Can Gordon Ramsay do it again? Can he win three Michelin stars at Claridges? And keep his three stars at Gordon Ramsay? Can a chef be in two places, Mayfair and Chelsea, at once? He says he can - he says he'll run - 'I've done it in seven-and-a-half minutes before now'. He's not joking either - he ran the last London marathon in under four hours. He says there's very good staff showers at Claridges so he can change into his chef's whites when he gets there. But cooking isn't really a speed sport. And even seven-and-a-half minutes is long enough to kill a soufflé.

So Claridges have taken quite a chance in giving their new revamped restaurant to Gordon Ramsay. It is the marriage of beauty and the beast - though Claridges is a somewhat faded beauty and Ramsay is an extraordinarily talented beast. But even his best friends couldn't call him smooth. He is difficult to interview because he can't really sit still, he talks tabloidese, hops from subject to subject, and delivers his insults in a flail of punches instead of with one smooth, deadly stiletto strike. It is dangerous to mention the f words - failed footballer - in his company but that is what he is, a Glasgow Rangers footballer to boot. And his face and manner are still far more suggestive of Ibrox Park than Claridges.

He only won his third Michelin star this year. It had been his dream for 14 years ever since, at 19, he entered Marco Pierre White's kitchen at Harvey's and saw what serious cooking was about. Marco, and his subsequent teachers, Albert Roux, Pierre Koffman, Guy Savoy and Joel Robuchon in France, taught him that three stars in the Michelin Guide was the highest accolade that any chef could aspire to. And all the time he was working towards that goal, starting at Aubergine when he was 26, winning his first star at 28, his second at 30, he dreamt of the day when he could join his teachers in this great pantheon of gastrogods. He fully expected to win his third star in 2000 - everyone told him he should get it then - but Michelin kept him waiting another year, which was infuriating because it meant he was the same age as Marco when he won - 33 - not younger, as he'd hoped.

And by the time he won he was the only three-star chef left in London, Pierre Koffmann having moved, Marco having given up cooking, and Nico Ladenis having handed back his stars. The mood had turned against Michelin. Marco says it went off when Derek Brown, the previous chief inspector, retired about four years ago - he says nowadays it sprinkles stars like confetti. But in any case critics like Fay Maschler and A.A. Gill had been arguing for yonks that Michelin - especially at the three-star level - was rewarding a type of restaurant that nobody actually wanted to eat at. The whole idea of worshipping at some hushed temple of gastronomy was passé when increasingly people wanted to eat out for fun and entertainment.

So anyway, here he is at the top of a very lonesome summit - how does it feel up there? 'The sad thing for me personally was busting a gut and working away as I did, at Aubergine and here, almost killing myself for six days a week and seeing Albert, Nico, Marco and all in front of me, and the dream of course was to be up there with them. It's kind of a bizarre feeling now because I'm there but there's no one with me. Marco - that was the greatest shame to me, having worked for him for that length of time, and admired him, and striving for that level of perfection. I don't know how he didn't want to sustain it for a longer period. He's a great chef but he's stopped playing - it's exactly like a footballer deciding to go into management - and we know deep down inside that great footballers never make great managers.'

Ah, Marco, Marco, Marco. Anywhere Ramsay goes in life, there is always this looming figure in front of him. The age gap between them is only six years (Ramsay is 34) but it feels like a generation. Ramsay was a 19-year-old nobody when he entered Harvey's kitchen - Marco was already getting rave reviews and hogging the gossip columns(and hoovering up all the models, though he prefers to forget that now). Ramsay as a young man imbibed Marco's 'philosophy' and still regurgitates portions of it today - 'The proof's in the pudding' and - my absolute favourite - 'Cooking is dog eat dog'. But the pupil is now rather wary of his master - not that they've fallen out, he insists, but they are both busy men. And the days when he regarded Marco as the fount of all wisdom are over. 'When you listen to Marco's philosophy, you've got to question: is it in the interests of him or the interests of you? Because Marco now, as opposed to being Britain's best chef, is Britain's number one manipulator - his manipulation now is better than his cooking.'

Marco is rather more generous about Gordon - he says he's head and shoulders the best chef in London at present, though he believes there are two contenders coming up fast behind him - his own Robert Reed at the Oak Room, and Marcus Wareing, whose new restaurant Petrus is co-owned by Ramsay. The big question, of course, is whether Ramsay now is as good as Marco in his heyday. Jay Rayner, The Observer 's restaurant critic says yes, even better: he remembers a meal at two-star Aubergine which was far more stunning than a meal at Marco's three-star The Restaurant. But Jim Ainsworth, editor of The Good Food Guide says no - 'There was a sort of magic about Marco's cooking, and Nico's - we gave them 10 out of 10, whereas Gordon Ramsay is still only nine. But I haven't eaten there for a while.'

One thing Ramsay has certainly learnt from Marco is the art of press manipulation, especially the value of a good feud to keep the column inches coming. Ramsay has so many feuds running on so many fronts, it's quite hard to keep track of them all but you can always rely on him for a good insult about Antony Worrall Thompson, 'the famous squashed Bee Gee' who with his friend Brian Turner constitute 'the Teletubbies'. Then of course there are his permanent bête noires, Fay Maschler and A.A. Gill. Fay Maschler crossed him a long time ago when she didn't like his famous cappuccino of haricots blancs - she compared it to toxic scum on a stagnant pool - and he responded with some deeply unchivalrous remarks about her age. He now blames her for the fact that his restaurant failed to be shortlisted in the recent Carlton Restaurant awards - 'Three of the chefs who were shortlisted were recently at Fay Maschler's house cooking her husband's sixty-fifth birthday party. So why the fuck do you think I wasn't shortlisted?'

The row with A. A. Gill is more complicated. Eons ago, Gill wrote something about Ramsay being a failed footballer, so when Gill turned up with Joan Collins to eat at Aubergine, Ramsay turned him away. He claims Gill insulted the waiter who asked to take his coat by saying, 'Don't you have one of your own?' This sounds more like a sense of humour failure - or perhaps a bad case of nerves? Perhaps he was afraid of what Gill might write? He concedes that Gill does know about restaurants, but he grumbles that, 'Gill writes about chefs as if they're idiotic little run-around dumb boys that have never had a proper education. And I suppose in many ways, kitchens are built on huge insecurities and so you're constantly scrapping for pole position, and you're far happier cooking than you are sitting down and trying to study an O-level. Fine. I suppose your security is your success and your key to success is your fine palate. But there's a journey to get there and a huge price to pay for it. So - would I kick him out again? I think I'd ask him to be constructive.' I duly relayed this to Gill who said he had no animus against Ramsay - 'It's a job not a jihad' - but on the other hand had no desire to try his restaurant again.

The one restaurant critic Ramsay deeply admires is Michael Winner whom he finds 'a fascinating guy'. Dearly though I love Michael Winner, I have to say this is rather an, ahem, unusual choice. But according to Ramsay: 'Over the last seven years I've learnt how to look after him. What I've learnt is, the minute you remove a plate, make sure the next one's ready, so it gives him very little chance to put his head up and slag off the glasswork or the pictures. He's a very tough cookie. He came in a few months ago and said to Jean-Claude [maitre d], "I'd like that table there". And Jean-Claude said, "Oolala, Monsieur Winner, that table is for six and there's only two of you". He said, "Jean-Claude. I Want. That. Fucking. Table". So Jean-Claude came to me in the middle of service and said "Oolala, Monsieur Winner is being difficult". I said: "What's fucking new? He says he wants the table in the centre, for six, and it's booked." But Michael Winner said: "Well put them in the bloody bar, serve them Dom Perignon and tell them they're here as my guests - I want that table. So he did it." And were the customers happy? 'Over the moon. Six free dinners. And then of course I tried not to present him with the bill but Michael said, "Gordon if I ask for the bill for those six people, I want the fucking bill". He is the most generous 60-year-old in Britain.'

Ho hum - I'd like to see Winner try that stunt at the Ivy or the Caprice - I don't think they're quite so impressed by bigshots. But anyway, with or without Michael Winner, Gordon Ramsay's restaurant is doing very nicely thank you. It is fully booked, Monday to Friday, for lunch and dinner a month in advance - and that means exactly a month in advance. If you want lunch at Gordon Ramsay on 29 June, you pick up the phone at 9 am on 29 May and keep dialling till you get through - but if you haven't got through by 10 you might as well give up. The restaurant has only 14 tables, but even so the takings on Bank Holiday Monday were £15,000 - £5,000 for lunch and £10,000 for dinner - 'big business' as he says. And he has no backers. His father-in-law Chris Hutchinson runs the business side, but there are no corporate accountants telling him to find cheaper lobsters - he is entirely his own boss.

Ramsay has never eaten in his own dining room; he says he wouldn't recognise even his most regular customers if he saw them in the street. He stays in the kitchen, supervising the 'pass', where the plates get their final titivation before going to the waiters. A few very favoured customers - Michael Winner for instance - are allowed to come and say hello to him in the kitchen, but he won't come out to say hello to them in the room. He doesn't do schmooze and despises chefs who do. 'I'm not a smarmy arse. I don't think you should walk into the dining room and grace tables, standing there like some starched stiff erection, gawping at customers and asking how the food was, going round shaking hands. I've never done that. Never. I can't suck up to people.'

But can you be such a puritan and a good restaurateur? A.A. Gill thinks not. His verdict is that Ramsay is 'a very clever chef but a lousy restaurateur. It's a shame because it contradicts the most elementary principle of food which is - it's not about ingredients, it's not about cooking, it's not about service, it's about hospitality . He never seems to ask the basic question: what are you doing this for ?'

I agree wholeheartedly with Gill for one very simple reason: I spent four hours over lunchtime with Gordon Ramsay and he didn't feed me, the bastard! He gave me an amuse-gueule , a mini gazpacho, while I was in the kitchen, and a little orange jelly which was delicious, but those were Hunca Munca titbits, not serious nourishment. I stood for hours at that bloody pass thinking, 'Soon I will faint with hunger, and I'll just lie there till they take me to hospital; the doctors will examine me, they'll find me seriously malnourished, they'll say "How did this happen?" And I will say I MADE THE MISTAKE OF GOING TO GORDON RAMSAY'S RESTAURANT AT LUNCHTIME.'

But even without the gnawing hunger, I think I still would have hated his kitchen. The atmosphere is strictly Borstal or boot camp - Gordon as the gruff drill sergeant barking at new recruits, terrified boys biting back tears, stoicism rewarded with a manly pat on the back and 'You'll know next time, lad'. You'd think they were building the Bridge on the River Kwai, not itsy-bitsy turrets of vegetables. But then I'm a woman. Ramsay doesn't approve of women in kitchens because he says they phone in sick with 'women's problems' and clutter up the loos. Also I suspect they might introduce a note of realism into this macho-men-grunting-over-béchamel scenario which might blow it all apart.

He claims his kitchen is packed with future Gordon Ramsays, it's like Manchester United in its depth of talent. And that was why it was so important to him to win his third star: 'Those guys can't work 15 hours a day for me and come out with mediocre status. I'm sounding like Marco the philosopher here, but this is a shit job to be in when you're no good at it. We all start off with our basic college course, we all get our first collection of horrendous knives, our floppy hats and hideous baggy trousers, we all start off the same, level-pegged. And after that it's to do with vision, and graft.'

So where does he get his vision and graft? Once, when Gordon was trying to get his younger brother Ronald off heroin (he is back on it now), he accompanied him to a family therapy session, and the therapist told him that he had an addictive personality. He was deeply offended - he's never touched drugs, never smoked, only drinks in moderation - but of course his blinkered perfectionism is a form of addiction. He once admitted that when he discovered cooking, 'I became obsessed. It was my escape from watching Mum and Dad waste their lives, and witnessing him trying to destroy her mentally.'

Like Marco, he suffers from hard father syndrome. Ramsay's father was a PE instructor, deeply devoted to the idea that his son should play for Glasgow Rangers. He was also - one might have guessed - a drinker, though Ramsay bridles at the word alcoholic. 'Dad's biggest problem - I suppose you could say like any alcoholic's - was he would always drink till the bottle was finished. And possibly I can remember the signs that Mum was concerned that he may have been an alcoholic deep inside. They argued, Christ! He did hit her once, and it was a grim, grim, grim weekend. You can always tell something's wrong when your mother's wearing a pair of sunglasses in the middle of winter.'

Gordon showed no talent at school except for football, but that was fine in his father's eyes because he was heading for Ibrox Park. When he was 16 the family moved back to Glasgow (from Stratford-upon-Avon) so he could qualify for Rangers, and at 17 he was signed. Twice he was picked to play for the first team. But he was racked by knee injuries - 'I remember coming back and sitting in the bath for two or three hours because my legs were in so much pain'. And then 18 months later the manager called him in and told him, he was being dropped, he wasn't good enough. 'Who likes being told at 19 you're not good enough? So I suppose when people say "you're so focused and driven now" - I could never afford to fail.'

Rangers offered to try and find him a place with a third division side, but although his father said yes, he said no. It was the first time he'd gone against his father's wishes - instead, he took his mother's advice and went to catering college. His father never forgave him, he said 'cooking's for poofs'. Soon afterwards he left Gordon's mother and Gordon barely saw him again.

Ramsay had no particular interest in cooking when he started. But he remembers the first time he felt a flicker of excitement, when the college lecturer started screaming at them and he thought, 'This is quite fun!' He liked what he calls the 'boisterousness' of it - the discovery that kitchens could be just as hard and macho as football dressing-rooms. 'Some people,' he explains, 'will wimp and disintegrate under the fridge but others will stand there, throw out their shoulders, ready to go for it.'

And then he went to Harvey's and 'Christ, you see a tiny bit of light at the end of the tunnel - I felt that the minute I walked into Harvey's kitchen'.

He worked 17 hours a day, learning everything he could from Marco and 'just obsessed with having a refined palate'. He never told Marco he had been a footballer, even though the kitchen brigade often played football in the afternoons. He was afraid that one day Marco would turn round and said 'you were a failed footballer and now you're a failed chef'. Marco trained him, handed him on to Albert Roux, then gave him some good advice - go to France (which Marco had never done), come back with something new to offer. Ramsay duly did, and, at 26, launched his own restaurant, Aubergine, which was soon fully booked every night, and notching up the Michelin stars. But in 1998 he fell out with his backers, A-Z, who sued him for £1 million. It ended in settlement, but cost him huge legal bills - 'I obviously can't go into great detail because every time I mention it I get inundated with horses' heads on the doorstep'. Anyway, he walked out of Aubergine and bought Tante Claire, Koffmann's old restaurant, revamped it, and reopened it in just three weeks. That was in September 1998 and he remembers that autumn and winter as the hardest of his life. His weight ballooned to 17 stone (from his normal 15) and 'I let myself go because I was totally possessed and completely obsessed with getting this place right'.

And then on 1 January 1999, his father died suddenly of a heart attack, aged 53. He had never met Gordon's wife, Tana, never seen his granddaughter, Megan, never eaten his son's cooking. They were on the verge of reconciliation - he was booked to eat at Gordon Ramsay on 25 January - but it was too late. Gordon insists, 'I didn't get depressed, I don't get depressed'. But it was only with the birth of his twins, exactly a year to the day later, that he felt the pain lifting.

His third star, this year, meant that finally he could accept being a failed footballer because no one could ever call him a failed chef. But as Marco told this magazine last month, winning three stars is good fun, keeping them is just a headache. And now Gordon Ramsay is attempting, with Claridges, to do something no English chef has ever done - run two three-star restaurants at the same time. The new restaurant opens in September, after a £2.5 million refit, and from then on, presumably, we can expect to see Ramsay doing his seven-and-a-half-minute sprint between Chelsea and Mayfair. 'Everyone's expecting me to fall, everyone's saying "Oh he's spreading himself too thin and Claridges is going to be the death of him". But bollocks. The only people saying that are the jealous bastards who didn't work hard enough to be offered that kind of position.' But how long can he keep it up? Marco has already retired from cooking at 40 - Ramsay thinks he can keep going much longer. 'I feel I've just started. I don't smoke, I don't drink [Marco does], I look at where I am and how energetic I feel - I have a very active body and a very active mind. And now with Claridges - I need the challenge. How long can I keep it up for? Wait and see. For me, the proof is in the pudding.'