UK NEWS

TV LIFT FOR PANNED ROYAL CHEF

Ramsay said he would never employ Flanagan

Sunday August 31,2008

By Camilla Tominey

GORDON RAMSAY may think food at Buckingham Palace is “prehistoric” but its head chef Mark Flanagan could have the last laugh.

BBC2’s Masterchef is being filmed in his kitchen this Wednesday, with three contestants cooking lunch for 400 Palace staff.

The result will be screened as part of the next series of the competition to find Britain’s best amateur chef.

The news follows a tirade by Ramsay, 41, who told a prime-time US TV audience the food at Buck-ingham Palace tasted like “s***”.

The foul-mouthed Michelin-starred chef told chat show host Jay Leno: “You don’t actually get to know who’s cooking for the Queen but I’d never employ him because the food was s***.

“The food was s*** but she was lovely. Unfortunately you’ve got to go through the ceremony with the canapes which are just absolutely, shockingly s***.

“They looked pre-historic, like 300 years old.”

His comments are bound to anger Flanagan, who is also known to be “volatile” at the stove.

Nine Buckingham Palace cooks are understood to have quit since he was appointed to the £50,000-a-year job in 2002, with one describing him as “Gordon Ramsay without Gordon’s sublime talent”.

Ramsay was awarded an OBE in 2006 for services to the hospitality industry and insisted on having the investiture in Scotland, where he was born.

Masterchef has also been filmed at 10 Downing Street.

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