Gordon Ramsay gets rock star welcome in Manila
I hope you feel the love Filipinos have for you,” host Issa Litton said to Gordon Ramsay as they looked out at the crowd that had gathered at the Newport Performing Arts Theater. The theater was packed and there was screaming, so much screaming, the kind of screaming you usually only hear at sold-out concerts.
Oh yes, Ramsay got a rock star welcome in Manila. Since news came out that his restaurant Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill was opening at Newport World Resorts, everyone had the same question: Is the internationally renowned, multi-Michelin starred chef coming here?
Almost five months after it opened at Newport’s Grand Wing, he finally did. “I’m so excited to be here,” he told Lifestyle.
This trip was two years in the making. “We started this project just over two years ago with the amazing Kevin Tan. The amount of work and effort that has gone into this has been extraordinary.”
The chef, known for his many restaurants around the world, his cookbooks, and his television shows, including “Kitchen Nightmares,” “Hell’s Kitchen,” and “MasterChef US,” landed very early on Sunday. He went for a swim (he does triathlons twice a year so he sneaks in a run, a swim, or some cycling even when he’s traveling) and then had breakfast with the chefs and cooks running his restaurant—”the kids in the kitchen,” as he called them.
“I got up to speed, understood where they’re from, and what it meant to them to be working in the restaurant, but more importantly, just to say thank you. They’ve done such an amazing job. It’s very hard to open a restaurant that is fully booked from day one, so what they’ve achieved and how hard they’ve worked—with some of them traveling four hours round trip per day to go to work—it means so much to me. It reminds me of myself at 22. We are blessed with such talent.”
He added, “Yesterday, when the first early shift had finished their work, they didn’t want to go home. I love that.”
On his first day in the country, he surprised diners who were enjoying their meals at Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill, saying hello, sitting and talking with them, and, of course, posing for pictures.
Ramsay was pleased to see that there were so many families eating at the restaurant. “We had one family who had flown in from an island in the Philippines. They came in and they had their 1-month-old baby with them. There were kids yesterday doing their artwork … It was breathtaking.”
That’s what he wants, he told Lifestyle—to create something families can enjoy, a place that’s welcoming. Not surprising, since
Ramsay is a family man—he’s a dad of six. “I go back to the vision of this family restaurant…Then, Thursday night, there was a DJ here playing and there were customers dancing… That’s incredible for me. I don’t want stiffness, I don’t want too precious of an environment.”
The restaurant staff is “99-percent Filipino,” a fact that he’s proud of. “That, for me, is beautiful. I look at the talent, and the youngest is 17 years of age, and she is on that journey. I said, ‘In four years’ time, you’re only gonna be 21. Grab this experience and run with it.’”
Culinary students
Ramsay has a soft spot for young cooks. And there were plenty of them at the Newport Performing Arts Theater—students from the country’s different culinary schools including Center for Culinary Arts (CCA) Manila, Le Cordon Bleu Ateneo de Manila, University of Santo Tomas, De La Salle-College of Saint Benilde, Enderun Colleges, and the University of the Philippines. It was Ramsay himself who said that he wanted them in the audience. He pointed them out to the rest of the crowd, “Right over there, honestly, that is the future of the Filipino culinary industry.”
During the Q&A session, one of the students, a 20-year-old from Le Cordon Bleu Ateneo de Manila, told Ramsay, “I just wanted to say it’s an absolute honor to be here… one of the greatest moments of my life.”
He asked the chef, “What is the most valuable lesson that you learned in school or very early in your career that you still use today?”
Ramsay replied, “Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Between the ages of 18 and 26, you have to be the most energetic sponge… Understanding different cultures is crucial, and travel is of the essence… It’s not about responsibility when you’re 20, it’s about education.”
He praised Filipino cuisine and told the young chefs, “Heritage is incredible. It’s our responsibility to continue that evolution. We take the basic recipes from multiple generations and we evolve it. We don’t disparage it. We evolve and respect the ingredients. Whether that’s an amazing adobo or a beautiful sisig, we will respect the DNA. It’s every chef’s responsibility to push the boundaries.”
Ramsay, now 58, is also known for his social media presence. “I teach all the kids to embrace it. It’s a great way of establishing confidence, a great way of sort of looking at yourself and judging yourself on a global platform… You can learn from that. It’s a big advantage. You can learn so much, and you can do so much on there.”
He gave award-winning content creator Abi Marquez, the country’s beloved lumpia queen, as an example, calling her onstage. “Abi did something special this morning. She took a Beef Wellington and put it inside this incredible spring roll… It’s absolutely stunning.”
Marquez said to Ramsay, “You spoiled them.”
Ramsay laughed, “Oh sh*t, I spoiled it. Was it a surprise? You haven’t posted it yet?”
Welliigton ‘lumpia’
It was Ramsay who had challenged Marquez to do the Wellington lumpia. She had posted a video of her crab cake lumpia that was clearly inspired by Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill’s crab cake—plated with asparagus, drizzled with hollandaise sauce, and topped with caviar—and Ramsay had commented, “But can you do it with a Beef Wellington?”
Yes, she can. Ramsay said, “There’s the future, the young, sort of no fear, I’m gonna do this.. .And it was exquisite. Honestly, it was absolutely exquisite. Get dangerous, get creative. In food, you move with it or it moves you. We need to move it.”
He called Marquez’s Beef Wellington lumpia “the most glamorous spring roll I’ve ever eaten.”
Marquez told Lifestyle, “That was surreal, amazing… Today was really a big day for me. I would say the biggest day of my career. I didn’t expect this to happen. I’ve been in the industry for three years. Meeting him was everything I’ve dreamt about…and it was everything I expected and so much more. He’s so nice, he’s so gracious, and I’ll forever be grateful to him and his team for accommodating us and for seeing the value in collaborating with a Filipino content creator. ”
She said, “For the longest time, this was my biggest dream. And now, my challenge is—what’s the next dream?”
Meeting Ramsay is a big dream for a lot of Filipinos. Many of them crowded around outside the theater, buzzing with excitement, waiting for the chef to exit so they could catch a glimpse of him or, if they were lucky, shake his hand, get his autograph, or have a selfie with him. When he appeared, flanked by security, the screaming started again. He made a beeline for a little boy who had been quietly waiting, posing for a photo with him.
People kept calling out to him: “Chef!” “Hi chef!” Ramsay signed toques, aprons, and chef’s coats as people mobbed him.
Earlier that day, away from the crowds and the screaming, we sat down with the legendary chef in his restaurant for an interview.
With no prompting from us, Ramsay was eager to talk about Filipino food. “There’s something even more exciting happening outside this restaurant,” he said. “The unveiling and the unmasking of the true identity Filipino cuisine deserves. I travel a lot. I was recently in Melbourne. One of the top restaurants in the whole of Australia, Serai, is a Filipino restaurant.”
Ramsay had eaten at Serai a couple of months ago and has been enamored with it and its chef Ross Magnaye, whom he calls “a fascinating young kid.” “We had the sisig taco. He took all those crispy pig’s ears, snout, and put it inside a taco. How exciting is that? And then we had a bone marrow luge. He torched the luge with this live flame… Melting bone running down the back of your throat. Absolutely bang on. It was delicious.”
Incredible and unique
But it’s not just Australia, he said. “In New York, one of the top restaurants is a Filipino restaurant. London is awash in Filipino restaurants. There’s something unique happening with this country and cuisine, and it’s no longer the sleeping beauty of Asia. It can stand alone against Thai. It can stand alone against Southeast Asia cuisine. It’s on the cusp of the recognition it deserves. It’s the culture, the complexity, the regional divisions of the Philippines. It’s incredible. It’s quite unique. Yeah, I’ve been a big fan for a long time.”
He raved about our markets and the freshness of the ingredients available here. “To have fresh produce twice a day, buying for lunch and buying for dinner, it’s incredible.”
He is proud to say that in Manila, his restaurant uses lapu-lapu for the Gordon Ramsay Fish & Chips. “We’ve got a little touch of Britannia, but the heart of it is a Filipino fish. I’m so happy that the Fish & Chips is one of the best I’ve ever tasted because of a local fish. There will be more evolutions of that connection to local produce as we develop the menu.”
The next morning, he had plans to head to a market and spend three hours there just exploring. “The discovery is crucial.”
Giving back is important to Ramsay, who runs The Gordon and Tana Ramsay Foundation with his wife. Also at the theater, he, along with Travellers International Hotel Group, Inc. executive chairman Kevin L. Tan and president and CEO Nilo Thaddeus Rodriguez held up a giant check for P10 million. Litton said, “Newport World Resorts and Gordon Ramsay Philippines are pledging P10 million to support various charitable organizations and initiatives focused on food security and programs for the communities and the nation.”
The crowd cheered. And the crowd cheered extra loud when Ramsay let them in on a secret. “Tomorrow morning we’re going to be looking at three new restaurant sites here… Some really fun exciting stuff to come, maybe a Hell’s Kitchen restaurant.”
Ramsay got a lot of love during his first trip to the country. But, he said, “I am probably more in love with Manila than they are in love with me.”
Here are more excerpts from our conversation with Gordon Ramsay:
Thank you for changing the way we cook scrambled eggs.
I love scrambled eggs. Scrambled eggs are so delicious, and something you can have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, especially with beautiful sauteed mushrooms on sourdough bread. Yeah, I’m a big fan of scrambled eggs.
Will you be opening more restaurants in the Philippines?
We have to get this one right first. We’re still a new kid on the block. Eight thousand reservations from day one, and we were fully booked before we went live. So yeah, that needs to be looked after. But I’ll be honest with you, secretly, we’re going to look at three more sites tomorrow, so they’ll be downtown. I love to develop the talent here and help them grow exponentially. So yes, definitely breaking news on that front, I will definitely be expanding.
You hit the ground running—your 2025 is off to a busy start. But how were the holidays for you?
The holidays were incredible because it’s the one time of the year that we’re all together. Our eldest daughter is a police officer. One of our sons is a Royal Marine commander so he was on active duty. So Christmas Day was more special. Megan, our police officer daughter, was working, and so I got up at 4, I dropped her off to work. I took some food into the police station. I picked her up at 3 p.m. and then we had dinner. Those moments are very, very special and I’m looking forward to spending many more times like that. Fingers crossed, we will do the same again this year.
What was the best thing you ate during the holidays?
We did a Wellington for Christmas Day dinner and then Boxing Day, we did a turkey. We had the most amazing Wellington with roasted potatoes, roasted veg, and a beautiful port wine sauce.
What excites you about 2025?
I look at the energy in the kitchen here with these young Filipino chefs, and I don’t think they know quite how good they’re becoming because of the noise that Filipino cuisine is making around the globe. What excites me here is getting to meet culinary students, getting to train them, and getting them inspired to become great. That’s what excites me in 2025.
How has your relationship with cooking changed over the years? Do you ever get tired of it? How have you sustained your passion for food?
I think finding that balance in life is crucial. We see so many devastating stories of chefs that burn out, and nine times out of 10 a chef that burns out is the chef that can’t let go. There’s different mentoring stages. I still cook. Am I behind the line running the fish or meat? No, I’m not, but I’ll conduct an orchestra in the kitchen. The secret ingredient behind any successful chef is the balance. Staying fit, staying close, but finding the balance. And that’s something that I’ve worked incredibly hard on.
Your Instagram bio reads: “Just busy creating memories one dish at a time.” What is a dish that floods you with memories?
I grew up on an estate and the landlord was an incredible Indian man, and he taught my mother how to make the most amazing murgh makhani or butter chicken. Having that as a staple in our restaurant now, with that fragrant tomato gravy, is incredible. We also do a vegetarian version with cauliflower. That’s a dish that takes me back to seven, eight years of age. The first thing that comes through the house before we had to do our homework was the smell of mum’s butter chicken.
What’s one kitchen tool you can’t live without?
A microplane. Lemon, lime, mandarin, pomelo, pink grapefruit, oranges— microplane all the zest, mix it with salt, it’s wonderful. Also, when you want to microplane a garlic clove, it purées. It’s beautifully done. And so a microplane is one tool I can’t live without.
Is there any food you’d never eat?
I think a chef’s responsibility is to taste everything, and I’ve done it—from fermented shark to cow’s testicles. You may not have to love it, but you do have to taste it.
We know mentoring is very important to you. What would you like to tell aspiring Filipino chefs who are dreaming of devoting their life to making good food?
Educate your palate, push the boundaries. Close your eyes and do several taste tests. Put five things on the plate, get a colleague, test your palate, and identify in darkness what that tastes of. When you’ve done five ingredients, go to 10. When you’ve mastered 10, go to 15. Educate your palate, because that’s your canvas going forward. The biggest bible you’ll ever have is your palate. No one can ever take that away from you, and that’s what’s going to dictate your future, your palate.
