CELEBRITY chef Gordon Ramsay's restaurant profits fell by almost 90 per cent according to his latest accounts, slipping from more than £3 million ($7.1 million) to £383,000.

His latest accounts show that turnover was down 14 per cent to £35.57 million while profits slid from £3.05 million to £383,325.

Meanwhile, net debt for the business more than doubled from £4.01 million to £9.48 million, while interest payments climbed from £279,485 to £545,563.

Ramsay and his father-in-law Chris Hutcheson, who is also his business partner, put £5 million of their own money into the business in an attempt to avoid it going into administration.

The celebrity chef earns up to £10 million a year from his TV programmes, books and live shows.

An adviser to the company told the Evening Standard the group's rapid expansion - when the chef opened 10 restaurants in 10 months in 2007 and 2008 - was to blame.

"It was sucking up cash to get restaurants off the launch pad. It's a classic symptom of a business in the growth phase," they said.

Ramsay admitted earlier this year that he had considered selling his £6-million London home, adding: "Ambition overtook me, we thought we could do anything, that we could not fail".

In addition to the slump in profits, Gordon Ramsay Holdings, his restaurant company, had to deal with an unpaid backlog of taxes, which totalled almost £8 million, a sum only being repaid this month.

The celebrity chef saw four of his London restaurants - the Savoy Grill, the Connaught, Petrus and La Noisette - close between December 2007 and January this year. However, both the Savoy Grill and Petrus are set to reopen.

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