Saucy Ramsay pans female chefs

The fiery-tempered chef whipped up a storm by pronouncing that women only "cheated" with ready meals and "can't cook to save their lives".

His comments yesterday provoked further outrage when he added that women were "only good for mixing cocktails".

The 38-year-old Michelin-starred chef, who is currently filming the new F Word series for Channel 4, said Britain has produced a generation of women who are incapable in the kitchen.

He said: "I have been visiting ladies' houses up and down the country with our film crew, and you'd be amazed how little cooking the girls are doing. When they eat, they cheat - it's ready meals and pre-prepared meals all the way.

"There are huge numbers of young women out there who know how to mix cocktails, but can't cook to save their lives, whereas men are finding their way into the kitchen in ever-growing numbers.

"Trust me: I am only telling you what I've discovered."

The comments might come as a shock to Ramsay's wife, Tana, who cooks for their four young children in a separate kitchen at home.

Clarissa Dickson Wright, who shot to fame as one half of television's Two Fat Ladies, branded Ramsay's remarks as "rubbish and about ten years out of date".

Dickson Wright, who was until recently the rector of Aberdeen University, added: "When I first joined the university there were young women students who didn't know how to cook. But I think the situation has completely changed over the past five or six years.

"Young women have read books by food experts and chefs and are now much better informed on what they should eat and how they should prepare it.

"I have noticed the sea-change because, unlike a lot of so-called celebrity chefs, I spend my time with real people, rather than the glitterati."

Ramsay, the only Scot to run a Michelin three-star restaurant, has also revealed his greatest dislike is "a lot of stick-thin glamorous models who never eat".

He said he had no time for customers who want to eat "off menu" - "Telling me they're on a stupid diet like the Atkins or GI [glycaemic index] and insisting I make something specially for them.

"They'd be out that door before they knew what was happening."

And he warned diners that restaurants have their own private version of hell for customers - table 13.

"It's the table that no restaurant ever has, because it's unlucky. If you hear the maitre d' telling his staff to put you at table 13, then get out quick before they do something horrible to you."

Ramsay, who had to give up on a football career with Rangers because of a knee injury, now runs a culinary empire employing 850 staff, with a 450 million turnover.

His flagship restaurant, Gordon Ramsay at Claridges, scored a perfect ten for the past three years.

But it has now dropped one point in the poll, voted for by the public, to share the title of the Good Food Guide's best restaurant in Britain.

The F Word is being filmed at the Belgo restaurant in Notting Hill Gate, west London, and begins airing on Thursday on Channel 4.