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.