Bolognese sauce (Italian: ragù alla bolognese) is a meat-based sauce for pasta originating from Bologna, Italy. It is customarily used to dress tagliatelle and may also be used to prepare "lasagne alla bolognese". In Bologna, ragù alla bolognese is known simply as ragù.

Outside Italy, Bolognese sauce often refers to a tomato sauce with meat (beef or pork) added, and typically bears little resemblance to ragù alla bolognese.

Ragù alla bolognese, as a sauce for pasta, follows the origin of ragùs in Italian cuisine. The first known reference to ragù as a pasta sauce dates to the very late 18th century, and originated in Imola, very near to the city of Bologna. The first recipe for a meat sauce characterized as being Bolognese came from Pellegrino Artusi and was included in his cookbook published in 1891. Artusi's recipe, Maccheroni alla bolognese, is believed to have originated from the middle 19th century when he spent considerable time in Bologna. In Artusi's era maccheroni was a generic term for pasta, both dried and fresh.

Marco Pierre White (born 11 December 1961) is a British celebrity chef, restaurateur and television personality. He is noted for his contributions to contemporary international cuisine, and his exceptional culinary skills.

White has been dubbed the first celebrity chef, the enfant terrible of the UK restaurant scene and the Godfather of modern cooking. White was, at the time, the youngest chef ever to have been awarded three Michelin stars. He has trained chefs such as Gordon Ramsay.

Marco Pierre White was the third of four boys born to Italian mother Maria-Rosa Gallina, who had come to Britain to learn English, and chef Frank White, who had struck up a conversation with Maria at the Griffin Hotel in Leeds while he was playing cards.

After marrying in 1954, they lived in a council house in East Leeds, and had sons Graham (1955), Clive (1957) (also a chef) and Marco. Six years later, Maria gave birth to a fourth son, Craig Simon. Two days afterwards, she collapsed and was taken back to St James's University Hospital, Leeds, where she died of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 38.

Gordon James Ramsay, OBE (born 8 November 1966) is a British chef, television personality and restaurateur. He has been awarded 13 Michelin stars in total and currently holds 12.

Ramsay is known for presenting TV programmes about competitive cookery and food, such as the British series Hell's Kitchen, The F Word, Ramsay's Best Restaurant, and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, along with the American versions of Hell's Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, and MasterChef.

Gordon Ramsay was born in Johnstone, Renfrewshire, Scotland, and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England from the age of 5. Ramsay is the second of four children; he has an older sister, Diane, a younger brother, Ronnie, and a younger sister, Yvonne. Ramsay's father Gordon (died 1997) was, at various times, a swimming pool manager, a welder, and a shopkeeper; his mother, Helen Cosgrove, and Yvonne have been nurses. Ramsay has described his early life as "hopelessly itinerant", as his family moved constantly due to the aspirations and failures of his father, who was violent. In 1976, they finally settled in Stratford-upon-Avon where he grew up in the Bishopton area of the town. In past public interviews, Ramsay has declined to describe his father as an alcoholic; however, his autobiography, Humble Pie, describes his early life as being marked by abuse and neglect from this "hard-drinking womaniser". At the age of 16, Ramsay moved out of the family house into a flat in Banbury.

Wolfgang Johannes Puck (born Wolfgang Johannes Topfschnig; July 8, 1949) is an Austrian celebrity chef, restaurateur, businessman and occasional actor. Wolfgang Puck restaurants, catering services, cookbooks and licensed products are run by Wolfgang Puck Companies, with three divisions.

He was born to Maria Worth and a butcher, who abandoned her before their child's birth. In 1956, Maria married Josef Puck, who adopted Puck. The marriage produced another son and two daughters.

Puck learned cooking from his mother, who sometimes worked as a pastry chef. He trained as an apprentice under Raymond Thuilier at L'Oustau de Baumanière in Les Baux-de-Provence, at Hotel de Paris in Monaco, and at Maxim's Paris before moving to the United States in 1973 at age 25. After two years at La Tour in Indianapolis, Puck moved to Los Angeles to become chef and part owner at Ma Maison restaurant.