Gordon Ramsay Collects Over 750 Restaurant Menus

gordon ramsay says he has spent more than two decades collecting restaurant menus, and the archive now runs to over about 750. That is not the sort of souvenir most chefs keep. It gives an unusual look at how a globally known restaurateur has tracked dining rooms long before they became part of his own brand.

Menus, wine lists, Mijanès

“Ever since I started dating [my wife Tana], we used to go out to restaurants early on [in our relationship], and we’d collect menus. It’s a very shabby thing to do, but I have some of the most extraordinary ones. We always ask for a menu,” Ramsay said to Elite Traveler. The collection also includes wine lists, and he said he has sometimes been charged for taking them home.

“Tana used to say, ‘should I get the chef to sign [the menu]?’ And I would say, ‘no!’ because back in those days, no one knew who we were,” he said. “But she would always ask the waiter, ‘would you mind asking the chef to sign it?’” That detail turns the collection into a record of how the couple moved through restaurants before Ramsay became a household name.

Over about 750 menus

Ramsay said the count is now “over about 750,” a number built from years of keeping menus rather than tossing them. He said, “We still collect them now when we go out.” He also said, “We were in a little place called Mijanès recently, which we always visit at the end of the ski season in March, and we go to this little [restaurant]. We’ve gone two or three times now, and we still look back at those old menus.”

The collection does not sit in a vacuum. Ramsay also said “Two and a half thousand [Lucky Cat chopsticks holders] get stolen every week,” a reminder that small restaurant items can become part of the story around his venues. That makes the menu archive feel less like a hobby and more like a long-running personal record of places, seasons, and repeat visits.

For readers, the practical takeaway is simple: the chef’s menu habit is still active, not a relic. Ramsay is still asking for menus when he goes out, still adding to a collection that has crossed 750, and still looking back at older ones from places like Mijanès.