Gordon Ramsay, Britain’s feared and revered top chef, with seven Michelin stars to his million-pound culinary group, relentlessly pursues excellence and good service in the food industry, earning him enormous admiration from friends and enemies alike.

Notorious for his profane outbursts on his various television shows, he did not get Michelin recognition just through shouting and swearing at his staff. With a well-defined vision of simple, tasty food, he manages to bring out the best in those who work for him, many of whom have stayed with him for the past ten years. Even though he currently is swept off his feet with setting up restaurants and his television interests, food remains Mr Ramsay's top priority.

At 38, Mr Ramsay runs a culinary empire which employs 668 staff, and which last financial year generated sales of £30.9 million across all his restaurants. Gordon Ramsay Holdings, which oversees his restaurants, swung to a pre-tax profit of £3.8 million in the year to last August, after reporting a loss of £1.04 million in the previous fiscal year. In May, Mr Ramsay launched Maze restaurant in Grosvenor Square and Cerise at The Conrad in Tokyo. He is working on the next series of Kitchen Nightmares, where he offers his advice and insights to failing restaurants, which will go out in the autumn on Channel 4.

But beyond the peppery tongue, Mr Ramsay expects, and more often than not gets, the highest standards from his staff. He aims to inspire and educate, and advocates working as a team. The whole restaurant experience is important to him, taking a dish from conception to customer.

"Gordon is sheer polish," says Stuart Gillies, the head chef at the Boxwood Café in London, who has known Mr Ramsay since the mid-1980s when they were both working as commis in top London hotels. "His polish on a dish – how a plate looks from kitchen to table -- is 100 per cent perfection."

Mr Ramsay epitomises "true hospitality, old-fashioned hospitality, where everything is important," Mr Gillies says. "The tiny little details" are the ones that matter. "Gordon notices everything: the carpet, the tables, the decor of the room, the way the staff stand, the way the food tastes, the ingredients, everything."

Atul Kochhar, of Benares Bar and Restaurant, one of the finest restaurants in London, has known Mr Ramsay for about six years. The first Indian chef to be awarded a Michelin star, Kochhar says he learnt his moral values from Ramsay.

"Gordon put service and the customer at the forefront at a time when that was very much being forgotten," he says.

As a young chef Mr Kochhar was susceptible to trends and was unsure which way to go. And there were some arrogant chefs out there, advocating that the chef always knew best, he says. "I could have gone either way. But Gordon brought back the idea that the customer is always right."

Mr Kochhar recalled the time when Mr Ramsay was asked what he would do if one of his customers asked him for tomato ketchup. Without hesitating, he said, "I’d give it to him."

"I was impressed by that, very moved by that," Mr Kochhar says, who got his Michelin star in 2001 at the age of 31.

"You have to be self disciplined to work with him," says Marcus Wareing, the chef patron at the Michelin-starred Petrus and at the Savoy Grill. A major shareholder in Mr Ramsay’s group, he has known Ramsay since 1989. "Gordon knows exactly what’s going on in all his kitchens."

"I learnt a lot of true inner strength, as well as how to be generous with food – it’s better to get three portions out of a dish and make it beautiful than try to squeeze out four, to give customers satisfaction."

Mr Wareing says he learnt about restaurants, customers and restaurant critics by being in the restaurant and by the way Mr Ramsay spoke to his managers and educated them. "You heard everything and became privy to how to run a restaurant and the fundamental workings of a dining room, which you never learn just from the kitchen.

"I learnt to take my job through the restaurant doors and how to eat on the other side of the wall," he says. "Gordon is as good as the team behind him."

He is also a good communicator. "He has a great manner to discuss something without talking about it. He will guide you in the right direction and is good at inspiring you. He’s very subtle in the way he gets you to think about things and discusses the right thing at the right time," Mr Gillies explains.

Mr Ramsay feels it is important to continue to get his message across. In 2001 he created a scholar award to encourage and recognise the talents of young cooks across the UK. He admits that some his proudest moments come when any of his protégés succeed. He looked on as Angela Hartnett, at the Connaught, won her first Michelin star and was invited to Buckingham Palace as one of the most influential women in the country.

"Angela has been brought up with Gordon," Mr Wareing says. "She’s done amazingly. She’s now one of the most successful female chefs in the country."

But as Mr Wareing says, you measure a chef’s success by how busy and full his restaurant is. Ramsay has three restaurants in London with his name on the door and all three are full. "That’s how you judge a chef’s success – bums on seats."

But his staff are well aware that the books and television programmes are just icing on the cake. He may have brought his explosive style to our living rooms with Hell’s Kitchen, a reality TV show in which he trains celebrities as cooks, and Kitchen Nightmares. But the most important thing in Gordon Ramsay’s professional life remains the food.

"If it all went wrong and TV no longer existed, Gordon would get his blue apron back on and get into the kitchen again," Mr Wareing says. After all, Mr Ramsay's chosen luxury on Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs was a fresh vanilla pod.