The Menu Starter You'll Never Catch Gordon Ramsay Ordering At A Restaurant

Gordon Ramsay is known for a lot of things: the perfect Beef Wellington, how to make an idiot sandwich, concise uses of expletives, and, among other things, what not to order at a restaurant. So it should come as no surprise that Ramsay would have a short but (not so) sweet response when asked what to avoid when eating out.

Town & Country asked him just that, and the answer was surprising yet reasonable. Ramsay advised that you do a little fact-finding before ordering the soup. "Ask what yesterday's soup du jour was before today's special. It may be the case that it's the soup du month," the celebrity chef quipped.

To some, Ramsay's sarcastic answer might be brilliant. Think about it, the restaurant you're at on Wednesday has beef with vegetables for the soup of the day. But a glance at the menu tells you that they had Sunday pot roast as a special, and Monday was roast beef sandwiches, followed by a French Dip special on Tuesday. It would be easy to assume that the soup you're enjoying is made from leftovers from all of those meals — or it may have been the soup du jour for a day or two already.

Of course, Gordon Ramsay's advice may give you second thoughts when you're at a restaurant, though using up leftovers for soup might be perfectly acceptable repurposing at home. In fact, some might even call it budget-smart or being resourceful.

But, in a restaurant, you're paying for presumably fresh food. An immediate sign you might want more information is if the menu isn't printed with the daily soup selection or the description reads "Ask your server" instead. Or, if you ask for the daily soup schedule and the server shrugs that it's up to the chef, then you're most likely getting whatever is left over in the kitchen.

Of course, it's up to you how to proceed. If you're there on a Monday, and you don't mind some of yesterday's pot roast in your bowl, have at it. After all, some soups taste better the next day. Just know that if your server says it was "freshly made" that very day, some of the ingredients might have been yesterday's specials.