The celeb chef opened up to ET about the new season of his National Geographic show, which premieres Sunday, June 7.
Gordon Ramsay is traveling the world once again to learn all kinds of new, exotic dishes from some of the farthest corners of the globe. Ramsay spoke with ET's Kevin Frazier about the second season of his show, Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted, and dished on how excited he is to get to make his wildest culinary dreams a reality.
According to Ramsay, the upcoming season features some of his "most exciting trips," including travels through South Africa, India, Tasmania and more.
"It is hard to believe it is work because it is an amazing passion," Ramsay shares. "But what we have done there ... it has just been a chef's dream come true."
The show, which is a blend of international travelogue, cooking series and documentary, features Ramsay learning how to cook local cuisine, and joining chefs on the search for traditional recipes. For Ramsay, however, the experience is particularly challenging because he tries to come into every new experience without prior knowledge
"I don't get pre-warned, I don't get to preempt, I don't get to look at questions," Ramsay says. "I drop myself in the thick of it and then I sort of struggled to get back up to their level. But I learned quickly."
For the 53-year-old celebrity chef, one of the most rewarding aspects is getting a chance to learn how to cook dishes he's never created and in ways he didn't know were possible.
"It's quite refreshing going back to becoming a pupil," he says. "There's something quite maverick about still being able to do that, you know, at my age."
While learning to cook local cuisine is the primary focus of the international series, Ramsay also frequently partakes in some wild and sometimes dangerous excursions -- from rock climbing to jumping out of helicopters.
One locale from the new season that proved to be particularly pulse-pounding for Ramsay was Durban, South Africa, which he said was "fascinating" due to the "incredible insight" he got from Zulu cuisine, and because of all the sharks.
One of the most thrilling aspects was when they had to jump out of a helicopter "six, seven hundred meters from shore because we couldn't land because it's too windy, and then swimming."
Ramsay said that the waves were big, but not too big, and that's when the local chef he was with gave him a frightening bit of advice.
"He said, 'No, forget the waves, look out for the great whites,'" Ramsay recalls. "He said, 'Yeah, they were here yesterday, so swim, but swim fast.' So that was the only time I thought, 'OK, great whites.' Everything else I was fine with."
Season 2 of Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted premieres Sunday, June 7 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on National Geographic.
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