In fact, he sees the transition from one to the other as a "logical step".

"It's another form of service to the community," the former Uniting Church minister said.

And like other Uniting Church minister turned Labor parliamentarian Brian Howe, Ramsay, 52, now finds himself in a senior position of government.

It's a quick rise to the top for the first-time politician but a career he has inadvertently gravitated towards for decades.

The youngest of three kids, Ramsay grew up in Rockdale, so close to Sydney Airport you could see the faces in the plane's windows from his parent's front porch.

His father was the local pharmacist and as a boy, Ramsay would watch him make up the medications from the old glass bottles and help him count out the pills.

His mother was "a bit of a pioneer", an economic statistician for what is now the Reserve Bank.

Both died too early, Ramsay said, his perennial smile fading.

His mother died when he was 31 after a long and debilitating illness and Alzheimer's claimed his father years later.

He met his wife Lyndelle through a youth group when he was about 19. Her brother was a close friend and they met while ice skating.

They have two children and celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary in December.

His first job as an ugg boot salesman helped to put him through a law degree at Sydney University.

Later he worked for one of the largest commercial law firms in Australia doing mergers and acquisitions and - once the economy fell apart - corporate reconstruction.

But Ramsay had been raised within the Uniting Church and a career within it called to him.

He was ordained as a minister in the early 90s. His first congregation was in Kingsgrove, close to where he'd grown up, but in 1997 he came to Kippax Uniting Church in Canberra.

"The Howard government had just been elected in '96 so there had been a lot of job losses here in Canberra, the housing market had gone down. When we moved here you could tell that the mood of the community was really flat," he said.

The stories he heard during his time as a minister have stayed with him.

"I remember we had the Christmas Appeal going on one year and a young single mum came in and she was really apologetic because she was a day late for her appointment," he said.

"When she explained the reason it was because she had given birth the previous day and she was quite upset and [wanted to know] would the support still go ahead.

"There was a young man who moved to Canberra from interstate because he had employment lined up. He was a single dad with two young kids but between moving his job disappeared so when he arrived didn't have the money to be able to pay the bond so he was homeless.

"He couldn't go back as there wasn't any job or any accommodation to go back to so he spent the first several weeks living out of his car with his two young kids and he'd come in every day for showers and for food and things like that."

After 20 years at Kippax though, Ramsay said he had a "growing sense" that he could do some good as a politician.

At the October election, Ramsay held on to beat minister and party colleague Chris Bourke for the final seat in the Belconnen electorate of Ginninderra.

Ramsay's legal background - and the rest of ACT Labor's lack thereof - catapulted him into cabinet and a role as the ACT's first law officer.

But the executive role will also allow him to shape policy in other areas he is passionate about.

For example, he has played the piano since the age of four and composes and arranges music, so the arts portfolio was a natural fit.

There are lots of odd little parallels like that in Ramsay's life.

Just like his Hell's Kitchen namesake, this Gordon Ramsay loves to cook.

"I try not to swear as much as he does but I try at times to master some of the other Gordon Ramsay recipes. Dark chocolate and lime chilli pie is a good favourite at the moment," he said.

Something to keep in mind if Annabel Crabb ever expands her Kitchen Cabinet series to ACT parliamentarians.