Not content with his expanding global restaurant empire and inescapable television profile, Gordon Ramsay now fancies doing for food what Simon Cowell has done for pop music. Andrew Pierce meets a chef for whom failure is not an option.

Gordon Ramsay is playing cricket with his eight-year-old son, Jack, on the 150-foot lawn of his £5 million home in south London. A skateboard, propped up against a plant pot, is a makeshift wicket. Ramsay has bought Jack, a day student at Dulwich College, a bat and hard ball, but refused to supply the bails and stumps. 'I'm not going to spoil him,' he says. 'He has to work to appreciate it.'

The first ball from Jack sends the skateboard flying. Instead of a boyish 'Owzat?' he careers around the garden, shouting: 'I've bowled out Gordon Ramsay! I've bowled out Gordon Ramsay!'

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