North StarsGordon Ramsay sues Montreal’s Laurier BBQ, in his third defamation suit in six years
By now, Gordon Ramsay must be as familiar with the inside of a courtroom as he is with the inside of a kitchen.
The 45-year-old British chef is reportedly suing a Montreal restaurant for $2.7 million over allegedly defamatory statements made about him, in his third such legal battle in the past six years.
Ramsay has accused Laurier BBQ owner Danny Lavy of damaging his reputation after their six-month partnership went south. In February, Lavy told the Montreal Gazette that the "Hell's Kitchen" star was too busy to visit his restaurant, only offered "a few tweaks" to the menu, and, as a whole, "just didn't get it."
But the fiery reality TV staple claims in his suit that he was simply expected to offer recipes and lend his name to the eatery. The restaurant was given the name Laurier Gordon Ramsay but has since been officially renamed Laurier 1936.
For Ramsay, defamation suits such as these are practically old hat at this point, having been involved in three of them since 2006.
That year, the celebrity chef won nearly $119,000 in a suit against the London Evening Standard after the U.K. newspaper claimed that scenes in "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares," in which struggling restaurants are whipped into shape, were faked.
"I won't let people write anything they want to about me," Ramsay told the BBC at the time. "We've never done anything in a cynical, fake way."
The newspaper had alleged that Ramsay and his production company placed an incompetent chef in the kitchen of Bonaparte's restaurant in Silsden, West Yorkshire, and staged disasters as well.
In 2007, the same show faced a similar legal battle, this time across the pond.
Martin Hyde, the former manager at an off-Broadway restaurant called Dillons, claimed that Ramsay and his production company made the eatery look worse than it was and falsely blamed Hyde for the problems.
In the $1 million suit, Hyde alleged that Ramsay was lying when he said he found rotten hamburger in the fridge and rat droppings. He added that the production team brought in an unstable chair to make the furniture seem defective, and actors to pose as customers.
"The idea of bringing moldy food in and planting actors is a f---ing joke," Ramsay told TVWeek at the time. "There's a man who got very scared and very embarrassed about his lack of professionalism."
The suit was eventually thrown out of court and into arbitration, where it appears to have remained.
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