Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted shows TV chef’s no Anthony Bourdain – at least, not yet

Ramsay is clearly aiming to fill a food-travelogue void, but he lacks the boundless curiosity for things other than food, or the humility, of the late Bourdain

Still, there’s something strangely vulnerable about Ramsay in the series, for all the artificiality of reality television. This could become compelling viewing

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The National Geographic series Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted offers a cuddlier version of the fiery chef exploring the food cultures of Peru, New Zealand and Morocco. It could become compelling viewing. Photo: Ernesto Benavides/National Geographic

Published: 3:00pm, 23 Jul 2019Updated: 6:31pm, 24 Jul 2019

Gordon Ramsay has a new TV series, the appropriately self-referential Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, and it’s clearly aiming to fill the food-travelogue void left behind by the late Anthony Bourdain, the chef-raconteur whose signature moves no one can copy – not even Ramsay, a man with more energy than 100 suns.

Announced a year ago, less than two months after Bourdain died, Uncharted was met with fierce, white-fanged criticism when the show’s news release touted that Ramsay would be “discovering the undiscovered” and cooking against local chefs in some “friendly competition”.

A month after the announcement, Ramsay suggested that all of us wait to judge him after viewing Uncharted.

Three episodes into the debut season of the National Geographic series and I’m ready to issue some opinions: Uncharted presents a cuddlier, self-deprecating version of Ramsay, a Michelin-starred chef who willingly turns the tables on himself so that he’s the neophyte suffering for the sake of something to eat.