I’ve always been a fan of Gordon Ramsay’s cooking shows. I watched him display his skills and charisma on TV with programs like Hell’s Kitchen, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and Next Level Chef. While those shows were great, they were more for my entertainment than my education.
You can imagine my excitement when I found out Ramsay had not just one, but two cooking courses on MasterClass.
He has created two masterclasses titled Gordon Ramsay teaches Cooking I and Gordon Ramsay teaches Cooking II: Restaurant Recipes at Home.
I relished the chance to learn from the cooking master. However, like you, I had my doubts.
I searched around and found that he doesn’t do this anywhere else, there are no Masterclass alternatives to Ramsay’s course.
So, I decided to try the classes and create this Gordon Ramsay MasterClass review.
You can see that my review promises to be very honest and detailed. If you don’t have the time to read it all, I’ve got you covered.
Check out the overview section below.
It contains a summary of the entire article with enough info to help you make a quick decision.
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Before we dive in, let’s get a quick overview of the MasterClass platform and its star instructor, Gordon Ramsay.
MasterClass is an online learning platform with over 180 classes and 100 instructors. What sets MasterClass apart from competing companies is that they only hire celebrity instructors. These instructors are famous, relevant, and active in their respective fields.
MasterClass has courses from some of the biggest names in the world, such as Bill Clinton, Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Aguilera, and Neil deGrasse Tyson. The aim of the company is to provide top quality video lessons from premium instructors at an affordable rate.
Currently, MasterClass’s main focus is on art and creative fields. There are several cooking masterclasses on the platform, but Gordon Ramsay’s is one of the most popular.
Scottish chef, Godon Ramsay, is one of the most famous culinary faces on American television. People from all over the world recognize his face from his cooking shows, interviews, or social media memes.
Ramsay’s biggest career achievements include the following:
Ramsay is currently a 7-star chef and has 58 restaurants across various locations in the US, Asia, and Europe. He has also published several cookbooks, some of which became best-sellers.
Ramsay is no novice when it comes to teaching cooking skills. That is probably why MasterClass decided to trust him with two classes, a rare occurrence on the platform.
Course Categories | Food, Home & Lifestyle |
Course Requirements | None |
Content Formats | Video Lessons Downloadable workbook |
Spoken Language | English (subtitles available in other languages) |
Certifications | None |
One-on-one Interaction | Unavailable |
Community | Unavailable |
What I Liked the Most | Production quality |
What I Disliked the Most | No active community |
Pricing | $180 – $276 per year |
Discounts | Available via limited time offers |
Refund Policy | 30-day money-back guarantee |
Next, I’ll review both of Gordon’s masterclasses individually. Each class is made up of several video lessons. Rather than reviewing each lesson, I’ve grouped the lessons into sections based on their related content. I’ll also include the serial number of the lessons in the section to help you find them more easily.
Categories: Food, Home & Lifestyle
Duration: 3 hours and 54 minutes
This class has 20 video lessons in total. The lessons range from less than 2 minutes to more than 24 minutes. The class focuses on tips, recipes, and knowledge sharing.
There are five video lessons dedicated to giving you an insight into the life and career of Gordon Ramsay. You’ll learn what makes him tick and see a side of him that he doesn’t show on TV.
At various points in this masterclass, Gordon talks about his childhood, ambitions, and mentors. He also reveals how he opened his first restaurant and how he earned his Michelin stars. You can learn from his experience if you hope to build a culinary empire in the future.
Towards the end of the course, Gordon shares his expert advice for aspiring chefs and offers some encouraging words.
As a cook, your kitchen is your workplace, and you must treat it as such. Gordon Ramsay shares tips on his design layouts and how he organizes his kitchen to get the best results.
You will also learn what utensils you need to get started. As the lessons progress, Gordon gives instructions on what ingredients to get for your cooking. You’ll learn the following and more:
A knife is perhaps the most useful and irreplaceable tool in the kitchen. Hence, Gordon dedicates two whole lessons to teaching you how to use it.
The first lesson, “Knife Skills” covers ways to sharpen, hold, and cut with the knife. You’ll also learn practice exercises to help you get better at using a knife.
The second lesson, “Breaking Down a Whole Fish”, teaches how to filet a salmon like a pro. Here, Gordon showcases the skills that earned him his first world record.
Gordon likes to use eggs in his kitchen, even though they can be tricky. His masterclass contains some lessons on using eggs as ingredients in your cooking.
You’ll watch Gordon make poached eggs and mushrooms on brioche. He also makes scrambled eggs with white truffle and sea urchin.
In two consecutive video lessons, Gordon teaches how to cook chicken properly. It starts with a practical lecture on butchery, where you learn how to efficiently cut a chicken into bits.
Next, Gordon roasts root vegetables and adds them to a dish of chicken supreme. You can follow the master chef through every part of the cooking process.
There’s also a 16-minute lesson on cooking salmon with shellfish. You’ll learn tips for fileting salmon and making a savory dish with the result. The dish also includes some of the tasty vegetables picked out using Gordon’s principles.
Pasta is a stable food in many countries all across the world. However, its home lies in Italy, and that is where Gordon learned some of his pasta-making skills.
The process begins with a lesson on making pasta dough with your hands. In the end, you should be able to make fresh pasta the Italian way. After the lesson, Gordon takes you further with some pasta-rolling tutorials. You can learn how to roll pasta into a thin and delicate form.
Although you can use the pasta created to make several noodle dishes, Gordon chooses to cook the lobster ravioli as a practical example.
Gordon Ramsay’s version of the Beef Wellington is one of the most popular dishes served at his restaurants. He shares his recipe and cooking methods in the 18th video lesson of his first MasterClass course. It’s not as difficult as you might think.
The class comes with helpful resources in the form of a downloadable PDF cookbook. It contains facts about Gordon, recipes, and a recap of the course’s core concepts. You can also practice your cooking with the exercises and assignments in the book.
Categories: Food, Home & Lifestyle
Duration: 4 hours and 14 minutes
As the title suggests, this course is basically a recipe class. You get to watch Gordon cook various restaurant-worthy dishes in a way that you can attempt at home. Most of the recipes in the class are from his restaurant, which has earned three Michelin stars.
I couldn’t find the time to try all of the recipes, but I was able to attempt four out of the fifteen in the masterclass.
These are the dishes I loved the most and decided to make myself.
The class also features a downloadable PDF cookbook. It contains very detailed, play-by-play guides on cooking the dishes mentioned in the video lessons. The book also includes exercises for further practice.
Now, it’s time to give you my perspective on Gordon Ramsay’s masterclass. I’ll be providing my key takeaways from the course, what I needed in my kitchen, my likes, and my dislikes. Here, you’ll find out if I really learned anything or if it was just a waste of time.
You may agree with some of my opinions, so be sure to read through the entire section before you buy the Gordon Ramsay MasterClass.
I found the knife tutorials in this class very useful. As someone who has had problems sharpening knives in the past, the tips Gordon gave were a game-changer for me. I also learned how to cut different kinds of meat and fish. There was also a brief lesson on how to chop herbs.
Did you know that ugly-looking vegetables could actually have more flavor? Well, I didn’t know this until I took the Gordon Ramsay masterclass. He also taught me how to buy vegetables based on the season.
There are a ton of unique recipes in these classes, particularly the second one. I wrote down quite a few of them. I also prepared some at home and will try the others before the end of the year.
Prior to this class, my pasta dough always came out of the machine sticky. Gordon helped me avoid that by showing me how to pre-add flour to the machine. I also wasn’t aware that you shouldn’t wash your pasta machine.
Although each recipe has a set of ingredients, I needed some kitchen essentials to be able to follow the class. Below is a list of the materials I used:
The fact that Gordon has been on so many TV shows is a clear indicator of his charisma on screen. He brings that charm into this class and leaves out most of the over-the-top antics he’s famous for.
If you watch the first lesson, you can already tell that Gordon is passionate about cooking and genuinely wants to share his knowledge with you. He does a good job explaining his processes in a way that engages and informs students.
The class effectively blends the theoretical and practical aspects of cooking. Gordon does well to give unique, practical advice you never knew you needed. If there’s a technique to make the next step of cooking easier or more effective, Gordon will mention it to you.
The cookbook also comes with several practical assignments. If you’re serious about cooking, you should do these assignments. They will surely help you improve your skills in the kitchen.
This part is true for all of the courses on the MasterClass platform. The production quality is top-notch, from the lighting to the camera angles.
You can also watch the video lessons in HD format. There is a settings feature that allows you to take the video quality up to 1080p. The sound from the video is also clear, loud, and crisp.
It’s obvious that MasterClass has an impressive video and audio production standard, and the Gordon Ramsay course meets it.
There is a 12-minute playlist on the platform titled “The Best of Gordon Ramsay”. This is a collection of snippets from his two classes.
Even after finishing both classes, I still find the playlist useful, as it contains some of Gordon’s best advice. He talks about grilling, knife handling, finding your passion, and more.
MasterClass provides a lot of helpful features to make learning easier. I decided to make a list of the ones I found most appealing. Check them out:
While the class tries to use regular ingredients to make the dishes, there are some exceptions. For example, sea urchins and lobsters are rather expensive.
It would have been nice to see them stick to regular ingredients only or at least provide cheaper alternatives.
Even after completing assignments, there is currently no way to show your work to the instructor. There is also no community on the platform for you to share your work with and get feedback from. The best you can do is share your results on social media.
If you’re trained by someone as great as Gordon Ramsay, you’d want to have something to show for it. Unfortunately, MasterClass does not currently offer a certificate of completion.
The subscription cost for both Gordon Ramsay MasterClass courses is between $180 and $276. The pricing packages are billed annually with a starting price of $15 per month, which amounts to a total of $180. A single subscription will grant you access to Gordon’s masterclasses and every other piece of content in the platform’s library.
Below are the plans and pricing options available: They are similar, so the table only shows the differences between each plan.
Name | Individual | Duo | Family |
No. of Simultaneous connected devices | 1 | 2 | 6 |
Offline Viewing | No | Yes | Yes |
Monthly Price | $15 | $20 | $23 |
Annual Price | $180 | $240 | $276 |
If you want discounts, MasterClass does offer limited-time deals. For instance, there was a Mother’s Day discount program recently. It offered 25% off if you chose the Duo plan and 35% off if you chose the Family plan
If you run a restaurant and want to help your staff improve their cooking skills by giving them access to this course, you need to contact the MasterClass sales team. They may offer you a group discount.
Also, MasterClass offers a 30-day refund policy. You can request your money back if you are not satisfied with the course.
Now it’s time to help you decide if you should subscribe to the Gordon Ramsay Masterclass. Here is my recommendation.
This MasterClass is for you if you…
The MasterClass is NOT for you if you…
There are several other cooking courses on MasterClass, many of them just as good as Gordon’s. I made a list of some of the best.
This is a great course if you’re a vegetarian and only want to cook vegan dishes. Gordon’s recipes contain a lot of meat and fish.
If you prefer to focus on Middle Eastern dishes, Yotam is a master at making them. He teaches you how to cook traditional dishes with modern techniques.
This three-part course is almost a direct alternative to the Gordon Ramsay MasterClass. Thomas is a world class chef, and he shares some of his skills, knowledge, and recipes in this MasterClass.
Gabriela is a popular chef, and in her MasterClass, you’ll learn how to use simple ingredients like corn to prepare tasty Mexican dishes.
Alice Waters’ support of the farm-to-table movement shows in this course. You’ll learn simple techniques of home cooking using readily available organic ingredients.
(Spoiler alert: this course made it onto my best Masterclass courses list).
Yes, I strongly believe the Gordon Ramsay MasterClass is worth every penny it costs. I was afraid we would only get a rehash of what he does in his cooking TV shows, but this was completely different. Gordon was calm and collected, and the content he produced is unique. Many of the tips he mentioned were completely new to me, even though I’m an avid watcher of his shows.
You can learn a lot by following the lessons and workbook. I also believe that, with enough practice, it’s possible to land your first cooking job with the help of this course. The subscription model is annual, so you can always return to the lessons and brush up on your skills. Take your time to follow Gordon’s instructions, and you’ll get the best value from the masterclass.
In case you were wanted some additional Masterclass recommendations or wondering the same question as everyone else ‘is Masterclass worth it?‘, here are some of my favorite Masterclass courses I worked through below with links to in-depth reviews of each: