Gordon Ramsay: Influencers should pay for restaurant reviews

Gordon Ramsay has said he believes that social media influencers should pay for their own meals at restaurants if they want to write reviews. Here’s what our sister title Caterer Middle East has reported.

In Dubai for the grand opening his second restaurant in the city, Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Palace Bluewaters, Ramsay responded to a question about the banning of Foodiva writer Samanth Wood by Izu Ani, as exclusively revealed in Caterer Middle East last year.

Ani told Caterer Middle East that Wood was banned from his restaurant Gaia following a negative review of it published on her website.

But, as reported by our sister title Arabian Business, Ramsay said that “every influencer, if they pay, have the right to write whatever they wish”.

Speaking of the pressure to please everybody who tries his food, Ramsay said that you have to understand “you can’t make everybody happy. Everyone is a critic. My daughters criticise my burgers. [But] I’ve never walked in fear of an influencer, definitely not. If I made a mistake and it had been written about, then I deserve a good kicking. But if it was a good meal and they’re unhappy with it then that’s their choice”.

The TV personality was enthusiastic about social media as a whole however, saying it has brought “a massive benefit to every chef” but added that “some chefs can’t get their head around it”.

As well as the newly-opened Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay also has Bread Street Kitchen in Dubai at Atlantis, The Palm.