Skip to footer

Kitchen nightmare: Why Chef Gordon Ramsay owes $1M in pub rent

A  British judge on Tuesday ruled celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay personally liable for the $1 million annual rent on a London gastropub. Ramsay accused his father-in-law of forging his signature on a document making Ramsay guarantor for the rent on the York & Albany pub, now a fashionable dining spot.

|
Wong Maye-E/AP/File
Chef Gordon Ramsay serves up a bowl of 'Laksa' a local noodle dish, in Singapore. Ramsay is facing a kitchen nightmare after a British judge on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2015 ruled him personally liable for $1 million in rent on a London gastropub.
  • By Jill Lawless Associated Press

| London

 Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is facing a real-life kitchen nightmare after a British judge on Tuesday ruled him personally liable for the 640,000-pound ($1 million) annual rent on a London gastropub.

Ramsay accused his father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson, of using an autopen machine to forge his signature on a document making Ramsay personal guarantor for the rent on the York & Albany pub, now a fashionable dining spot.

But High Court judge Paul Morgan ruled that the contract was binding. He said that when the 25-year lease was signed in 2007, Hutcheson "was acting within the wide general authority conferred on him by Mr. Ramsay" to manage his business.

He said Ramsay knew that the autopen — a device often used by authors to sign multiple copies of their books — was "routinely used to place his signature on legal documents."

"I hold that Mr. Ramsay, acting though his agent Mr. Hutcheson, is bound by the guarantee in the lease of the premises," the judge said.

Ramsay fired Hutcheson, the father of his wife Tana, in late 2010, accusing him of gross misconduct.

The judge ordered Ramsay to make an interim payment to the pub's owner, Gary Love, of 250,000 pounds. The chef also faces a large bill for legal costs.

Morgan denied Ramsay permission to appeal, but the chef can ask the Court of Appeal directly to hear the case.

Ramsay is internationally known for a string of acclaimed restaurants, popular cookbooks and television shows including "Kitchen Nightmares," ''Hell's Kitchen" and "The F Word."

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Kitchen nightmare: Why Chef Gordon Ramsay owes $1M in pub rent
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2015/0120/Kitchen-nightmare-Why-Chef-Gordon-Ramsay-owes-1M-in-pub-rent
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe