Customer Reviews

Gordon Ramsay's Playing With Fire

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Are you a Gordon Ramsay fan? Do you want to know more about how he started his career? If you answered yes to these questions then this book is a MUST HAVE! This book tells how Gordon Ramsay started out his career, met his wife and how his father in law helped him with this career. I am a HUGE Gordon Ramsay fan, and I love reading this book, it tells you a lot about him and his attitude that he has. I have not completely finished the book yet, but still highly recommend it if you are a "true" Gordon Ramsay fan. It is a must have if you are a fan!!! (This is not a cookbook!!)

I am a fan of Gordon Ramsay and his style. I highly enjoyed reading this book as it allowed an insight into how he became what he is today. If not a fan or just looking for an entertaining read you would be better looking else where. If you are a fan as I am however you will definitely enjoy the book.

I quite enjoyed this book, and not just because I like food, or am a fan of Ramsay (I confess to both). As a small shop owner, I found much information in this book useful even though I am not a restauranteur, and have referred to it often over the past year and some months I've had it. I recommend it to anyone who is either thinking of starting a business, or who feels their business is in a bit of a rut. I can't say you will find direct examples, but if you keep your mind open you'll see the larger points he is making re: business. It has helped me do a great deal of brainstorming about the fundamentals of my business, including challenging my own biases and preconceptions about my shop.

The only reason my review is not 5 stars is that it does repeat itself a bit at the end. This is also the fault of a great many business books, most of which do this to a much greater degree.

Good book about some of the inner workings of Chef Ramsay and building his empire of restaurants.

Couldn't help feeling that ole Gordie has some help with this one - there was so much of his writing that appeared too grammatically organised and air-brushed.

It was interesting in parts - particular the sections that dealt with the creation of the individual restaurants - with golden nuggets of wisdom dispensed on how to set up a business and run it profitably. It did get bit samey as the method was repeated across various restaurants. However, there was a lot that was very interesting and insightful and I felt I learned something about the restaurant trade. If I ever set up one of those babies - Gordon's book will be there close to my heart as my guide and aide-memoire.

But there was a lot of annoying stuff too - for instance a whole chapter spent praising and glorifying ladies who had worked with Gordon. The praise and almost deification of some of these gals became sickly. They were all described in the most glowing terms - all supremely intelligent (yet sensitive and womanly) and gorgeous to boot. It really was horrible and if I was one of those women I would scratch my head and say "this is way too much.....and I am embarrassed by this stuff...what's Gordon after?"

Also - every mistake Gordon makes is relayed as some sort of triumph - even the stuff about the tax man was used as a tool to add martyrdom to Gordon's fine character traits.

There was even a whole section telling us about some bloody house that Gord' had purchased - my gawd - that was boring - tedious and empty. He summed himself up very well when he makes the comment that the house sent out a message to the world of where he and his family were at......in other words - "this is a big important house and we are big and important too.....world take note".

Does he really feel that insecure that he needs some sort of symbol of wealth to help him along life's way? I felt genuinly quite sad for him when I read that.

Finally we have the finale - the summing up chapter which synthesises all that is Gordon Ramsey - his pearls of wisdom - his conclusions on life, death and the universe, which was marginally interesting but was in essence a re-write and precise of all that had gone before in the book.

I like Gordon Ramsey but I did not get a sense that he was writing this book - yes there were a few "f" words thrown in at intervals - but I fear that these were token gestures - or some sort of device to fool the reader into the thinking Gordon was writing this stuff.

I was not fooled.

Thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, it gave me the exact info I was looking to find out and did it in an entertaining manner.

If you are a fan of Gordan Ramsay, you should enjoy this book. However, I found this book to be more of a first person narrative on how Gordon built his collection of restaurants over the span of his early career. I found it interesting but became a tad bored in later chapters when his practices appeared to repeat themselves on restaurants in England that I know nothing about.

If you're a fan, you will probably enjoy. If you're looking for a great read and not much of a fan of Gordon Ramsays, then I don't recommend, hence the 3 stars.

Bought this book at Gatwick Airport to read on the way back from London.Found it interesting as it tells of his first ventures into the restaurant business and of his relationship with his father-in law. So in that way it differs from his other books.Passengers on the plane saw me reading the book and said thier son was a chef for Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's in London...