Hell's Kitchen/Awesome

Season 1

 * We have Elsie who was famous for being "a mother of six". Well, when she was one of the last four contestants and had been chewed out by her fellow competitors (Although it was slightly her fault cause as she was on TV she stated how she won the challenge for that day) and is off to be eliminated. Ramsay knew something was up and had questioned her if she was fine. Elsie could've taken the chance to chew out her fellow competitors...she took the blow herself. Sure she was eliminated, but she showed much grace and maturity during that moment and kept her head up high the whole time.

Season 2

 * In an early episode, Heather, who would eventually go on to win the entire season, she burned her hand (but recovered), and was forced to sit out the rest of the service...but that didn't stop her from directing her team to victory as she waited for the ambulance to arrive.
 * Heather also tore Garrett's ass in two royally after the latter made an off kilter comment about women cooking for men after a hard day at work. To say that Heather didn't take kindly to that would be grossly understating it.

Season 3

 * Julia from Season 3 was one of the biggest underdogs in the entire series. A simple Waffle House chef from Atlanta who pretty much didn't fit with everyone's fancy backgrounds, she was able to keep her calm in the kitchen and lead both her team (and once the Blue Team) out. Ramsay was so impressed that he would personally send her to Culinary School so that she could eventually come back to win the competition hands down.
 * As much as it was a fail, there are some laughs and satisfaction to be had watching Josh get kicked to the curb in his final service, doing so poorly that Chef Ramsay threw him out of the game in such a vitriolic fashion that it is glorious to watch. Especially considering Josh had been an Elimination Houdini up to that point.

Season 4
"Petrozza: You cold bitch, you finally feel like you have a heart? Why, because you know there's a good chance that your ass is going on the chopping block, that's why you feel like you have a heart? Or are you just full of shit?"
 * In Season 4 we had Jen, THE prototypical Reality Show cutthroat bitch. Near the end of the season, she remarks that the previous service practically gave her a heart attack. We immediately cut to a Confession Cam with Petrozza, the man Gordon praised for being selfless and polite, who saw right through her façade and promptly chewed her out for her ass kissing ways:

Season 5

 * In Episode 2's scallop cleaning challenge of Season 5, Giovanni managed to score an impressive 13 out of 15 acceptable scallops, which is not only the best result in the challenge, but it contributed heavily towards the blue team's victory.
 * As inept as Ben can be sometimes, he demonstrated great knowledge of beef in the next episode, whose challenge involved identifying the 8 cuts of beef, and then locating each cut on the cow using a cow prop. Ben not only identified each cut very quickly, but also where on the cow they come from and won the challenge the men as a result (even after Seth made a (cow's?) ear of it by undoing most of Ben's correct answers).
 * After Lacey was ejected mid-service in Episode 9, the remaining Blue Team members of Robert, Ben, and Danny quickly banded together, and worked flawlessly for the rest of the service a won in due time. Chef Ramsay himself even commended the men's teamwork.

Season 6

 * JP's crowning moment of awesome in Episode Two: "Ladies first". After he dished out the "Listen to ME!" against Van, who packed a lot more muscle than JP.
 * Though it wasn't quite enough to win the Shrimp Challenge of Episode 2, Suzanne delivered the best result out of both kitchens, with all 10 of her shrimp being approved.
 * Also, Amanda put up an excellent result in the same challenge; feeling that she had to redeem herself for an abysmal first service, she produced 9 good shrimp.
 * Who were the two final contestants? Dave and Kevin, both of whom were injured (fractured wrist and two sprained ankles, respectively). Dave won.
 * Dave also had a Crowning Moment an episode before. Each contestant had to cook a dish of a certain style (Mexican, Indian, and one other) for master chefs of that style. He got Indian, which he had admittedly never cooked before . He ended up winning the challenge despite his mistake of using pork.
 * When there are only six contestants remaining, the dinner service started off so badly that, for the first time ever, Gordon and sous chef Scott walked out of the kitchen. Immediately, Tennille and Kevin took charge of the kitchen themselves, managing to rally up despite the mistakes of others and Suzanne's unwillingness to send food out. Cue Ramsay returning and kicking out those who were doing badly while Tennille, Kevin and Dave finished the service themselves with no more mishaps.
 * The blue team's performance in Episode 5, the Welcome Home party: in the challenge, the men won the challenge easily thanks to Robert's leadership, and in the service, they managed to complete their service well ahead of the red team, and had very few mishaps along the way (the only ones being Van's frying pan catching fire, and Jim getting overwhelmed on the grill, and even then he had help from Kevin). The women were stuck on their first entrée just as the men were finishing up their last ticket, and the latter (minus Kevin) were sent in there to help the ladies finish the job.

Season 7

 * In an early episode of season 7, the entire red team was pulled from service. Gordon and sous chefs Scott and Andi cooked everything by themselves and finished the service.
 * Happens again in season 9. Gordon threw out the entire red team except for Jennifer in the middle of service. Jennifer (along with Andi and Gordon), went on to finish the service spotlessly.
 * Jay, Jason, and Ed managed to survive the entire teams format without losing a dinner service to the opposing team, with their only losses being joint losses. That 7 out of 9 clear wins, and only 2 joint losses. In addition, all 3 men, along with Salvatore, have the record for the most consecutive services wins, with 5.

Season 8

 * In the first episode of season 8 to feature the final six, black-jacketed contestants, they had to create a dish and have it judged by a panel of five three-Michelin-star chefs. The judges each held up a numbered card (like at the Olympics) for presentation and then again for taste; the best score any judge could award for either category was 10. It looked like Gail, with a score of 87, would win the challenge, until Russell presented his dish...and received perfect scores in both categories.
 * The Season 8 blue team completely fell apart in one service, and Ramsay started kicking them out of the kitchen one by one. Eventually the only chef left was Trev who, despite coming within an inch of being thrown out despite being in the winning team during the previous episode, finished the blue team's service by himself. Even though Trev has largely been The Scrappy of Season 8 (with the obvious exception of Raj and Sabrina), it was hard to deny he had kicked ass just this one time.
 * Nona surprised everyone with a great palette by scoring 3 out of 4 on the Blind Taste Test, helping the red team win that challenge, and later winning the Taste It, Now Make It challenge. Her palette was the biggest reason behind her eventual victory over Russell at the end of the competition.

Season 9
"Jennifer: Shut up for five fucking seconds! That's the problem: You don't shut up! Cut to Gordon looking slightly shocked."
 * Jennifer from Season 9 losing her shit with Elise, who has been blaming her own problems during service on the rest of the team for 8 weeks now. Watching the nice, even-tempered Jennifer finally ream out the Queen Bitch (and actually getting her to shut up!) was pretty cathartic. The following is from the 10th episode.


 * Probably a small one, but early in Season 9, Sous Chef Andi had enough of Elise's bickering and lack of respect once during prep, and told her she needed "to show some fucking respect." This is the first time Andi finally had to tell off a contestant.
 * That wasn't the last we see of Andi either: she got fed up with Tiffany's poor attitude in a Season 10 episode, to the point where she actually kicked her out of the kitchen! Not even Scott has done that!
 * Your mileage will vary, but in Season 9, Tommy got kicked out of the kitchen along with Jennifer (who was assisting him on appetizers) and Elise (who consistently messed up on fish). After calling back the team to chew them out and send them to the dorms, Tommy stayed behind to ask Ramsay why he got sent out, since Jennifer was the one making almost all the mistakes on the station, such as miscommunicating and taking his dishes up before they were ready. Chef Ramsay took it about as well as he takes any chef disputing his decisions, and ended up informing Tommy that he would "stick his head in the oven and talk to him through the gas burner!" Tommy's response? "Do it!"
 * During the finale of Season 9, Paul, despite losing the final tasting challenge to Will and being saddled with Carrie and Elise on his team, manages to pull out a win. He does so by being the sole chef the entire season to get Carrie and Elise working together. What's more, Elise ended up being Paul' s MVP that night, finally putting her hatred of Carrie to bed (even though there was still some animosity), actually cooperating with the team without arguing with them.

Season 10

 * Robyn had a minor one in the first episode - cooking her signature dish perfectly and then, while the other women were making crude sexual jokes ("How do you know when a scallop's cooked perfectly? ") she got up and studied in the living room, and was one of the only well-prepared women on the team.
 * The first time Clemenza was nominated, Ramsay was concerned that the former wouldn't be able to recover. Cue Clemenza giving a very passionate plea as to why he should stay in the competition, earning him not just another night in Hell's Kitchen, but also a standing ovation from the Red Team.
 * Justin made Hell's Kitchen history by scoring the first ever 4/4 on the Blind Taste Test challenge, especially coming right off the heels of a Hot Wing eating contest with competitive eater, Joey Chestnut!

Season 11

 * Zach in Season 11 may have become a total jerkass as the season progressed, but he does get one major moment of awesome to himself in Episode 13: after a disastrous dinner service, the men nominated Nedra without hesitation, resulting in her screaming at the men, ranting about why she shouldn't be up for elimination, as she had been doing while she was on the Red Team. Zach makes it clear that they are not on the red team, refused to give in to her whining, and asserted that she is going up on the chopping block, without an ounce of fear by the way.
 * Jon definitely deserves a mention; this man almost never put a foot wrong during challenges, but had to endure an obscene amount of punishments across the entire competition (13 to be exact) because his talent was overshadowed by the general inconsistency and incompetence of his teammates. In spite of that, he never let his eyes off the prize and made it to third place, even keeping his jacket.
 * He also became the first non-winning contestant to find employment within the Gordon Ramsay Group after his season, and worked under the previous season's winner, Christina Wilson. Now that is a high honour for someone who didn't win!

General
"Chef Ramsay: "...aye, who's this man throwing food on our hotplate? Well talk to me then!" Customer: "Medium?" Chef Ramsay: "Aye aye aye listen to me: don't come up here acting like you're some little gym bunny! Now do me a favour: that his [Jean Phillipe] job, you fuck off!" Customer: "You trying to poison me?!" Chef Ramsay: "Poison you!?!? What a fucking dick! It's beef you fucking idiot, you're eating tartare! You never heard of that, have you?" Customer: "It's low grade beef, at best." Chef Ramsay: "Go and have a shave you fucking knobhead!" Customer: "It's low grade dog food at best..." Chef Ramsay: "Standing up here like some fucking jerk. Stand strong, buddy! [mocks his tough guy act] Push your arms out! You look like a fucking quail!""
 * Rarely happens, but moments that show a customer going up to Ramsay and complaining while he's trying to work the kitchens and/or being a real douche about their complaints or being really rude to Ramsay, Ramsay will tell them off.
 * Case in point, when one lady decides she had waited for her food long enough and confronts Ramsay about it, he didn't even bother looking at her when he waved her off and said "Take the giraffe back to the table, yes?"
 * The last time Chef Ramsay dealt with a rude customer was in Season 7, he absolutely eviscerated him and proceeded to mock him on his way back to his table in what is probably the most epic takedown of a rude guest ever seen, so much so that no customer has ever tried it again after this! The exchange went something like this:

"Ramsay: Right. Well, I'll get more pumpkin and I'll ram it right up your fucking arse. Would you like it whole or diced?"
 * Another one from Season 2, when a customer comes up to Ramsay and whines about his risotto not having enough pumpkin in it: