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Ramsay to open British restaurant in Paris
October 2, 2007
Oliver Styles, and agencies
In a move that threatens to open old culinary wounds, UK chef Gordon Ramsay is to launch a British food restaurant in Paris.
The Michelin-starred chef is set to open his new restaurant in Spring next year in the Trianon Palace hotel, in the Versailles suburb of the French capital.
'I've had a belly-full of the French coming over here and telling us how s**t our food is,' Ramsay said. 'We have cheese on toast and they have croque-monsieur. They just have posher names.'
According to Ramsay, the menu will include west Scottish scollops, Aberdeen Angus beef, Balmoral venison and Cornish sea bass.
UK broadsheet The Times said the move would 'turn the dining tables on French culinary snobs', while tabloid paper the Daily Star went one further with the headline, 'Fed-up Ramsay to roast Frogs'.
Ramsay's Gallic counterparts, however, turned their noses up at his plans. French chef Christian Constant at the Violon d'Ingres restaurant near the Eiffel Tour said 'fine eating just isn't in the British culture.'
'When I go to Britain I eat mostly sandwiches,' he said. 'It's not that we're snobs, we're connoisseurs – we know what we're talking about.'
Ramsay is also set to open restaurants in Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Prague and Singapore.
Have your say...
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 Since when has the Times been a broadsheet?
Keith Sanderson
All these attempts by the British press to convince (those who have never been to the UK?) that the island's cuisine is on a par or, indeed, superior to French food are laughable.
Just because there are now a few expensive restaurants serving all too often pretentious food, does not mean that Britain has not remained in essence a nation of processed-food-lovers who will be eternally in awe when faced with a ripe tomato.
Constantine Stergides, Athens, Greece
Gordon Ramsay, who seems to have all the finesse of a demented rottweiller, has done the UK professional cooking scene a monstrous disservice where the eating public now think that all chefs rule their kitchens with foul mouthed invective and treat their staff like morons. Ramsay in Paris? Laughable.
Chris Baker
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