HE’S a rat, evolving in a festering pot of manure. I jump on his head and kill him.” There were minutes to go before the toughest move in his career and Gordon Ramsay was losing his temper as only he can. Dressed in whites, he leapt up and stamped his feet repeatedly, as if killing vermin. The glasses, the windows - the waiters – shook.

It was Thursday night in the belle epoque-style dining room of Le Trianon, Ramsay’s first French fine-dining restaurant, in Versailles. British and French diners were sipping champagne and joking before sitting down to their first meal. Behind the scenes, however, the entente was anything but cordiale.

The subject of the fiery chef’s rage? Not a hapless Parisian sous-chef who had overcooked the carré d’agneau but France’s vinegary restaurant critic, Le Figaro’s François Simon. “I’ve been caned and I haven’t even opened yet. You can kick me in the nuts when I’m open – but before? How is that possible?”

Last week Simon gave the new restaurant nul points before the first appetiser had been served. After touring Ramsay’s London establishments, he damned his cuisine with faint praise, describing it as “agréable”. For Gallic good measure, he went on to accuse Ramsay of spreading himself too thinly across his burgeoning gastronomic empire, leaving the head chefs to do the cooking. Going to a Ramsay restaurant was “like going to the dentist and finding that the dentist’s secretary is pulling out your teeth”, he sniffed.

Such a frosty reception is probably no worse than he could have expected. No Frenchman, especially a food critic, likes taking cooking lessons from a rosbif – especially one who has declared he has had “a bellyful of the French coming over here and telling us how crap our food is”.

“We have cheese on toast, they have croque-monsieur. They just have posher names. I think we should have a British stake in Paris.” Well, now he has.

Sitting on an oversized white leather banquette, like Poseidon on his oyster-shell throne, it’s clear that the 41-year-old Scot wants Le Trianon, in the Palace of Versailles grounds, to be the brightest Michelin star in his business galaxy. “Ask any chef and this is where they really want to succeed,” he said. “This is the one I’ll be judged on. This is the cradle of haute cuisine. I want three Michelin stars here.”

But the early signs are he has his work cut out. After Thursday’s opening a number of Paris critics had little praise for the chef. “There are so many good chefs here, we don’t give a damn about Gordon Ramsay”, said Gilles Pudlowski, who writes the annual Pudlo guide.

No British fine dining chef has “made it” in France, but Ramsay, who spent two years learning to cook in the French capital in his twenties, thinks a combination of his adventurous posh nosh, fine British produce and aggressive pricing will make him the first.

He pointed to the menu. “We’re serving carpaccio of octopus with some fish dishes. The French are so arrogant, they’re not interested in that kind of Japanese accenting. They say: ‘F*** off! We don’t want anything raw.’ Just wait till they try it. It’s the same with golden caviar from the albino sturgeon. They all cringe about it, but you’ll see.”

He is importing Scottish lobster and langoustines, Aberdeen Angus beef, and hand-dived scallops. “When I learnt to cook in France, chefs used to buy British produce and take the labels off. Well, we’re going to stand British and proud. When they ask me why I’m not using the scallops from Brittany I will say because I know I can get better.”

Because Ramsay’s giant kitchen at Le Trianon is providing all the catering at the 200-room Trianon hotel – including a second restaurant, the 75-seat Veranda brasserie, room service and banqueting – it will be profitable enough to enable him to undercut his local rivals. Main courses at Le Trianon will, he says, be half the price of most of the top French restaurants.

As the first lobster cooked in lemongrass bisque was served on Thursday, he flitted from the kitchen to the tables, to his mobile phone, talking fast in English and French and anxiously shifting from foot to foot. “He’s on the phone so much, he’s like a woman,” joked his head chef, Simone Zanoni. The truth is, Ramsay is more nervous than ever – and not just because of the bad crits.

His £100m, 10-Michelin star empire, which now comprises 20 fine-dining and mid-market restaurants and pubs in Britain and Ireland, on the Continent, in the US, Dubai and Japan, is suffering serious growing pains. In the past year he has been forced to sack his chef in New York after withering reviews. Two of his London restaurants, the Connaught and La Noisette, have closed outright and a third is shut for refurbishment.

New ventures, notably Foxtrot Oscar, his first bistro in London, have been panned. He has lost a coveted Michelin star or two and has been criticised by influential guides, notably Harden’s, which said he had “run out of steam”. He was even caught up in the outcry over TV fakery when he was forced to admit that he had not, as his show, The F Word, suggested, caught sea bass off the Devon coast.

He conceded that 2007 was his annus horribilis and admitted he hired “the wrong guy – a cook, not a chef” in his eponymous restaurant in The London (NYC) hotel in New York and did not spend enough time preparing for its launch. The criticism was upsetting and taught him a lesson, he said. He also conceded there were “inconsistencies” at Petrus in London and agreed with critics who said Foxtrot Oscar was “cold”. Of his TV nightmare, he said he “apologises to the sea bass of Britain”.

But he insists 2008 will be different. “It’s got off to a cracking start in France and I’m crossing everything for good luck. I’ve even tied a knot in my dick.” He insists that in Paris he will not repeat the mistakes of New York. “I’m going to eat, breathe and sleep Le Trianon. I can be here in an hour in a helicopter from London if I have to.” He will “rectify” Petrus. Foxtrot Oscar will be closed and remodelled.

Then he is going to get on with doing what he insists he does best: expanding. This week his first airport restaurant, Plane Food, opens in Heathrow’s Terminal 5. This summer Angela Hartnett, formerly his chef at The Connaught, will open an Italian restaurant, Murano, followed by his first hotel, the 10-bedroom York & Albany, both in London. They will be followed by Gordon Ramsay at The London hotel in Los Angeles, a branch of his Euro-Asian tapas-style Maze in Amsterdam and two Maze spin-offs in London. Berlin and Geneva are also on the menu.

The large hotel deals will, like the Trianon, be joint ventures with Blackstone, the leading US private-equity firm. Ramsay pays Blackstone rent but keeps all profits from running the restaurants, room service and banqueting.

There will be more pubs to add to the Warrington and the Narrow in London and, once it is fixed, Foxtrot Oscar will become his first £30ahead mid-market chain restaurant rolled out across Britain and America. He insists that Gordon Ramsay Holdings, which he runs with his father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson, can finance the roll-outs itself. Turnover last year was £48m and is forecast to reach £74m this year.

The mid-price restaurants and pubs will, he believes, cushion him from the economic down-turn. “Fine dining is still strong. We’re getting 600 calls a day at Claridge’s. But you have to move with the times or the times move you.” With revenue from his television shows in Britain and America growing fast – “I was offered a show at $300,000 an hour the other day” – he predicts that the group will double in size in three years.

The expansion will prompt further jibes from critics like Simon. The mention of the critic’s name prompts another explosion of rage. “He’s a f***wit. I mean, the last time you went to Nobu, did you ask whether Nobu himself was slicing the sashimi? No, you didn’t.”

So is Ramsay facing a coronation at Versailles or a beheading? At Thursday’s dinner, Guy Savoy, one of France’s greatest three-Michelin-star chefs, nibbled his Granny Smith parfait with bitter chocolate and champagne foam. “The service is a bit awkward because the chairs are too big,” he said. “But the food is magnifique. Monsieur Simon is rude about everyone and he’s wrong about Monsieur Ramsay.”

STAR CHEF’S EMPIRE

RAMSAY has nine outlets open in London. Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road has three Michelin stars, Petrus in Mayfair two, and Maze and Gordon Ramsay at Claridge’s one star each. His newest venue is The Warrington pub in Maida Vale. An outlet at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 is opening imminently. In the London Hotel in New York he has a signature restaurant, which holds two Michelin stars, a branch of Maze and a wine bar. In addition he has a site in Ireland, Tokyo, Prague, Dubai, Florida and now Versailles. Venues in Amsterdam and Los Angeles are on the way.

Times Recommends

• Equitable Life halts £7bn sale on market turmoil
• Potential buyers emerge to save Woolworths staff
• Terrorist attacks close Bombay Stock Exchange