Being gordon ramsay review — six hours of restaurant drama or one long advert?
The new six-part documentary tracks the chef and TV personality as he stakes millions on opening multiple venues across the top floors of a London skyscraper. Intimate family moments and near-operatic kitchen pressure sit alongside meticulous design decisions and the logistical chaos of launching five concepts at once, leaving viewers to decide whether they are watching vérité or a carefully curated brand exercise.
What the series shows
The programme follows a high-stakes project: several restaurants, a rooftop garden with a retractable roof, a culinary school and private dining spaces spread over a single development. Cameras linger over menu tastings, prototype aprons and seating choices with an attention to detail that mirrors the operation itself. Viewers see the smallest technical decisions — like the size of a rum baba or removing apron pockets so front-of-house staff don’t appear untidy — alongside larger construction headaches such as integrating a retractable roof into a functioning restaurant.
Interspersed with the workplace footage are home scenes that humanise the chef. There are relaxed family breakfasts, footage of him playing with his younger children and warm back-and-forth with his long-term partner. These softer moments contrast with the kitchen sequences, where familiar outbursts and blunt assessments of food and service deliver the adrenaline that has long defined his broadcast persona.
Six hours: immersive or indulgent?
Stretching the story across roughly six hours gives the series room to unpack launch minutiae, but that scope can feel excessive. Extended scenes of fittings and meetings allow an appreciation of the craft and logistics required to open multiple venues simultaneously, yet they also highlight the show’s promotional bent. The project’s founder is presented as both the driving creative force and a beneficiary of the exposure; editorial control sits close to the subject, and the result often reads as a carefully calibrated image piece as much as a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
At times the show leans into melodrama — late-night problem-solving is framed as make-or-break, while finance and timing are repeatedly stressed — which is effective television but also serves the narrative of risk that makes the series compelling. There’s a clear tension between genuine operational drama and moments that function as marketing, from design vetoes to high-profile launch events staged before everything is fully finished.
Brand, ambition and the hospitality snapshot
Viewed as a study in modern hospitality, the series is a useful primer on the pressures of scaling a restaurant empire in the 2020s: balancing creativity, staff training, customer experience and brand coherence across multiple concepts. The chef’s investment in the project is portrayed as personal as well as financial, with weeks of global travel and simultaneous commitments to other ventures underscoring how stretched a household name can be.
Whether the series succeeds as critique, celebration or confession depends on viewer appetite. Those interested in the mechanics of launching restaurants and the rituals of menu testing will find much to admire, from the craftsmanship to the choreography of service. Viewers seeking hard-hitting analysis of brand growth or a tougher examination of celebrity hospitality may find the tone too deferential.
Ultimately, the six-part length means the show asks more of its audience than a two-hour profile would. It delivers plenty of spectacle and a human portrait that softens a famously abrasive on-screen persona, but it also raises a simple question: is six hours necessary to tell this story, or is it the perfect length for an extended, well-shot advertisement for a global brand?
