If you've seen any of his television shows, you probably know Gordon Ramsay as the sweary chef who's strict with his employees and expects nothing less than perfection.
But according to a chef who worked with Ramsay for 10 years, the man isn't quite as he appears on the screen.
Steve Allen worked with the restaurant owner from his early days on television and went on to become the head chef at Gordon Ramsay at Claridge's.
He claims that while Ramsay certainly does 'push' his staff, it's always from a 'caring' place to guide them in the right direction.
Speaking to The Mirror, Allen, who now works as an executive chef for Côte, claimed the first year working with Ramsay was "tough" as you might expect, but the celebrity cook is by no means the "nastiest" chef he's worked with.
In fact, he only has nice things to say about his former employer, who he believes is "really invested" in his staff.
"When I started working for him, he still wasn't that well known, he'd just done Boiling Point and it was very early days," Allen recalls.
"You see these shows and all the shouting and swearing and you think, 'I'll do a year, I'll work here for a year', but it becomes quite addictive.
"The first year you do sort of see that TV persona of his, it's quite tough.
"I'm not going to tell you exactly what he says, but I've worked with nastier chefs that will push you and there's no follow back and they don't show you right from wrong, whereas with him, he's pushing and guiding you in the right direction.
"And that's what I was yearning for [in my career at that time], someone to point out where I was going wrong and show me how to do it right. That was the best thing about Gordon, nothing he says is personal, he really invests in people and he really cared.
"I loved working for him, I honestly think he's fantastic."
Allen continued to say that swearing and shouting like on The F Word does happen occasionally, but for the most part, Ramsay is very "respectful" to others.
"When you see him on TV and he's really having a go at someone, it does happen, but once he knows you, he's very respectful," he says.
"So say for instance in the kitchen, if you were doing something wrong, he wouldn't have a go at you in front of everyone, he'd sort of take you off. There was a wine cellar and he'd take you there and say something like 'You're better than that, you can do better than this'.
"It was very respectful and shouting and screaming at people in his kitchens just wasn't accepted - I even once got a final written warning for shouting at someone in his kitchens.
"I think we all see what we see on TV and obviously that's what sells TV."
While working at Claridge's, Allen claims he can't recall Ramsay getting stuck in with the cooking very often - but he didn't need to when he had a group of trusted staff in place.
Despite this, Ramsay would reportedly pop in to check on how things were going from time to time.
"He would come in and talk to you, look at what you're doing, taste what you're doing, and give advice, stuff like that."
Allen says he had a much closer experience with Ramsay when they both worked on the show Kitchen Nightmares. He claims this was quite "1-2-1" and was the first time he got a chance to see the "real" person behind the infamous persona.
"I've got this story from when we did Kitchen Nightmares, [Gordon] was doing Yorkshire Puddings in season one and he asked if I knew a good recipe. I said I did roughly and he asked me how to do it and show him.
"He did that in front of everyone and there was a snort of snicker in the background that he was asking a 22-year-old boy how to cook Yorkshire Puddings.
"But it was a big lesson in life for me, it was like no matter how big you are, you're not too big to ask the question and say, maybe the way you do it is better.
"And then he took my Yorkshire Pudding method and he did it straight on TV. He was very humble."
Thinking back over this time with the Gordon Ramsay Group, Allen added: "I had a really great time working for him and it was quite a hard decision to leave, but I wanted to go somewhere completely different and challenge myself."
Allen left back in 2011 and went on to work in Singapore and Malaysia, before returning to the UK to work as development and training chef at Rare Restaurants.
The chef has recently started a position as an executive chef at Côte, designing the chain's new Spring menu which focuses on fresh seasonal ingredients to showcase classic French cuisine and includes dishes such as Cheese Soufflé, Roasted Lamb Rump and Elderflower & Strawberry Crème Brûlée.
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