Gordon Ramsay

I want my kids to see me as Dad, for God's sake, not a television personality.

I've never been a hands-on dad. I'm not ashamed to admit it, but you can't run a restaurant and be home for tea at 4:30 and bath and change nappies.

I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate.

If I can give you one strong piece of advice, when you go away for that romantic weekend, whatever you do, do not accept or take the upgrade to the honeymoon suite.

I grew up in a funny way.

Find what's hot, find what's just opened and then look for the worst review of the week. There is so much to learn from watching a restaurant getting absolutely panned and having a bad experience. Go and see it for yourself.

When you're a chef, you graze. You never get a chance to sit down and eat. They don't actually sit down and eat before you cook. So when I finish work, the first thing I'll do, and especially when I'm in New York, I'll go for a run. And I'll run 10 or 15k on my - and I run to gain my appetite.

I swim like a fish and I have an amazing kick.

The pressure on young chefs today is far greater than ever before in terms of social skills, marketing skills, cooking skills, personality and, more importantly, delivering on the plate. So you need to be strong. Physically fit. So my chefs get weighed every time they come into the kitchen.

I hid myself in food.

I think every chef, not just in America, but across the world, has a double-edged sword - two jackets, one that's driven, a self-confessed perfectionist, thoroughbred, hate incompetence and switch off the stove, take off the jacket and become a family man.

There's a bond among a kitchen staff, I think. You spend more time with your chef in the kitchen than you do with your own family.

My father was a swim teacher. We used to swim before school, swim after school.

I'd like to think I'm a great teacher.

If you want to become a great chef, you have to work with great chefs. And that's exactly what I did.

I've had a lot of success; I've had failures, so I learn from the failure.

The minute you start compromising for the sake of massaging somebody's ego, that's it, game over.