I saw what Gordon Ramsay had and thought 'I want that'

BBC News

2 days ago

Stuart Ralston was destined for a culinary career.His dad was a chef, his mum was a chef and his brothers went into the business too.It was necessity that took him into his first kitchen at 13 "so he could afford his own trainers".But it was hard work that led him to his first Michelin star, bagged in February at the age of 41.Now with four renowned restaurants in Edinburgh, the Glenrothes-born chef who cut his teeth in New York under Gordon Ramsay has come a long way.
Ralston's housing estate upbringing couldn't be further away from the upmarket fine dining establishments he finds himself in now.He told the BBC Scotland's Scotcast: "If you come from a background where potentially you didn't have much and you wanted to get more, it gives you a certain chip on your shoulder or a resilience that you can really battle through a lot of hard times.""The business is a hard business to be in and it takes people who are really determined not to fail and I think that's the common thing that I always see with a lot people in our industry."Ralston was the victim of two knife assaults in his youth."In primary I was slashed with a pair of scissors from my ear to the bottom of my mouth after an argument with someone."And in high school I got slashed on my leg with a box cutter with someone just walking through the hallways."So, you know, I didn't grow up in the most affluent of areas, it was a dog-eat-dog world. But I think getting out of that just made me determined to not be part of that culture.
Ralston worked his way through the ranks in his late teens and early 20s and then chanced his arm by asking celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay for job at his New York restaurant."I'd done a trial in London for him that I thought I'd messed up really badly, but I still got offered the job because I had an attitude. I really cared about my career and trying to be something and I think they saw that."I got an opportunity that not many people did. There was maybe only eight British guys taken out to America. "I was 23 years old and I didn't know anybody."He doesn't recognise the angry, potty-mouthed Gordon Ramsay that made his mark on TV shows. But he did soak up the work ethic and skills on display around him."I didn't really see what people see on TV as much. It was definitely tough, and he was definitely passionate about what we were doing."I worked more so with the head chefs that had been with him for a long time."After two years, scraping chewing gum off tables, prepping vegetables and setting up the staff canteen led to kitchen training and running every section of Ramsay's restaurant at the London Hotel.He spent five years in New York, rising to head chef status and then spent a stint back in the UK before a time at the Sandy Lane Hotel in Barbados.
Fast forward to 2025 and he is halfway through his most successful year. He has four Edinburgh restaurants - Aizle, Noto, Tipo and Lyla, for which he was awarded his first Michelin star in February.He says his kitchens run differently to those days in the early 2000s and that the culture has changed."It was rough, really rough," he admitted."When I was started out, you're working all the hours. The conditions were tough. "I've seen fights, I've see people getting burned, I have seen things being thrown at people. I have seen people being kicked out of kitchens for mistakes. "But mostly, I would say, I don't think there's many kitchens that would run like that nowadays."
For someone who dreamed of owning his own restaurant from a young age, Stuart Ralston has realised his ambitions.He says he grew into who he is and changed his perspective when he saw what was possible, learning from the best people around him. He said: "Take Gordon for example, look what he's done in his life. I saw him and I wanted a bit of that."