Neil Simpson

There’s nothing the US respects more than a self-made man and few have taken control of their own destiny as emphatically as Gordon Ramsay,’ said Times reporter Chris Ayres who interviewed Gordon in the afternoon sun in August 2008.

He saw a man more tanned, more toned and just a little bit blonder than normal. But he saw a man just as driven, ambitious and determined as ever – not least because Chris reckoned Gordon had arrived in the US ‘with all the subtlety of a 40-megaton nuclear weapon’.

But, most importantly of all, in the summer of 2008, Gordon was working full-time to make a success out of his latest multi-million-dollar LA restaurant.

Gordon Ramsay at The London Hotel in West Hollywood had opened three months earlier. It was the latest part of Gordon’s vast global push of book launches, merchandising deals and television programmes. The huge workload meant Gordon’s name was known in almost every part of the world.

One year later, when his still-wrinkled face was famous and his restaurant was open, he was ready to tough out the food critics as well. He knew his food was far from ‘half-hearted’ or ‘over cooked’.

And, whatever the critics said, it did the trick. Shortly after opening, the new restaurant was taking 600 calls a day from people desperate for reservations.

He got proof within the year when he was awarded not one but two Michelin stars. So did he rest on his laurels and take a well-earned break? Does that sound like Gordon Ramsay?

No. Having taken Manhattan, squeezed in a new restaurant in Prague and finished the plans for another in Heathrow’s new Terminal Five, he was ready to take on Paris.

Gordon hit that most snooty and food-obsessed of cities in typically fiery style

So what did Gordon do to beat back against those critics?