Our Favorite Gordon Ramsay Cookbook Is Perfect For Chefs Of All Experience Levels

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Gordon Ramsay is one of the most entertaining chefs to watch on TV. With his explosive temper and sky-high culinary standards, he's been the center of many successful TV shows that have given us a peek behind the curtain of professional kitchens. Ramsay's nine restaurant chains are a testament to his culinary skills, and his knowledge of food definitely cannot be questioned — but is he as good of a teacher as he is a chef and entertainer?

Ramsay has published several cookbooks throughout his career, and there's one in particular that made the biggest impression not just on us, but also on the chef's audience. "Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course" is the best resource for those who want to learn from him in an understandable, digestible fashion — cooking meals for regular folk, using accessible ingredients and simple techniques. The book, first released in 2012, was initially a companion to a TV show with the same name that aired in the U.K., so its first iteration used the metric system and Celsius.

Ramsay has a big following in the U.S., though, and many American readers noted in their reviews of the book that they had to convert the measurements. So, in 2013, an updated version, titled "Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking," was released in the U.S., featuring the exact same recipes but using imperial measurements and Fahrenheit.

Some chapters in "Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course" do spotlight ingredients, but mostly, they center around the purpose of cooking. For example, chapters include "Good Food for Less," "Cooking in Advance," and "Cooking for One or Two." This type of division makes the book easier to navigate for beginner home cooks.

Another winning feature of the cookbook is the large emphasis on flavor, which, as one Amazon reviewer noted, "gets new cooks thinking like a chef." Several reviews mentioned how this book reshaped the reader's approach to flavor and got them out of a boring cooking routine by introducing more excitement on the plate. "I never knew I could cook like this," said one Ramsay fan, stating that "there are endless recipes to try with lots of variety." Beginner cooks can build up their confidence as they move through the recipes and learn the basic cooking skills, but, according to the readers, more seasoned cooks can get a lot from the book as well.

"I am a very good cook already but this book will get me to the next level," said one professionally trained chef in their review of the book, pointing out that Ramsay doesn't just share the techniques but also explains the reasoning behind them. It's not an easy feat to create a cookbook that speaks to multiple skill levels at once, but with this one, Ramsay really nailed it.