Gordon Ramsay wipes away tears as he reflects on the 'relief and freedom' he felt after receiving his third Michelin star

Gordon Ramsay was reduced to tears while reflecting on his eponymous restaurant  receiving its third Michelin star during an episode of The Rise of the Rockstar Chef.

The famous chef, 59, became tearful while recalling the enormous relief and happiness of finally winning the accolade in 2001.

It was a culmination of years of ambition, hard work and pressure before achieving his ultimate professional ambition.

The Rise of the Rockstar Chef is about how Gordon, Marco Pierre White and Heston Blumenthal transformed British fine dining into a global cultural phenomenon.

The series also looks into the personal rivalries, ambition and conflicts behind that transformation, after Gordon became Marco's protege at Harvey's in the eighties.

During the height of their careers the London restaurant scene was fiercely competitive and stars carried prestige and could make or break a chef's career.

Discussing how he felt after receiving his third Michelin star, Gordon began to cry and could be seen wiping tears from his face.

He said: 'Sorry. S**t.  I think in many ways it was a relief. And then just this f***ing weight just disappears and all of a sudden you've got this freedom. 

Paul Ainsworth, who worked with Gordon, reflected on the moment, and said: 'He just says guys, restaurant Gordon Ramsay is now three Michelin stars.

Gordon added: 'I went into the kitchen and just let out this incredible sort of joy and just this incredible moment that was like, f**k, you know we've done it.'

Paul said: 'And we just all screamed and cheered.'

Another contributor said that they had got '50 yards down the Royal Hospital road and we heard this enormous roar. It was like walking past a football ground when somebody scores.'

Paul said: 'Watching Gordon's trajectory from Aubergine to Royal Hospital Road to winning the third star. You don't even realise it then. That moment in time you're a part of something really special.

The series charts how these three chefs took the British restaurant scene by the scruff of the neck and gave it a good shake. 

Set against the backdrop of the Eighties, moving into Nineties Cool Britannia (when bands like Oasis and Blur were dominating the charts) it examines the revolution that turned a generation of chefs into rock-star figures.

Leeds-born Marco was their leader, a brooding bad-boy – 'like Jesus with a f***ing chef's jacket on,' as Gordon puts it, describing how he went to work for Marco in Harvey's, the Wandsworth restaurant where he won his first Michelin star. 

In the documentary he likens Marco to a cult leader, the Pied Piper, and a Mafia Don. There really aren't enough expletives to describe what it was like to be moulded by Marco. 

'It was a sh**fight,' says Gordon. 'You were in Marco's mafia and you were one of Marco's boys. The only way to succeed was to get out alive.'

Gordon recalls how Marco wouldn't bother using the staircase to come down into the kitchen from the toilet upstairs – he would simply swing down through a hatch in the ceiling, dropping into the kitchen, to rally his troops.

Actually it all sounds a bit akin to warfare, with a steady string of young chefs simply fleeing the restaurant by the back alley when Marco's unique managerial style got too much. It famously got too much for Gordon too. 

When he declared that he was striking out on his own, the relationship turned sour. On his last day in the job, big, tough Gordon Ramsay was reduced to tears.

What happened? We get the story from both men in this documentary – and it varies wildly although there was definitely a red mullet dish involved, and a contested 20 seconds during which Marco declared the fish was overdone. 

Gordon says he challenged his boss on this – only to find Marco grabbing him by the collar with both fists and pinning him up against the coffee machine. He recalls glass smashing, shards everywhere, the whole kitchen falling silent.

Marco shakes his head: 'Didn't happen.'

What they can agree on is that Gordon Ramsay cried during that altercation. 'Yeah, I bawled my eyes out,' he admits. 'I was upset, in shock. I was leaving but this level of aggression… Marco knew I could run that restaurant without him. 

'It was a relationship that was coming to an end. He wanted to finish me before I got to someone else. I've never forgiven him, no. Was it justified? No. It was just another scenario where he wanted to prove he was better than me.'

There followed some extraordinary years where both men seem to have set out to destroy one another. There was an astonishing debacle over a stolen booking diary. 

Was it stolen from Gordon's restaurant Aubergine by a jealous Marco? Or did Gordon stage the whole thing to discredit his old boss? Perhaps it suits both men that the matter is never entirely cleared up, but we are left in no doubt that, by the mid-Nineties, they had become enemies. 

'He f***** me over,' says Marco. Gordon says pretty much the same.

Where did Heston fit in? He had also trained under Marco, becoming the mad scientist of the operation, the culinary genius whose extraordinary experiments turned cooking into an art form. 

He tells us there was chaos in his Fat Duck kitchen too, but it was a different sort of chaos. 'On the second day after opening, I made the oven explode, which set my hair on fire, and I spent service with a bag of frozen peas strapped to my head.' 

While Marco and Gordon were slugging it out to be top chef, Heston pretty much snuck in and stole their crown, with the Fat Duck being hailed the best restaurant in the world.

It's all quite the riot, but there are some genuinely touching moments, for instance when Marco is shown archive footage of him and Gordon going fishing. 

He falls silent, smiling as he watches. 'It's nice to hear Gordon laugh,' he says. 'It's rather beautiful to watch the two of us together. Gordon and I go back 40 years. That's a lot of life.' 

Gordon's opinion on why Marco had asked him to go fishing in the first place is also interesting. 'He just wanted companionship. He wanted a friend.'

Which brings us back to this reunion. Amanda admits that once she had stopped checking the location of the fire extinguisher, she found it very moving watching all three men (who can claim an astonishing 27 Michelin stars between them) interact again, their shared history acknowledged.

'They are undoubtedly the only three chefs in the UK who can understand what they each have done and what it took to achieve such success. 

'They were rivals, but also hugely respectful of each other's achievements and we were very lucky with timing that it felt like the right moment for them all. I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say there was a lot of love and affection in the room.'

Hidden under the still-simmering rivalry, though