Knives out for Ramsay in France

Gordon 'Fucking' Ramsay, about to launch a new restaurant in Versailles, just outside Paris, has been slapped down by France's most important restaurant critic, Francois Simon of Le Figaro, before the restaurant has even opened. Simon said: "I like Gordon Ramsay's cooking very much. It's very fine, agreeable with lots of energy, open and accessible. But quite frankly, if I go to Versailles, I'd prefer to go to a local bistro."

The Glaswegian chef's new restaurant is in the Trianon Palace Hotel, where the Treaty of Versailles, which ended WW1, was drawn up in 1919.

While Simon predicted it would be successful with international visitors to Versailles, the new restaurant was, he said, of little interest to the French. "Dishes like his starter of cream of Jerusalem artichokes with lardons and cabbage can be found in 70 Parisian restaurants, which are just as good", said Simon. "What's more, he's British, and Parisians don't like going to Versailles - it's much too far".

Ramsay should have expected as much. When the tedious loud mouth announced the new venture, he claimed it would give him the chance to teach the French a few lessons about haute cuisine. "I've had a belly-full of the French coming over here and telling us how shit our food is," he said.

Ironically, Simon is one of the few Frenchman to admit that Britain's reputation for gastronomy has undergone a revolution. After a trip to Heston Blumenthal's restaurant at Bray, he wrote: "The Fat Duck reminds us that in England we can eat divinely."

And he did not criticise Ramsay because he was a foreigner but because he spreads himself too thinly. Like other super-chefs with growing empires - including the Frenchman Alain Ducasse - Ramsay spends little time in each of the many kitchens that bear their names, said the Figaro man.

"It's like going to the dentist and having the secretary pull your teeth out: it's very dangerous," Simon said. "It becomes karaoke cuisine, or in the language of Gordon Ramsay, it's bullshit." Ooh la la.