Michelin-starred chef-entrepreneur, reality TV star, Ironman. Gordon Ramsay descends on Singapore with all cylinders firing and tells Options how the local dining scene is rubbing shoulders with London and New York.

The basement level of Bread Street Kitchen at Marina Bay Sands is dark and quiet. There is an air of anticipation as the small bevy of staff and media wait for Gordon Ramsay, the gourmet chef renowned for skewering cooks on TV with profanity. Then Ramsay steps in, bang on time, no entourage except for a publicist. And the heat in the room ratchets up faster than an induction hob on maximum power.

Kitted out in crisp chef’s whites, he is big and blond, and functions at rapid speed. The photographer barely has time to click twice before Ramsay walks towards him and looks at the digital camera’s display screen. “Bit dark isn’t it?” he says. “Right, you have another shot. But remember, if you don’t get it on three tries…” He pretends to slit his throat. The photographer hastily goes into continuous shooting mode. It is, hands down, the fastest photo shoot I have ever seen.

Energy, focus, pheromones — Ramsay dishes it out in supersized servings. He had been on the go since 4am when he woke to bike to Changi Airport and back with International Cycling Executives, a group of lycra-clad corporate types who bond over power pedalling. “It’s dark here even at 7am. Is it like that all year round?” he asks. This is, after all, only his third visit to Singapore and he is here for just a day.

Jetting in from London the previous evening, he promptly went for a swim to get over the jet lag. “It’s a good way of relaxing,” says 49-year-old Ramsay. “As my life has gotten crazier and I’ve gotten less time, I’ve found [exercise] an amazing escape,” he adds. Once a marathon runner, he is now a triathlete, regularly in endurance training for Ironman races, all scheduled around his TV appearances and travel. To date, he has chalked up 15 marathons, three ultra-marathons, three half-Ironmans (a triathlon ending in a half-marathon) and the gruelling Hawaii Ironman, which he completed in 2013.

Staying fit and doggedly seeking out the next challenge is one way Ramsay stays on top of his game. Estimated to be among the world’s richest chefs, he has evolved into a global gastronomic brand, straddling the kitchen, the restaurant business and the entertainment world. He first carved his place on the culinary map with Restaurant Gordon Ramsay in London, which he opened in 1998. Three years later, the fine dining establishment had bagged three stars from Michelin, the food guide’s highest accolade.

Ramsay now has 30 restaurants around the globe, from New York to Hong Kong to Dubai. His Gordon Ramsay Group also produces a line of home ware and a string of books. More people, however, recognise him from TV, where he can be seen flambéing amateur cooks on MasterChef or parachuting in to salvage struggling hotels on Hotel Hell. Those onscreen appearances made him the biggest reality TV star on the Fox television network in the US last year, says Forbes magazine.

All this is a very long way from the rough beginnings Ramsay had as a youngster. His hard-drinking, wife-beating Scottish father moved the cash-strapped family from place to place, eventually settling in a public housing estate in central England. His brother turned to heroin. In contrast, Ramsay’s escape was football, which he hoped to play professionally. When injury squashed those dreams, he opted for catering college, then cut his teeth working with several culinary greats, including Joel Robuchon, Guy Savoy and Marco Pierre White.

Ramsay may have gained his stripes through $300 tasting menus but he is feeding the growing appetite for his fare through a chain of casual dining restaurants and gastro bars. In 2014, he pushed into Asia, starting with Bread Street Kitchen in Hong Kong, which is modelled on the original industrial chic bistro in London. Last June, he replicated the concept at Marina Bay Sands, capitalising on a prime waterfront spot with views of the CBD and joggers and cyclists sweating it out.

He may be a bit of a latecomer to the celebrity chef lineup at Marina Bay Sands, which already hosts big names such as Japanese-Australian chef Tetsuya Wakuda and Austrian-American chef Wolfgang Puck. However, Ramsay brings with him an unparalleled following from TV and mastery for generating buzz, both positive and negative.

In 2013, he cemented his name in food-obsessed Singapore when he took up the SingTel Hawker Heroes challenge. After a threeday learning stint, Ramsay squared off against popular local hawkers from Tian Tian Hainan ese Chicken Rice, 328 Katong Laksa and Jumbo Seafood Restaurant. He was beaten in the cook-off but embraced by local foodies, who had queued some nine hours to sample his version of chilli crab, laksa and chicken rice.

Impatient diners
Ramsay’s Singapore outpost of Bread Street Kitchen serves up his reinvention of classic British and European fare. Signature dishes include Dingley Dell Pork Belly, for which the meat is flown in from a farm in the UK that raises specially bred pigs in a stressfree environment. There is also a carpaccio of roasted veal, instead of beef, accompanied by dill pickles, quail’s egg and tuna dressing. And a standout among the desserts is the Monkey Shoulder Cranachan Cheesecake, which is infused with the Monkey Shoulder triple malt whisky from Speyside in Scotland. There are also time-tested standards such as fish and chips and sticky toffee pudding. All at the sort of premium price tags that a name like Ramsay’s can demand.

Executive chef Sabrina Stillhart, who has been with the Gordon Ramsay Group for almost a decade and was part of the team that opened Bread Street Kitchen in London, runs the kitchen in Singapore. To gripes that he is rarely in the kitchens of his restaurants these days, Ramsay replies, “When you buy an Armani suit, you don’t expect Giorgio to have stitched it, do you?”

However, when he is in the kitchen, he fires on all cylinders. “He is full of energy and very, very precise,” Stillhart says. Is he any thing like he is on TV? “Sometimes,” she concedes, sending a look that suggests flaming tempers and foul language are all part of the territory in commercial kitchens. Leading the front of the house is general manager John Quetier, who worked at Ramsay’s Asian-inspired Maze restaurant in London as well as with L‘Atelier de Joel Robuchon. Staffing was the big issue when opening in Singapore, says Quetier. “We had to do a lot of training with the basics,” he says. He cites shepherd’s pie as an example. “In London, we wouldn’t have to explain what that is. But here we had to educate staff about the dish.”

For Ramsay, opening in Singapore has been “an amazing learning curve”. The restaurant has been busy every day but the biggest takeaway for him is just how impatient customers in Singapore are. “They wait for nothing. It’s just as demanding here as in London or New York,” he says. As a food destination, Singa pore was for many years off the radar and undetected to chefs and restaurateurs overseas. “But it’s now rubbing shoulders with New York, London and Paris. No one saw that coming 10 years ago,” he adds.

‘Golf bores me’
The Lion City’s visibility could rise even more if an inaugural Michelin guide for the city state is published this year as planned. “The Michelin Guide will be incredible for Singapore,” says Ramsay, who is already scouting around for a second site here. It is likely to be along the lines of his flagship restaurant, which has retained its three-star rating for 16 years now.

Ramsay has managed that without capitulating to food fads such as molecular gastronomy or sharing plates. “I’m not a big fan of sharing plates. You never know what you’re going to catch,” he quips. Yet, with foams and small plates in vogue now, highly lauded chefs who stick to a proven formula risk being seen as less cutting-edge or inventive as new chefs eager to make a mark.

“I disagree,” Ramsay shoots back. “Michelin is very smart about that. They take away stars as quick as they give them.” He knows that all too well. At his peak, he garnered as many as 12 stars. Now, he has seven. Aside from that, he points out that customers vote with their feet. “They won’t ring you up to say they’re not coming back. They just don’t come back. We need to stay inspired. You can’t stand still. Not in today’s world,” he says.

Moreover, as he expands along the bistro route and caters to a broader crowd, he has to grapple with the elevated expectations that come with a Michelin accolade. Diners come in expecting even bar grub to be show-stopping. Ramsay agrees that that is hard to shake but says there is a big divide between Bread Street Kitchen and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay. “It’s like going from a Fiat Panda into a Ferrari. They’re owned by the same company but it’s a completely different experience.”

Standing still does not figure in pressure-driven Ramsay’s world. Despite closing restaurants over the years, he now has more restaurants than he’s ever had. A Bread Street Kitchen is in the works for Las Vegas in 2017 and one in New York possibly after that. When will it be enough? Does he see himself continuing to open restaurants in his sixties, or will he be kicking back on the greens at St Andrews?

“Golf bores me. It’s not active enough for me,” he says, short of a snort. Still, as he sat on the plane to Singapore, he did think to himself, where does one draw the line? “It’s hard to say stop,” says Ramsay, who has four teenaged children. He brings up his former boss Robuchon, the influential French chef-restaurateur. After seeing many of his peers die of stress and heart attacks, Robuchon shocked the culinary world by announcing his retirement at 50. A decade on, he came back with a vengeance and is today the most starred chef in the world.

Ramsay also mentions his mother, to whom he is clearly attached: He dedicated his 2006 autobiography, Humble Pie, to her, saying, “You deserve a medal”. His mum turns 70 this year and works as a nurse in a hospice. “She doesn’t need to work but it keeps her motivated.”

What must help keep him going are the throngs of people who cannot seem to get enough of him. Upstairs, in the main dining area of Bread Street Kitchen, he is mobbed by diners wanting to say hello and to have a photo taken with him. If he detests the advent of cameras in phones, the off-screen Ramsay barely lets it show. He obliges a few lucky fans. All at top speed, of course, and a short while later, the phenomenon that is Gordon Ramsay — master chef, businessman, reality TV entertainer, fitness fanatic — is out of the door and onto his next venture.

This article appeared in the Options of Issue 715 (Feb 15) of The Edge Singapore.