This isn’t the first time López-Alt has called Ramsay out for his abusive behavior. “People ask why I’m so anti-Gordon Ramsay,” López-Alt tweeted in 2017. “It’s cuz of his huge role in perpetuating sexism/bullying in the kitchen.” For the most part, Ramsay is known as an “equal-opportunity abuser,” going after men and women both, as restaurateur Jen Agg said in The New York Times.
López-Alt suggested on Instagram a “no cursing” rule in kitchens, “even in casual speech,” as a way to expunge Ramsay’s type of toxicity from restaurant kitchens. Still, he sometimes lapsed into vulgar language himself when attacking Ramsay on Twitter. In 2019, López-Alt tweeted that “Gordon Ramsay can go f*** himself” in response to another Twitter user who pointed out that López-Alt and Ramsay have opposite opinions about pineapple on pizza. López-Alt persisted with his point in the same thread: “@GordonRamsay is a bad guy. He uses his influence to normalize workplace abuse. His restaurants are abusive to their staff (mentally and physically – I have seen it first hand). He exploits orientalist stereotypes of Asian cultures to line his own pockets. He’s bad all around.”
By “orientalist stereotypes,” López-Alt, who has a Japanese mother (via his online bio), might be referring to Ramsay’s Asian-themed London restaurant the Lucky Cat.
