Gordon Ramsay Trivia Quiz

Answer: 1966

Ramsay was born on the 8th of November, 1966 in Johnstone, Scotland. At the age of five, his family moved to Stratford-upon-Avon. He has spoken of days of abuse and neglect from his alcoholic father. He moved out of home aged sixteen and focused hard on his work - initially as a pot washer - in part to escape his family drama both physically and mentally.

As the hint intimates, the other listed celebrities were also born in 1966.

Answer: Football (soccer)

Although it has been claimed that Ramsay spent two or three games playing for the Glasgow Rangers, it most likely didn't actually happen according to the Rangers themselves. There is evidence that he was a trialist for the Rangers for a few months, however, before his injury. Regardless, he went on to focus more on his culinary career, gaining a hotel qualification at North Oxfordshire Technical College. The rest, as they say, is history...

Fitness has remained an important part of Ramsay's life; he has competed in grueling ironman (triathlon) competitions and has recalled occasions where physically unfit chefs eventually succumbed to the stress of the job.

Answer: French

In Marco Pierre White's autobiography, he boasted that he had reduced Ramsay to a 'blubbering wreck'. In 2017, he bragged to a contestant chopping onions in "MasterChef Australia" that he'd made Ramsay cry. Although Ramsay admitted that White did a lot for him in his career - for example his reference to Le Gavroche in Mayfair - he responded to the "MasterChef Australia" comment that he was 'so bitter' and 'should get over it'.

In any case, French cuisine became Ramsay's focus. With White's help, he gained a 25% stake as head chef for Aubergine restaurant in 1993, which was awarded two Michelin stars between 1997-9.

Answer: London

In 2007 Ramsay admitted that he had staged a theft of Aubergine's reservation book, an act which he pinned on Marco Pierre White, as he feared that the restaurant's management wanted to replace him with White. What was the nail in the coffin for his tenure at Aubergine was the management's firing of sous-chef Marcus Wareing - a chef who also became very successful in his own right - which led to a staff walkout and Ramsay's departure. Aubergine closed in 2010 and Ramsay bought the restaurant's site in 2014.

After Aubergine, he opened Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London in 1998, which received three Michelin stars in 2001. He was the first Scottish chef to have achieved that accolade, and it has been renowned for its classic style of French cooking with rich flavours. Glasgow may have seemed a tempting guess given his roots, but whilst he did run the Amaryllis in Glasgow, he has opened over a dozen other London restaurants and has held surprisingly little Scottish restaurant stock in comparison to London and the US.

Answer: True

Odd, but true; though Ramsay has a strong association with "Hell's Kitchen", he only did one series of that show. Although the formats were fundamentally similar, with two teams, eliminations, and high-pressure cooking, the UK version used celebrities and was somewhat more sedate in that British way. That said, Ramsay still had plenty of expletives and choice insults, particularly toward politician Edwina Currie...

Funnily enough, in the UK version of "Hell's Kitchen", Marco Pierre White was the head chef for the third and fourth series, which also turned out to be the last ones.

Answer: Hid parma ham in his pizza

Ramsay's attitude towards veganism and vegetarianism has shifted fairly dramatically over time. In the "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares" episode which first aired in 2005, he told a vegetarian that he had a sample of a vegetarian pizza that he might like. After the vegetarian ate some and enjoyed it, Ramsay revealed it had parma ham in it and offered him some more, which upset him. He then gloated that he had 'converted a vegetarian'.

Fast-forward to 2019 and Ramsay has featured a vegan roast in a number of his restaurants, as well as a plant based 'Impossible Burger' in his Singapore restaurant.

Answer: The Big Fish Fight

"The Big Fish Fight" featured Heston Blumenthal, Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, and Arthur Potts Dawson. It investigated over-fishing practices and the world's crisis of diminishing fish stocks. Each chef had an episode chronicling their own investigative issue. Ramsay's concerned the shark fin trade used in shark fin soup, termed by him as an 'unregulated billion-dollar industry' and it proved dangerous for him: whilst filming the show he had a barrel of petrol poured on him and his film crew were held at gunpoint by Costa Rican gangsters.

The police eventually bailed them out, warning that they shouldn't set one foot in the country.

Answer: Matilda

Although Gordon Ramsay has several children, Matilda is the only one of these listed. She hosted, voiced, and wrote "Matilda and the Ramsay Bunch" which first aired in 2015 on CBBC, the children's BBC program. In the 15-20 minute episodes, the Ramsay's family antics were documented whilst Matilda cooked them a meal of some sort.

Tana Ramsay married Gordon in 1996, Helen Cosgrove was his mother, and Diane Ramsay was one of his sisters.

Answer: Jamie Oliver

Jamie Oliver and Gordon Ramsay have had a fairly friendly rivalry over the years; both have had a lot of stock in restaurants, and, as celebrity chefs, they've both been in competition over their net worth. In 2017, Oliver likened Ramsay to a 'dementia sufferer' and made a reference to having five children to his four. As Ramsay's wife Tana had recently had a miscarriage, she was deeply offended by this.

However, the pair did make up with one another: in 2019 Oliver lost the vast majority of his restaurant chain went into administration, resulting in a cut of over 1,000 jobs. Ramsay contacted him 'straight away' to commiserate.

The 'naked' hint refers to Oliver's nickname, the Naked Chef, which in turn came from a television show of the same name with a simple and unpretentious style.

Answer: Amy's Baking Company

The basic premise of "Kitchen Nightmares" was that Gordon Ramsay would come in and fix an ailing restaurant. The US version was extremely formulaic: Ramsay would yell about the bad hygiene and he would provide excoriating reviews about the food. There would then be a lot of yelling with the owners before a (frequently tearful) reconciliation, renovation, and 'happy ending'.

Amy and Samy Bouzaglo owned Amy's Baking Company in Scottsdale, Arizona. They were a particularly bombastic pair; after a lot of screaming and shouting at one another, Ramsay concluded that the Bouzaglos didn't want to be helped and so couldn't be helped. For the first time, he walked away. After their episode had aired, both Bouzaglos got into many arguments over social media with critics, and Amy had previously stated that any critical blog articles about the restaurant were lies.

The other options were world-class restaurants.