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Foul-mouthed celebrichef to open Boston eatery; has only nice things to say about our Hub

The Globe dishes that Gordon Ramsay will be opening a restaurant in the Mandarin Oriental space left vacant when Bar Boulud shut. Ramsay was quite complimentary about Boston and its chefs in a brief e-mail exchange, the Globe says.

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his sure-to-be-obscenely-overpriced Boston restaurant once every two years after its grand opening. That's just how it works with these global franchise / reality-TV caricature / marketing juggernaut types.

I'll drag out my relevant Devil's Dining Award from 2010:

"Most Futile Hail-Mary Pass Award: to North End restaurant Davide for its pending appearance on Kitchen Nightmares. Fox’s restaurant-makeover show follows Gordon Ramsay, the talented but money-grubbing British chef, as he expresses disgust at a struggling restaurant's food, then profanely tongue-lashes the incompetent owners, cooks and waitstaff into submission. He then oversees a perfunctory menu and dining room face-lift before exiting triumphantly. The show's dirty secret is that Chef Shouty McSpittlefleck never addresses the business management issues at the root of most restaurant failures. So Davide will likely suffer the same fate as most of Ramsay's Cinderellas: a brief bump in popularity after the episode airs, failure within a year or two anyway, and the eternal afterlife of its public humiliation on YouTube. If you're a restaurateur in similar straits, consider preserving your dignity by just closing quietly."

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I have been to several Gordon Ramsay restaurants. Au Trianon, the now defunct Manhattan restaurant at the London, the Steak house at Paris, Burger at Caesars and the Fish and Chips restaurant near the Linq. I thought the food was great at all of them except the Paris hotel. I thought the Beef Wellington was unimpressive.

As someone who went to Bar Boulud frequently, I can’t see the Ramsay Kitchen being any worse.

Who cares about lousy restaurants in the north End for which there are many.

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He has a horrible rate of success with these shows both in the UK and here, that's not new.

Most of these businesses are already underwater by the time he visits and even with said intervention, there's little hope for them in this industry.

Most restaurant businesses need 5 successful years before they are in the black.

However, his name carries weight and his brand is quite top notch. I've dined at his Vegas branches and it's always been a 5 star experience, I would think (and hope) that standard extends here. I wish him well.

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restaurant of his own in London about 20 years ago, before he went the TV celeb-chef route, and it was really, really good.

I hear his "Uncharted" show is pretty good, more like an honest "No Reservations"-era Bourdain dining travelogue than a slab of overcooked reality-TV bologna like "Kitchen Nightmares", which I've always loathed.

I always give these chefs' new places a chance, a professional obligation, but I usually end up glad I got to taste their food when they were actually in the kitchen. If Todd English has taught us anything, it's that many of the qualities that made you great as an indie restaurateur evaporate once you become an empire-builder with a big restaurant and TV footprint.

Ramsay's many restaurants have a slightly better reputation than English's (a low bar these days). Who knows? His Boston outlet could surprise me.

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Ramsay was quite complimentary about Boston

Most people are when they want something.

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My experiences with celebrity chef restaurants have generally been pretty underwhelming, but the one Gordon restaurant I've been to had been very good. This one hopefully will be at least worth a try.

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points to him only being a foul-mouthed jerk on TV (and even then mostly US TV - he's a lot nicer on the UK versions of his shows). By all accounts he's a pretty nice guy when not putting on an act for a camera.

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and I can confirm he was quite nice off-camera.

There was an AT&T commercial a few years back where he kind of made fun of his own image, and I thought to myself, "Yup, he's secretly confessing it's all an act."

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behavior, notably in how he runs his kitchens. Various former employees and peers call him abusive, sexist and racist, and decry that style of management as bad for the industry. He's also done a lot of good with his wealth and fame. I tend to believe the stories that he's a hateful prick to work with. A useful collection of stories here.

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Over the past year or so, I have watched a number of his videos on YouTube where he’s just cooking at home with his kids. The videos were helpful for trying new recipes during shutdown and, thankfully, didn’t include his on-camera persona. Quite good, actually.

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I went to his restaurant in Singapore for the first and only time I've been to a Ramsey restaurant. I had low expectations as I generally feel celeb chefs restaurants are closer to chain restaurants. But I was pleasantly surprised with it. He had this apple cider onion soup which I crave to this day. Sounds weird but damn was it tasty.

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Great. And I have to go to a food pantry to eat while working a full time job.

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