Ramsay gets rush from his third star

Chef Gordon Ramsay said that he experienced "a huge adrenaline rush" when he learnt last week that he had won his third Michelin star.

Describing the news as "phenomenal", he said: "Michelin reassured me I'm here to bear standards, and that rang home - that I am the standard bearer."

His Chelsea restaurant, Gordon Ramsay, which seats 44, last week became the only three-star restaurant in the capital and one of only two in the UK. The other is the 75-seat Waterside Inn in Bray, Berkshire.

Ramsay learnt that he had won his third star after the guide's editors dined at the restaurant last Wednesday. He had no idea that they were there until 9.45pm, when his restaurant manager, Jean-Claude Breton, told him that they had "two very exceptional men on table nine".

Ramsay said: "We went into three hours of numbness. They left gone midnight. They paid the bill and I thought they were going to go home.

"I'd just gone to hell and back in the past two hours and they were going to go home. Then they asked if they could have a word with me - and I thought, ‘This is it'."

Ramsay, who was tipped to move from two to three stars in last year's guide, said that he was disappointed last year. He also said that he was "absolutely mortified" when London chefs Marco Pierre White and Nico Ladenis handed back their three stars to Michelin 12 months ago.

"I told the editors I was deeply hurt," he said. "They told me we were in a fabulous position and we had to rise above it. But they said they had never heard anything so ridiculous as chefs handing back something that didn't belong to them."

He added: "My ambition after the disappointment of not winning three stars last year was to put my head down and bring the level up."

By Amanda Afiya