http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1162124/Gordon-Ramsay-sells-flagship-Paris-restaurant-year-credit-crunch-bites.html

Gordon Ramsay has sold his flagship Paris restaurant only a year after he boasted that its opening would put a ‘British stake’ in the heart of haute cuisine.

The TV chef, who has let go of a string of other high-priced eateries as the credit crunch bites, sold Gordon Ramsay au Trianon back to the hotel which houses it.

Despite becoming the first ever Briton to win two Michelin stars in France, the Versailles restaurant had also been savaged by French critics.
Gordon Ramsay

Au revoir: Ramsay had pledged to put a ‘British stake’ in the heart of haute cuisine when he opened the Gordon Ramsay au Trianon in the French capital last year

A spokesman for his company, Gordon Ramsay Holdings, declined to say how much he had been paid for the 10-table eatery and the La Veranda brasserie at the Trianon Palace Hotel.

But he confirmed: ‘The food and beverage operation will be handled by the hotel’s management.'

‘Due to matters such as payroll etc, it makes more sense for the hotel to take over the day-to-day operation,' he told the Sunday Telegraph.

The spokesman insisted, however, that Ramsay’s name would remain above the door and that he would ‘concentrate on the menu development and standards of service’.

The news emerged on the same day that The People reported that Sarah Symonds, 38, who claims to have had a seven-year affair with him, has landed a £500,000 book deal.

And it comes a week after the chef sold his main restaurant in California, Gordon Ramsay at The London West Hollywood, following reports staff often outnumbered customers.

Ramsay also recently sold his restaurant in Prague – Maze at the Hilton – back to the hotel.

His UK empire has also suffered in the credit crunch.

The Michelin-starred La Noisette at London’s Jumeirah Carlton Tower Hotel recently closed and his contract to run the restaurant at London’s Connaught Hotel ended last year.

The chef has denied that the next of his group’s foreign restaurants to be sold would be Cielo by Angela Hartnett, in Florida.
Hotel Trianon Palace in Versailles

Derided: The restaurant, above, was slammed by French food critics

When Ramsay announced his intention to open a restaurant in France, he declared in typical foul-mouthed fashion: ‘I’ve had a belly-full of the French coming over here and telling us how s*** our food is.

‘We have cheese on toast, they have croque-monsieur. They just have posher names. I think we should have a British stake in Paris.’

After winning two Michelin stars for the Trianon last month, the 42-year-old said the prestigious award was ‘a real career high for me’ and ‘particularly satisfying after the rather hostile reception we had on opening’.

François Simon, the feared food critic of Le Figaro, had described the restaurant as ‘boring, pompous and very expensive'.

He added: ‘Quite frankly, if I go to Versailles, I’d prefer to go to a local bistro.’

‘It’s like going to the dentist and having the secretary pull your teeth out: it’s very dangerous,’ he said. ‘It becomes karaoke cuisine, or in the language of Gordon Ramsay, it’s bull****.’

The critic berated Ramsay and his fellow ‘super-cooks’ for spreading themselves too thinly across their gastronomic empires, so that they could spend little time in each of the many kitchens that bear their names.

Earlier this month it emerged that Ramsay had paid himself a total of £7.5 million over the last five years.

However, the chef quashed persistent speculation in the restaurant business that he might be considering taking the same action as his fellow chefs Tom Aikens and Antony Worrall Thompson by putting his company into administration before buying back the most profitable dining rooms.

‘He has absolutely no intention of following the example of some other restaurant businesses,’ said his spokesman.

‘The company has a very strong infrastructure and has been doing well since the period covered by the last set of accounts.’

Those accounts, which were filed eight months late, showed that the firm made a pre-tax profit of £3.05 million.

Its overdraft was, however, increased to £6.13 million and the accounts disclosed that the company had breached its banking covenants made to secure a loan.