LONDON — Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is facing a real-life kitchen nightmare after a British judge today ruled him personally liable for the $1 million annual rent on a London gastropub.

Ramsay accused his father-in-law, Christopher Hutcheson, of using an autopen machine to forge his signature on a document making Ramsay personal guarantor for the rent on the York & Albany pub, now a fashionable dining spot.

But High Court judge Paul Morgan ruled the contract was binding. He said that when the 25-year lease was signed in 2007, Hutcheson “was acting within the wide general authority conferred on him by Mr. Ramsay” to manage his business.

He said Ramsay knew that the autopen — a device often used by authors to sign multiple copies of their books — was “routinely used to place his signature on legal documents.”