV show “Hell’s Kitchen,” became a feature on the Food Network, and conquered the world one dinner plate at a time. He has restaurants in Dubai, Tokyo, London, New York City, Ireland, Canada, and, until 2015, in West Hollywood at the celebrated London Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles.
(Photo by Robin Marchant/Getty Images)
Television Career
Ramsay’s first foray into television was via two documentaries: 1998’s “Boiling Point” and 2000’s “Beyond Boiling Point.” He appeared on “Faking It” in 2001, helping the prospective chef, a burger flipper, learn the trade. The episode won the BAFTA in 2001 for Best Factual TV Moment. In 2004, he appeared in two British television series, “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” and “Hell’s Kitchen.” In 2005, the Fox network brought Ramsay to American audiences with a U.S. version of “Hell’s Kitchen.” A U.S. version of “Kitchen Nightmares” was also aired on Fox. “Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back” replaced “Kitchen Nightmares” on Fox.
In 2010, Ramsay served as a producer and judge on the U.S. version of “MasterChef.” He starred in a travelogue about his visit to India, “Gordon’s Great Escape,” followed by a series set in Asia. He hosted the series “Ramsay’s Best Restaurant,” which was the first UK series by Ramsay’s own production company, One Potato Two Potato. Ramsay joined several other celebrity chefs in the 2010 series “The Big Fish Fight,” where he, along with fellow chef Jamie Oliver and a few others, spent time on a trawler boat to raise awareness about the discarding of hundreds of thousands of saltwater fish.
In March 2012, Fox announced Ramsay’s fourth series for the Fox network, “Hotel Hell;” the series is similar to “Kitchen Nightmares.” Some of his more recent works include 2021’s “Gordon Ramsay’s Bank Balance” and “Gordon, Gino & Fred Go Greek,” and 2022’s “Next Level Chef,” “Gordon Ramsay’s Future Food Stars,” and “Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted Showdown.”
Personal Life
He married Cayetana (Tana) Elizabeth Hutcheson, a Montessori-trained schoolteacher, in 1996. They have five children: Megan (1998), twins Jack and Holly (2000), Matilda (2002), and Oscar (2019). The couple splits their time between Wandsworth Common, London, and Los Angeles.
Ramsay is a car enthusiast and Ferrari lover and has a sizable collection, including a Ferrari LaFerrari painted in Grigio Ferro, a Ferrari 488 Spider, a Ferrari 812 Superfast, an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera, a McLaren Senna, and Porsche 918 Spyder.
In June 2022, Gordon Ramsay was named one of the 100 Most Powerful People in Global Hospitality by the International Hospitality Institute.
Salary Highlights
Gordon Ramsay’s salary per episode is $225,000. He typically earns around $45 million per year from his media and restaurant empire. Between June 2017 and June 2018, Gordon earned north of $60 million. Between June 2018 and June 2019, he earned $65 million. In mid-July 2019, Gordon sold a 50% stake in his North American holding company to Lion Capital. Lion plans to spend $100 million launching 100 Gordon Ramsay restaurants in the United States between 2020 and 2025.
Real Estate
In 2012, Ramsay purchased a $6.75 million home in Bel-Air, Los Angeles. The 7,413-square-foot mansion has five bedrooms, six bathrooms, a swimming pool, and, of course, a state-of-the-art luxury kitchen.
He also owns a home in London, which was purchased in 2002 for $3.5 million, and at least three homes, purchased for a combined total of $13 million in the English seaside town of Fowey. His most impressive property in Fowey was purchased in 2015 for around $6 million. He then spent a great deal of money on renovations, including a large pool with a transparent wall that looks out to the ocean. The transparent wall alone cost around $100,000.
In early 2023, it was revealed that Ramsay purchased Matt Hancock’s girlfriend Gina Coladangelo’s former home in London, reportedly all cash, amid the news that Tana is pregnant with the couple’s sixth child.
