Sexism claims lead to staff walkout at Gordon Ramsay restaurant

COOKS at the posh Gordon Ramsay restaurant in The London NYC hotel staged a walkout last weekend and have not returned to work since, after a female chef accused the tough-talking TV chef of turning the eatery into a frat house, the New York Post reported today.

The male chefs - who allegedly like to call themselves "Gordon's Soldiers" - are upset after commis chef Janet Kim, 31, said sexual harassment was running rampant in the restaurant, which has been forced to stay closed since Saturday.

And though Ramsay no longer owns it or runs it, his influence as a consultant and his popularity with the staff is causing his namesake restaurant to marinate in a toxic broth of brutality, Kim claims.

"We're way past 'Hell's Kitchen'," Kim said, referring to Ramsay's reality-TV cooking show. "It's more like 'Dante's Inferno'."

"It's outrageous that someone as famous as Gordon Ramsay ... would allow this to go on," added Jeffrey Brown, one of Kim's attorneys at the firm Leeds Morelli & Brown.




In a complaint filed with the state, Kim claimed she was groped, called a "whore" and propositioned at the two-Michelin-star eatery. When she finally complained, she was forced to make tiny hors d'oeuvres.

The trouble boiled over at the West 54th Street eatery last weekend when Kim reported to work after taking time off for her nerves, and the male chefs held a foodie mutiny.

Kim said her colleagues refused to work with her because of her harassment claims. This led to them being suspended without pay, Kim added.

"Every cook in fine dining is suspended for walking out. No one will talk to me," said Kim. Officials at LXR Luxury Resorts, which owns The London NYC, refused to comment, but a hostess who answered the restaurant phone at The London said they were suffering "labor issues."

The eatery is not expected to open until Tuesday.

Amid the turmoil, Kim has filed a complaint with the State Division of Human Rights against the hotel and Ramsay.

Neither Ramsay nor executive chef Markus Glocker returned requests for comment.