Hell's Kitchen's Kori Sutton Reveals What Gordon Ramsay Is Really Like - Exclusive

If you have watched your fair share of cooking-themed television, you have probably seen Gordon Ramsay yelling at someone. The chef's ostensible anger issues have become a cultural meme of our times, but one that, according to those who have spent any meaningful time with him, is pretty inaccurate.

Chef Kori Sutton, winner of Season 19 of the show "Hell's Kitchen" surely ranks among that group, and when she spoke to Mashed during a recent interview, she expressed a different take on the chef. His outbursts aren't about uncontrolled anger, but about unbridled passion.

"I mean, Chef Ramsay is considered one of the best of the best in the culinary world. He is so diverse, from his multi-Michelin star restaurants, to his fish and chips spots in Vegas, to all his television shows that he does. He is such an amazing and talented person as it is. And working right next to him — first of all, he's 8,000 feet tall, no one really realizes how big, not even a personality, but as a person, how big he really is — when he's sitting there talking to you, he's not always a yelling, screaming a******. If he's yelling at you, it's because he's told you twice how to do it, and you're still not listening. You deserve to get yelled at."

During her time on the show, Sutton found the real chef Ramsay to be anything but someone you'd just as soon avoid, but rather someone whose advice and approval you'd actively seek.

"When he's there teaching you and talking to you, like one-on-one, it's really a fatherly moment," Sutton said. "He truly sees something in you. And he's giving you the time of day because he knows you can do it. And it's such an amazing experience to even be in his kitchen, have your name even be in his vocabulary for some time. And when he praises you on something, it's like, wow, this is a huge compliment that this multi Michelin star restaurant chef is saying: 'Good job. This is amazing!'"

Maybe chef Gordon Ramsay isn't quite the red-faced ranter he is depicted to be on many shows, but the often cutthroat competition you see on "Hell's Kitchen" is real enough, even continuing off camera at times, Kori Sutton revealed. 

"Off-camera, it's still competition," Sutton said, "because you're trapped in an almost dorm-type setting with 18 or 16 other chefs that are all of that very same mindset: 'I'm here to win and I'm going to win. I'm going to knock everybody down.' So you have some of those guys there that were just cool and just hung out and could be at least cordial. And then you have some [that] are just like: 'I don't care if you fall on your face tomorrow, I'm kicking you out.'"

"You always kind of had to be on your toes at all times. And even when you were sleeping, when you're brushing your teeth, when you're just eating breakfast in the morning. So it was one of those, well you kind of always had to have your guard up," she explained. Kori Sutton herself managed to avoid most of the drama while on the show primarily because of some experience she had gained beyond the professional kitchen.

"Obviously, being a mom, I kind of ran into a mom position in the house, where I was always cooking for everybody and making sure people drank [enough] water and ate food. So I was kind of fortunate to not run into a lot of drama."

Stay up to date with Kori Sutton by following her on Instagram. Try one of her delicious new salsas from Mama Kori Salsa.