Gordon Ramsay has suffered his own kitchen nightmare during the pandemic with his restaurant empire missing out on nearly £60m of trade.
The celebrity chef said that in December his 35 UK restaurants had £10m worth of reservations “wiped out overnight” when coronavirus restrictions were reimposed.
“As of 19 March to 3 February this year we’ve suffered £57.5m worth of turnover down,” said Ramsay. “I’m in it.”
Ramsay has 18 restaurants in London including Pétrus, Bread Street Kitchen and Restaurant Gordon Ramsay, as well as a further 17 worldwide. In 2019, the businessman replaced his Maze Grill venue in Mayfair with Asian-themed Lucky Cat.
The chef, who is presenting new BBC quizshow Bank Balance, said his company had used the government’s furlough scheme to preserve hundreds of jobs at the group.
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“Lockdowns have caused utter devastation,” he told the Sun. “Having been through so much with the 2008 financial crash, then terrorist attacks and 9/11, when Covid first hit, we all thought it would be over and done with in a couple of weeks. But it’s been long haul.”
The last set of accounts for Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, which were filed in September 2020, show a pretax profit of £15.2m on sales of £54.7m in 2019.
The pandemic has had a “significant impact” on the group’s finances, said the group’s chief executive, Andy Wenlock, in a note to the accounts. It had negotiated rent concessions with landlords and secured additional bank funding and anticipated being able to meet its liabilities for at least 12 months.
