Entertainment
Top 15 Most Searing Gordon Ramsay Insults
In the culinary world, Gordon Ramsay is a god. His restaurants have been awarded with a grand total of 16 Michelin stars, and he’s also one of the biggest and highest paid stars on television. According to Forbes, he made $60 million in 2015 alone. They rank him as the 21st highest earning celebrity in the world. But what exactly is it that makes Gordon Ramsay so popular?
It’s his angry, expletive-ridden insults against budding chefs. This sounds awful, but that’s what sells. People love it! TV Guide included Ramsay on their list of The 60 Nastiest Villains of All Time, but they mean it in a good way. He’s a likeable villain. His rants are highly entertaining. He’s very creative with his insults. So, here are Ramsay’s 15 most searing insults.
15. “Would you like it whole or diced?”
This is a nice little add-on to an angry insult at a Hell’s Kitchen contestant. The contestant is asking Ramsay, distracting him from the table he’s serving, “Why is there no pumpkin in my risotto?” Ramsay, still calm and collected, says, “Right, can you get out of the way? One spaghetti, one risotto.”
The persistent contestant says, “I want the next pumpkin risotto.” Ramsay, getting angrier now, says, “Oh? Are you always going to be that rude and interrupt when I’m trying to talk?” The contestant won’t stop – he says, “I just want more pumpkin, that’s all I want.”
By now, Ramsay is at his breaking point. He tells the contestant, “I’ll give you more pumpkin and I’ll ram it right up your f**king arse! Would you like it whole or diced?” Classic!
14. “Chimi-chuck it in the bin.”
Puns are considered by many to be the lowest form of humor. John Oliver said, “I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.” Ouch. But not everybody thinks that. Oscar Levant said, “A pun is the lowest form of humor – when you didn’t think of it first.”
There is one pun in particular that chef Ramsay thought of, and it involves the word “chimichanga.” He’s served a crappy-looking chimichanga by a fellow chef whose talent he doesn’t exactly respect. He says, “Honestly, chimichanga…” Then he proceeds to make a pun that is quite lame, but also a searing insult against the chef who made it: “Chimi-chuck it in the bin.”
13. “You look like you’re just about to lose your virginity.”
Sometimes Gordon Ramsay wants his contestants to chill the hell out. They are just cooking food after all. They need to be relaxed. However, he’s not helping that by putting an inordinate amount of pressure on them.
They’re there to do the show so that they can achieve their dreams, and he’s walking around like a hawk, watching their every move, and yelling at contestants and throwing them out whenever they make an error or fail to complete a task.
And then, to top it off, even though he’s the one creating this environment of fear among the contestants on the show, if they don’t look chilled out enough for his liking, he’ll insult them all the more: “You look like you’re just about to lose your virginity.”
12. “It’s f**king redder than your beard!”
Just like everyone else in the world, Gordon Ramsay hates gingers. According to a particularly creepy episode of South Park (aptly titled “Ginger Kids”), ginger-haired people have no souls. One time, a ginger chef with a beard and a headband presented Ramsay with some chicken.
This chef had already developed a reputation for cooking raw meat, and this time was no different. Ramsay cut open the chicken and said, “Raw chicken again!” Then, in his resulting insult, he decided to bring the chef’s ginger hair into it: “It’s f**king redder than your beard!”
The ginger chef is left terribly offended and speechless (as you would if Gordon Ramsay had said that to you). If you’re looking to learn the keys to a good insult, then target the aspect of your victim that they’re bound to be the most self-conscious about.
11. “You guys cook like old people f**k.”
Gordon Ramsay obviously isn’t afraid to say things that will make you uncomfortable, and this particular insult may be the most awkward thing anyone has ever said: “You guys cook like old people f**k.” He means they cook in a slow manner, and not very well. This insult is notable for being one of the few Gordon Ramsay insults that are directed at a large group of people.
He’s using this insult to offend every chef in an entire kitchen. He usually goes for a more one-on-one approach to catch people off-guard. This means that they can’t really fight back. But going against a whole room full of people could potentially lead to a mass revolt by the chefs. But they would never do that to Gordon Ramsay, a culinary god among men.
10. “My gran could do better – and she’s dead!”
Even in the heat of the moment when he wants to insult a fellow chef whose skills he less than admires, Gordon Ramsay can spontaneously follow the classic joke structure. He sets it up and then knocks them dead (no pun intended) with a punchline. The setup isn’t that much of an insult. “My gran could do better.”
All you know is that the chef in question isn’t as good at cooking as Gordon’s Ramsay’s grandmother – but for all we know, she was his inspiration. Maybe she’s fantastic! What do we know? We don’t know Chef Ramsay’s grandma. But that’s not all. He is going somewhere with it.
He swoops in with the punchline – “she’s dead!” He’s saying even a dead woman could produce a better quality dish.
9. “You f**king donkey.”
The only downside to a lot of Gordon Ramsay’s insults are that they are culinary-themed, so they only apply to the situations he’s in at that exact moment. Otherwise, it would be great to reuse them in real life situations, because they’re very creative and, more importantly, very effective insults.
But there is one that can be used in any everyday situation. Call anyone in the world a “f**king donkey” and they’re guaranteed to be offended. The way that Ramsay says this one is really funny, too, because he says it with a high-pitched wail and the word “donkey” sort of trails off.
It’s the way you would say it if you were only just thinking of it in that moment – Ramsay’s good at thinking of insults on his feet.
8. “You’re a f**king disgrace.”
This Gordon Ramsay insult isn’t fun and inventive like a lot of them – this one is simply, filled with rage, and if he said it to you, you’d just feel cold inside. It’s insults like this that cause all the controversy about Chef Ramsay’s frequent use of bad language.
Such criticisms have come from fellow celebrity chef Delia Smith, who is old and conservative and doesn’t take kindly to anything cool, as well as one member of the Federal Parliament of Australia who took offense to an episode of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.
In his autobiography, Ramsay said that he wasn’t even aware of the ridiculous amount of swearing that he does until he saw himself in an episode of Boiling Point. Ramsay was quite alarmed by it, but he himself wasn’t that bothered by it, but he did add, “Mum was appalled.”
7. “F**k off, you fat, useless sack of f**king Yankee Doodle Dandy sh*te.”
Gordon Ramsay is a British celebrity chef, but he is arguably better known in America than in Britain. You can’t blame him for making the jump across the pond, because it’s a much bigger market simply by virtue of having roughly five times the amount of potential fans. He’s presented more shows in America than in Britain.
In the US, he’s done Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, MasterChef, MasterChef Junior, and Hotel Hell, whereas in the UK, he’s only done the original versions of Hell’s Kitchen and Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and The F Word.
But being a Brit, sometimes the Yanks get on his nerves and he’ll incorporate that cultural difference into his insults against them, like in this fine example: “Now, f**k off, you fat, useless sack of f**king Yankee Doodle Dandy sh*te. F**k off, will ya!”
6. “This is a really tough decision. Because you’re both crap.”
It is rare that Gordon Ramsay will genuinely grant somebody a compliment. He’s famous for his insults, that’s what’s making him his millions, so why would he bother with being nice? But it’s not just that – in the kitchen, it’s rare that he actually does want to be nice. He has a very high benchmark for the food that he eats, and if he doesn’t like it, he won’t hesitate to let you know.
However, he does like to get the contestants’ hopes up on his TV shows, so that when he tears them down with an insult, it’s even more devastating. Once, he set up a pair of contestants by saying, “This is a really tough decision,” making out like they were both so great that he couldn’t choose, and then tore them down with, “Because you’re both crap.”
5. “Like a bison’s penis. What is that sh*t?”
When Gordon Ramsay was presented with a messy, sloppy, incorrectly cooked salmon on Hell’s Kitchen, he compared it to a different animal, and not just a different animal – its penis. He spots it from afar and says, “What is that piece of sh*t over there?” The chef brings it to him and says, “It’s supposed to be a salmon.”
When you find yourself saying that your dish is “supposed to be” something, then you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere. Ramsay gets a closer look and says, “Holy sh*t, look at that. It looks like a bison’s penis. What is that sh*t?”
He later goes into greater detail regarding what’s wrong with the salmon, calling it “stone cold” and deploring the chef who put the salmon in the freezer.
4. “Congratulations on the worst dish in this competition so far.”
If Gordon Ramsay ever pays you a compliment (or seems like he’s paying you a compliment), don’t respond too quickly or you’ll fall into his trap. Every time the famous chef seems like he’s saying something nice, he’s only saying it to lead into something horribly insulting.
In one such case, he set up one of the contestants in a TV competition that he was judging by saying, “Congratulations…” and, of course, without waiting for the rest of it, the contestant got all excited and felt a sense of relief come over them. But they should’ve waited, because Ramsay went on to say, “…on the worst dish in this competition so far.”
Ouch. As far as TV competition judges go, Gordon Ramsay makes Simon Cowell look like a saint.
3. “An idiot sandwich.”
This is a stone cold classic. Gordon Ramsay grabs two slices of bread, puts them either side of a Hell’s Kitchen contestant’s head, and yells, “What are you?!” She says, “An idiot sandwich.” He yells, “An idiot sandwich what?!?” and she says, “An idiot sandwich, Chef Ramsay.”
The most savage thing about this one – aside from the actual insult itself – is that he gets his target to insult herself. And then he gets her to repeat it in a more respectful tone by adding, “Chef Ramsay.” He doesn’t call her an idiot sandwich; he gets her to call herself an idiot sandwich. It’s also notable for its use of props (the two slices of bread are a visual aid).
Also, the poor Hell’s Kitchen contestant on the receiving end of this one is on the verge of tears, which makes it a bittersweet viewing experience.
2. “You surprise me as to how sh*t you are!”
This is the mother of all burns. As we’ve mentioned before, the best Gordon Ramsay insults come when he sets someone up with what seems like a compliment and makes them all happy, and then tears them down with a catastrophic insult.
In the fourth season of Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay tells contestant Ben, “Ben, what you’ve done and the ambitions, you do seriously surprise me.” Then he lets that hang in the air for Ben to respond and humiliate himself: “Thank you, Chef, I was hoping you’d see that. I mean, I give it all I’ve got. Gave you a hundred and ten.”
Then Ramsay tears him down: “You surprise me as to how sh*t you are!” With egg in his face, Ben says, “Oh…thank you.” Ramsay explains, “I was expecting more. Hey, maybe you shouldn’t have quit your f**king day job so early!” Rush Ben to the burn unit! Amazingly, you can see one of the other contestants smirking as Ramsay tears him down.
1. “I wouldn’t trust you running a bath, let alone a f**king restaurant.”
Hell’s Kitchen is one of the most popular reality TV shows on Fox – so popular that the network has renewed it through at least season 18. In the show, two teams of chefs are pitting against each other, all fighting for the top job of head chef at a restaurant, which is every contestant’s dream job.
During your time on the show, you really feel the pressure under the watchful and very openly critical eye of Chef Ramsay, so the last thing you want to hear him tell you is, “I wouldn’t trust you running a bath, let alone a f**king restaurant.” Your whole life has been spent in the kitchen, dreaming of one day running your own restaurant.
Then you get the chance to work with Gordon Ramsay on Hell’s Kitchen and you have the chance to finally achieve those dreams. And then he tells you that and crushes your whole existence. Savage.