Hell's Kitchen/Epic Fail

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Given the high pressure and stressful nature of any kitchen, mistakes are bound to happen at some or another. Hell's Kitchen is no different in that respect, but then you have these mistakes; mistakes that often tend to be so catastrophic that Gordon Ramsay will either boot an individual/the whole team out of the kitchen, or worse, shut it down completely. Whether these mistakes happen due to poor communication, general stupidity, or pure Genre Blindness, here are some of the most notable examples:

Signature Dishes

The first major challenge of every season, this is an opportunity for the aspiring chefs to show Chef Ramsay what they can do. So naturally, there are a few contestants who leave a crap first impression early on. These include:

• Rock in Season 3 was the first contestant to use pre-made ingredients in his signature dish, in this case: frozen gnocchi. Funnily enough, Rock went on to win that particular season.
• Matt's Exotic Tartar in Season 4: a bizarre dish that had raw venison, quail egg, scallops, caviar, lime zest, olive oil, and white chocolate....oh, and capers as well. It is the first dish to make Chef Ramsay vomit!
• In Season 6, Amanda presented Margareta French Toast with Tequila Butter, a dish that only takes 3 minutes to make.
  • Melinda's Poached Lobster Tail with Portobello Mushrooms lacked the key ingredient: the lobster tail! Ramsay trashed that one without tasting it.
  • Even Dave couldn't get a leg up with his Ostrich and Brussels Sprouts; the meat was seasoned well and had a lovely colour on it, but he undercooked the sprouts, which on their own cost him a point. Same thing with Joseph's veal chop, which had the same criticism as Dave's dish. Only difference is that Joseph started getting lippy about it.
• In Season 7, Jamie presented a Chicken Kiev... that still had a toothpick in it! So insulted was the Chef that he refused to even taste it.
  • Holli, that season's winner, presented Halibut wrapped in banana leaves. As she struggled to name the part of India it was supposedly from, Ramsay tossed the leaves, and then the rest followed after one bite. This, along with a few others after her, shows that a bad signature dish doesn't rule that contestant out of the running.
• Antonia's Mardi Gras gumbo caused another regurgitation, as Ramsay starting puking into the bin next to him; this time though, he got the other chefs to share the pain by having them take a mouthful of stuff and pass it along. In particular, Rob called it repulsive (and said he'd rather have a cat shit in his mouth), Nona couldn't even describe it, and Vinny likened it to a bowl of mud. Naturally, Ramsay used it as the tie breaker against the women.
• Jonathon's Punch Drunk Chicken: it already looks a mess when you look at it, but what really annoyed Gordon though is that he pulled the pineapple ring out of a can, giving the excuse that he had a limited time to make it. Gordon threatened to eliminate him on the spot for that one!
• In Season 11, Susan served Chef Ramsay raw lamb chops! He even questioned if she was trying to kill him, they were that raw! On top of that, the cuscus she served them with was overcooked. Once again, he threatened to eliminate Susan on the spot. Not helping her is that she not only had a smug look on her face as she was getting chewed out, but lamb would become the biggest running joke of Season 11.
• In Season 12, Mike's Cheese Tortellini was pre-packaged! As were the tomatoes! Gabriel summed it up best: "His whole meal came out of a box!"
• The following season (13), JP finished his Boston-style baked Haddock with 20 minutes to spare, meaning he had to cook it a second time; it ended up being very dry. As expected, Ramsay threatened to give him the boot on the spot for it.
  • That season's winner, La Tasha, served grilled watermelon! Unsurprisingly, it scored a 1/5.
• Kevin (no, not that Kevin) from Season 15 served Chef Ramsay what looked like a Caesar Salad on top of a pizza, which on its own baffled him, but Kevin then reveals that he used a pre-made pizza base and pre-made Caesar dressing! Like with JP, Ramsay threatened to eliminate him on the spot.
• In the All Stars season, Robyn prepared a salmon dish for Ramsay; but not only did he have her opponent Benjamin taste the skin (he called it very salty), but she was the only contestant that season to score a 1/5.

Season 3

• The now infamous "Lame Duck" incident in Episode 5; under Melissa's leadership, the Red Team attempted to serve a duck breast to a soon-to-be married couple for their wedding reception, but the team had no time to prepare any garnishes for it. And on top of that, the meat was unseasoned, and was overcooked. Gordon was furious.
• Josh hasn't had a good service while he was on this show, so many fans were curious as to how he made it to black jackets, but that's besides the point: in the first service of that season's black jackets, Josh irritated Chef Ramsay early on by cooking multiple pans of risotto before they had even opening the restaurant. Even after being reprimanded for this, Josh continued to cook food ahead of the orders, this time spaghetti. When one of his pre-cooked risotto's comes back undercooked, Gordon has enough and eliminates Josh mid-service, becoming the first contestant to be eliminated before service had ended.
  • While mid-service eliminations became more common as the show goes on, as of Season 19, Josh remains the only black jacket chef to have been eliminated in this way.
  • For the editors, whether you watch this scene back with or without the swearing left in, when Ramsay first tells Josh to take his jacket off and fuck off out, he does shouts so loudly that the censors couldn't even hide it!

Season 4

• Season 4 had one of the worst starts in the show's history, especially from the Blue side. After Bobby failed to impress as a leader, the captain's badge was given to the comparatively petite Louross, who managed to pull the team together 3 hours in. Unfortunately, by the time they served an appetiser, the customers had already left.
• In Episode 3, Jason is in charge of desserts, which he described as tedious while being a sexist prick about it ("women do desserts". His words, not ours!) When the soufflés aren't rising properly, and Chef Ramsay presses him on the matter, Jason suggests rubbing sugar, butter, and cocoa around the rim to stop them from sticking (which he should've done in the first place!). Upon hearing this, Ramsay finds the nearest table, and pounds it with his head. So in other words, Jason was so inept, he became one of the few chefs to actually fuck up on desserts!
• Craig's disastrous performance in the Chicken Carving Challenge that singlehandedly cost the men that particular challenge; he managed to hack off 6 pieces of chicken, which is more than the entire Red Team, which only hacked off 4 pieces between them. This made it impossible for the Blue Team to even tie, thus impossible to come back from it.

Season 5

• Normally, Paula was an excellent chef with strong challenge performances, but not in Episode 2 where she put in the worst result of either kitchen in the Scallop challenge; out of a batch of 10 scallops she'd prepared, Paula only had 1 that was any good. For some reason, nobody called her out on this.
• In Episode 3, Ben misinterpreted Gordon's call of "Desserts, pick up" believing it to mean "bring the desserts now". This is especially moronic seeing Ben could easily have asked for clarification (even if he would get a bollocking for it), but the fact that he did this before a single appetizer was sent out only made Ben look completely stupid to where even resident Butt Monkey Seth commented on this!
• Seth singlehandedly ruined the Blue Team's chances for completing that same episode's Steak Night service, by butchering a fillet so badly that he can't even blame bad knife skills for it, cutting so much meat off the joint that Giovanni described it as if Seth molested it with a jackhammer.
  • Speaking of Giovanni, he struggled to cook meat properly that episode, despite his background as an executive chef...in a steak house!
• In Episode 5, J served a salad that still had the butt of a lettuce in it! He tried to claim he didn't see it, but come on; nobody was buying that excuse!
• Episode 8 was a miserable performance from J, who managed to put the kitchen in the shit immediately by overcooking the restaurant's supply of rice for the risotto for both kitchens! This forced Chef Ramsay to take the risotto off the menu for the night, and for serving raw rubbery scallops, J was booted from the competition mid-service.
• In Episode 10, Carol made such a complete pig's ear of her gratin dauphinois that after a desperate bid to save them, the Red Team had to prepare a quick alternative. Feeling that she had given up (and that she had sabotaged the team), Gordon Ramsay does something unprecedented, and eliminates Carol for her disastrous performance, despite the Red Team actually winning that evening's service.

Season 6

• The opening service was a massive shitshow; food was being wasted left, right, and centre, Lovely disappeared for almost an hour, and Louie was kicked out of the competition before the opening service had even ended! By the time Gordon ordered both kitchens to switch everything off, the Red Team had failed to service a single entrée.
• Tennille only producing 1 acceptable shrimp out of a batch of 8 in Episode 2's shrimp challenge, and singlehandedly cost the Red team a win.
• The second service was somehow even worse than the first, with Tennille backing up the Red kitchen, Tony fucking up on fish, and everything just descending into total chaos. It got so bad that Chef Ramsay had to resort to drastic measures...by having the contestants in both kitchens serve shrimp cocktails. That should tell you how bad things got that night!
• The entirety of Episode 5 was this for the Red Team: in the Welcome Home challenge, Suzanne ignored every cue from the special guest and made dishes that she knew rather than relaying the important details to her team, even stamping out Tennille's suggestion for soul food, which the guest liked. In the service, Tek had so many problems working the grill that by the time she had gotten an acceptable piece of meat up to the pass, it was halted by Amanda's raw lobster tail, just as the Blue Team were about to send out their last ticket, meaning that when they came in to assist, they had to help the ladies serve all of their tickets.
• Kevin and Van both failing to identify seafood in the Blind Taste Test challenge. A spectacular fail for both men because Kevin is from Connecticut, were seafood is rather prominent, and Van is a fish cook!
• The first black jacket service went south so badly that both Chef Ramsay and Sous Chef Scott decided to walk out of restaurant altogether! If it weren't for Tennille, Kevin and Dave, that service would've tanked past the point of no return after Gordon and Scott came back.

Season 7

• During the Pork challenge in Episode 5, Nilka had served Chef Ramsay an unflattering dish consisting of blood sausage with a prune puree (with a lot of prodding from Scott). It is apparently so nasty there Ramsay also threw up from it. What really cost the Red team in this challenge however, is the final dish served by Maria; it was a sweet potato soup with a ham hock garnish. The problem with it is that the ham hock was supposed to be the main ingredient, and the sweet potato was the garnish. Ramsay disqualified it as a result, giving the men (and Autumn) the win.
  • Fran suffered from a severe case of Genre Blindness when picking nominees for elimination in the same episode also left a lot to be desired. Having been named "Best of the Worst" in an otherwise terrible service, she had to pick two teammates to eliminate, but showed poor decision making by picking Nilka instead of either Scott or Siobhan. Maria was a no brainer, but Fran showed how gullible she was when Scott manipulated her into saving his ass in the dorms beforehand, by claiming that Chef Ramsay will eliminate both him and Maria if they are both put up. What Fran should've realised is that a) Siobhan was bad enough to warrant a nomination that night, b) Chef Ramsay doesn't do double eliminations outside of Black Jackets (at least, not until Season 11), and c) Ramsay can, and will, eliminate anyone he thinks deserves it regardless of whether they were nominated or not.
    • That last point is one that Fran has absolutely NO excuse for considering Mikey was eliminated three episodes back despite not being nominated that night, so she has seen this happen first hand, and came to the conclusion that even if she did spare Scott by not nominating him, his safety wasn't guaranteed since Gordon will call him up anyway (and he did).

Season 8

• Sabrina managed to piss off Chef Ramsay during the signature dish challenge without even doing much; while he was talking to the new crop of chefs, Sabrina yawned out loud, catching Ramsay's attention. He then proceeded to accuse her of being bored, get her a chair to sit in, mockingly address her as "Baby Spice", offer to get her a drink, and finally threatened her with an on-the-spot elimination, all before he even tasted her food! You would have to be a special kind of ass to piss off Chef Ramsay that quickly!
  • Oh, and when it was eventually her turn to present her dish, the first thing she does? Sabrina: "This is- do you want me to take it [the lid] off?" Ramsay was flabbergasted by the sheer cluelessness on display in that moment.
• The opening service was almost as bad as Season 4's. While Sabrina sent up a beef wellington and a rack of lamb before her team was even ready, the men didn't get a single appetizer out until 1 hour 45 minutes in. Oh yeah, Boris taking the piss out of Chef Ramsay thinking he wouldn't notice probably didn't help on that front, either.
• Pretty much every mistake Raj made could qualify, but his biggest one was using up the Blue Team's supply of Dover Soul (with 3 on ORDAAAHH!), forcing Ramsay to send him into the dining room to apologise to the affected tables. In a bizarre case of Skewed Priorities, Raj thought he'd weasel out of it by arguing that his jacket was too dirty; even when Ramsay tells him to fuck off, Raj tries it plead his case to Scott. His fate was sealed after that, and was sent home that night, despite the Blue Team miraculously winning the service.
  • Before that though, in the same episode, the challenge involved cooking scrambled eggs for the US Coast Guard, in which the Blue Team failed to serve even one table. The Red Team had to step in and do it for them!
• In Episode 4, The Red Team finished their service 7 tickets ahead of the Blue Team, and had to go into the Blue kitchen (to Russell's dismay), and assist them. However, even with both teams in one kitchen, they let a piece of pork die at the pass, which was enough to prompt Ramsay to kick both teams out and declare them both losers, despite {once again} the Red Team finishing well ahead of the Blues.
• Sabrina and Rob both scored 0/4 in the Blind Taste Test, but both somehow misidentified filet mignon as chicken! Oh, and because they were non-smokers, their taste buds should've been immaculate.
• Trev on multiple occasions was screwing up a Caesar salad of all things by over-dressing it!

Season 9

• Having already lost Jason to dehydration prior to service in the first episode, 3 of the men were side-lined in the opening service; Chino burnt a piece of cod, Stephen overcooked some scalloped, and Tommy also struggled with fish. This meant that Jonathon's perfectly cooked beef wellingtons had to be sent back. The real kicker is that before Ramsay could even shut the Blue kitchen down, customers have already started walking out. On the Red side, Elise was also benched, also for being bad on fish, but more because she tried to "help out" by cooking it before appetizers were ready.
• Episode 3 was Family Night, and an episode were the Red Team performed so poorly that Gina (who served as maître'd that night) was asked to lead her team into the dining room and apologise to every table that was affected by their crap performance. To twist the knife in further, everyone on the Red Team - including Gina - was ejected from service immediately afterwards.
• In Episode 5's High School Reunion Challenge, the Red Team suffered a 3-0 defeat thanks to Elizabeth's poor leadership and communication. For context, Elizabeth and Paul were called up to Gordon's office to listen to the Reunion Committee's likes and dislikes, which include Hawaiian dishes, one of the guests even telling them point blank that she only ate fish. Elizabeth even asked if the guests wanted a Surf 'n' Turf right after this! While Paul relayed every bit of detail to his team, Elizabeth missed every singled cue and served bacon wrapped scallops and had her team prepare Asian dishes. Understandably, the rest of the Red Team were not happy with Elizabeth after this.
  • In a later episode, Elizabeth was also the only one who didn't score a point in the Blind Taste Test Challenge. Everyone else got at least one point.
• Krupa's pathetic performance in the season finale, where she screwed up on fish so badly that Will demoted her to desserts for the remainder of service while he had Natalie take her place. Unfortunately, Will made this move far too late, and lost his chance to win.

Season 10

• The opening service was a disaster for both teams, as neither of them managed to serve any entrees before Ramsay shut both kitchens down. Tavon had managed to butcher the men's entire supply of scallops, while Christina repeatedly served up raw wellingtons. The blue team came off worse though, since they didn't even complete appetisers before they were thrown out.

Season 17

• The Red Team had a dreadful start to the season, losing the first two challenges and services, the latter of which they were kicked out of both times. Even worse is when you remember that the Red Team had an advantage in the second challenge, The Seafood Tower, in which they had a 30 second head start over the men, and they still lost.
• Josh...oh boy. First, he made a bad first impression by scoring 2/5 in the signature dish challenge, worked at a snail's pace during services, and took several levels in dumbass since Season 14. But after transferring to the Red Team, in Episode 5, Josh was doing so badly on garnish that Ramsay threw him out until service was over. Rather than stay put, Josh thought it was a good idea to re-enter the kitchen against Ramsay's orders, who then decided he couldn't deal with him anymore and eliminated Josh on the spot mid-service.
• The Red Team's performance on the Blind Taste Test this year was truly something to witness: Dana and Jennifer got all four of their ingredients wrong, while Barbie only managed to get 2/4 right. Elise, who scored 3/4 in Season 9, got 3 of her ingredients wrong, ending her round early as she had no chance of closing the gap. The final result was 8-2 to the Blue Team, and the only BTT challenge that ended before going into the final round, since Michelle didn't even get to go a round.

Season 18

• In Episode 3, Jen (originally from Season 4) struggled to get garnish up to the pass, but she decided it would be an excellent idea to accuse Gordon Ramsay of all people of sabotaging her when she gives him under portioned garnish. Naturally, Ramsay wasn't going to take kindly to this, and kicked her out on the spot.

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