Gordon Ramsay serving pre-prepared food, report reveals

Gordon Ramsay, who this week said his "food hell" was ready meals, is serving up pre-prepared food at his Foxtrot Oscar bistro and three London gastropubs, it was revealed today.

In a front-page splash, The Sun newspaper reveals that dishes, such as braised pig cheeks, coq au vin and orange and bitter chocolate tart, are prepared at a central production site in Clapham.

They are heated and sold to diners at Foxtrot Oscar, the Narrow in Limehouse, the Warrington in Maida Vale, and the Devonshire in Chiswick. with mark-ups of up to 586%, according to The Sun.

They include £1.92 fishcake portions costing £11.25 at one pub, and 75p sausage rolls that go for £3.50.

The production site is run by GR Logistics, part of Gordon Ramsay Holdings (GRH). An undercover Sun reporter posing as a potential client spoke to the site's head chef Darran Ridley.

"We provide the majority of the food for Foxtrot Oscar - everything from coq au vin, starters, terrines, snacks, salmon rillettes, various desserts, braised beef in red wine, beef pie mixes. Anything that takes a long time to cook, any braised items or items in sauces - we do all of that," Ridley said.

"We do coq au vin at £2.60 a portion, leg or thigh, in a bag with a sauce. All you have to do is pop it into a pan of boiling water and reheat it.

"The concept of having the production kitchen was that the kitchens in the pubs and Foxtrot Oscar were small and only have a small number of staff."

In response, a GRH spokeswoman said: "The central kitchen is a state-of the-art-facility. It is a Gordon Ramsay kitchen run by Gordon Ramsay chefs cooking Gordon Ramsay food - it just happens to be off site."

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By Daniel Thomas

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