Gordon Ramsay wins libel action against the Evening Standard
Download Statement in Open Court
The Evening Standard today accepted that the allegations they made regarding Gordon Ramsay in an article published on 3 November 2005 were untrue. The article which alleged that the programme Ramsays Kitchen Nightmares specialised in cynically faking scenes to make average restaurants look like public health hazards, driving some out of business. It alleged that the Claimants were guilty of gastronomic mendacity by installing an incompetent chef and fabricating culinary disasters in order to wreck Bonapartes restaurants reputation.
The Evening Standard now understand and accept that these allegations were untrue and that Bonapartes programme in fact portrayed throughout an accurate picture of the restaurant and its operations. No scenes had been faked, the kitchen was indeed untidy and a health hazard, the restaurant was already in financial difficulty before the programme was filmed, and the chef was not installed by the Claimants. In fact, it was the chef who first contacted the Claimants in relation to participation in the programme.