With over 40 restaurants, 7 Michelin stars, and global fame, Gordon Ramsay has cooked everything from rare wagyu beef to sheep testicles. But there’s one dish he flat-out refuses to make—no matter the paycheck.
And it’s not for health reasons or culinary pride.
It’s risotto.
Yes—simple, innocent risotto.
“Risotto is my trauma,” Ramsay once confessed half-jokingly on a podcast. “It was the dish that almost ended my career.”
The story dates back to his early days in London, when he was working under the legendary chef Marco Pierre White. One night, Ramsay served a plate of risotto during a high-pressure dinner service. White found it overcooked.
What followed was one of the most humiliating nights of Ramsay’s life.
“He screamed. Threw the plate. Told me I’d never be a real chef,” Ramsay later recalled. “It burned into my brain.”
Since then, Ramsay has developed a mental block around the dish. “I’ll teach people how to make it,” he said. “I’ll critique it. But I won’t make it myself.”
He once turned down a sponsored deal worth six figures to appear in a risotto commercial. “No chance,” he said. “That dish belongs to my past.”
So while he may yell at contestants for ruining risotto on TV, the truth is: it’s the one dish he can’t bring himself to plate.
Sometimes, even chefs have scars the kitchen can’t heal.
