Kitchen Nightmares: Difference between revisions

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* [[Analogy Backfire]]: In the Curry Lounge episode of the British version, Gordon makes a stubborn owner bat at cricket while being partially bound, to demonstrate what his stubbornness is doing to his restaurant. The owner still manages to hit the ball, on his first try.

* [[Beat]]:

** From the Sebastian's episode:

"...cause he's an actor." }}

* [[Berserk Button]]: Gordon has a bunch.

** Chefs/owners who lie or make excuses for poor performance, making it harder for him to help.

** Unsanitary kitchens; understandable, given that improperly-handled chicken (let alone more exotic fare) can be fatal.

** Using a microwave as the primary cooking medium. In the "El Greco" episode, the microwave was used so much that Gordon ''threw it out a second-story window''.

** In the "Peter's" American episode, the burly, eponymous part-owner gets enraged by a rude bill collector and chases him out into the street where he has to be restrained by Gordon and his staff.

** In the British episode "D-Place", Head Chef Philip Blaze lied blatantly to Ramsay in one instance. Despite the oven not working properly, Philip tried to say that some clearly fried potatoes were baked after Gordon told Philip that he did not want him to rely so much on the fryer. He held on to this lie so tightly that even Ramsay was beginning to doubt himself. It was only after asking one of the chefs under Philip that he learned that he had, in fact, fried the potatoes.

** One episode had Ramsay discover a mouse by the restaurant's door. Ramsay asked one of the staff members if an exterminator was ever hired, to which the staff member claims they hire one once a month and he had been there last week (and then the same guy says behind Ramsay's back that it reminds him of a rat they found under a table a few months back). The same guy then accuses Ramsay of ''planting the dead mouse'' for the sake of generating hits for the show. Ramsay was greatly offended and when the owner of the restaurant believes the lie, Ramsay lets everyone know that they can take the restaurant and shove it because he is not going to be accused of pulling a stunt for TV. After some drama happens with the owner, the guy who accused Ramsay of planting the mouse apologizes to him.

* [[Brutal Honesty]]: Ramsay's MO.

* [[Catch Phrase]]: Oh, fuck me. It's '''''raw!!!'''''

** Gordon likes to remind people that '''"I'VE EATEN HERE!!"'''

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: In the two-parter "The Burger Kitchen", the father lends Gordon a copy of his memoir of his own paternal relative. When Gordon reads it, he finds that the father-son situation from the past was repeating itself in the current times. When he makes light of it with the entire family gathered around, it comes across as a pretty brutal slap on the head for the father. [[Manly Tears]] were shed at that moment, as well.

* [[Cordon Bleugh Chef]]: Quite a few of the chefs when Gordon first arrives.

* [[Didn't Think This Through]]: One of the recurring themes in both versions is the restaurant was recently bought by an owner or owners with little to no previous food service experience, with retirement or life savings. Ramsay is constantly exasperated that people think running a restaurant is easy and is something you do in retirement to pass the time.

* [[Downer Ending]]: Several. Originally, the biggest difference between the UK and US versions of the show was that the UK series is unafraid to admit when a ''Nightmares'' reboot hasn't succeeded in turning around a restaurant's fortunes.

** Two restaurants in the UK version, D-Place and Piccolo Teatro, ended up closing even before the episode ended — the former because the financial damage had been done long before Ramsay arrived, the latter due to the laziness of its owner.

** Bonaparte's at least lasted until the end of the episode, but Ramsay's attempt at a revamp proved a total failure, in no small part due to the useless head chef.

** The Walnut Tree Inn survived until a "revisited" episode, but that episode ended with Ramsay storming out of the inn once it became obvious that the owner's stupidity and high prices had rendered his attempted changes irrelevant, and that the inn was hurtling towards bankruptcy.

** This sometimes happens after the fact, as well. A number of restaurants (such as Maggie's and Love's Fish Restaurant in the UK version, and Lela's and Peter's in the US version) pulled themselves together, followed Ramsay's instructions to the hilt, and enjoyed some initial success...only to go out of business anyway when their financial backers pulled the rug from underneath them during the credit crunch.

*** Nearly happened with the owners of the Fenwick Arms pub, who turned Gordon's "Campaign for Real Gravy" idea into even more of a success than he ever imagined and kept running in the face of some new competitors that sprung up nearby...only for the couple that owned the pub to be evicted after the brewery "disagreed" with the campaign. Averted in the end, though, as they bought a new pub near York and resurrected their campaign with much success.

** The Cafe Tavolini episode had perhaps the biggest downer ending of any ''Kitchen Nightmares'' episode, with the possible exception of the UK pilot. At first it had the usual ending, with Ramsay telling the owners that they now had everything they needed to make the restaurant a success, and the owners appearing optimistic about the future. Immediately afterward, the epilogue revealed that the owners never got behind Ramsay's changes or tried to do a better job of managing the place — consequently, the restaurant closed, everyone lost their jobs, the owners lost their house, and their marriage collapsed.

** The viewer can do this to him/herself.

* [[Dysfunctional Family]]: Oy.

** The UK series has the family running The Dovecot. The father more or less spends the family's dwindling cash on things they do not need without his wife knowing, and has his adopted daughter take the fall for his inability to cook. When Ramsay gets there, they are on the razor's edge of breaking up completely.

** Spike TV's ''Bar Rescue'', where an expert bar manager comes to the aid of failing bars and does not hesitate to chew the owners or employees out. The only real differences between that show and ''Kitchen Nightmares'' is that he goes to bars rather than restaurants and that he's American, not British.

* [[Genre Blindness]]: You would think that the owners of these restaurants would take Gordon's advice considering that they're in the red. Every episode, however, at least one person will think that Gordon is over exaggerating and/or trying to sabotage him/her.

** Also, how these people literally ''ask'' Gordon for help, and even though they know he's coming, don't even make any modicum of effort to try and clean up their restaurants. They don't even organize their freezers, even though in every episode that is the ''first'' place Gordon checks.

** It's staggering the number of owners/chefs who insist that the food being served is not the problem, and become shocked that Gordon would offer criticism against it. It makes one wonder how many people actually ''watch'' the show before they request that Gordon come to visit.

* [[Head Desk]]: Ramsay has only this reaction when the cooks of Fiesta Sunrise manage to set flame to a plate of nachos.

** Gordon even loaned him to one restaurant (Lido di Manhattan Beach) for a month to help them reorganize their kitchen staff.

** In the revisited episode for Casa Roma, Gordon was surprised to find out that their new head chef was the former pizza chef of Sebastian's. The owner of Casa Roma had actually watched that episode and was impressed with his pizza-making abilities, and offered him the head chef's job at her restaurant on finding out that Sebastian's had gone out of business.

* [[Heel Realization]]: Many of the chefs eventually realize that their behavior is the cause of their restaurant's failure. They almost always change themselves for the better, or at least until the end of the episode, anyways.

* [[Hypocritical Humor]]: In the episode ''The Burger Kitchen'' the owner criticizes the chef's burger, saying that it was cooked medium rather than medium-rare. However, the amount of blood seen leaking from the burger that the owner made shows that his burger was rare, at best.

* [[It Came From the Fridge]]

* [[It Tastes Like Feet]]: This is a ''very'' common way in which Ramsay insults food he doesn't like, possibly to the point of at least [[Once an Episode]]. In one episode, for instance, he described certain food as tasting like "flypaper" and later on "It tastes like a leather belt." Knowing Ramsay and his hatred of lying, he's probably eaten some nasty stuff in his days for the sake of knowing.

** Some owners/chefs have initially been abrasive towards Gordon and their own staff, but typically they come around and change their ways, becoming more polite/reliable/cooperative. Several have shown that it was a personal matter affecting their behavior, not an inherent personality trait.

* [[Lethal Chef]]: Gordon runs into a few of these, and got food poisoning at least once. The first incident of this was in the ''pilot'', where he flat-out said that Bonaparte's scallops could've killed him.

* [[Loads and Loads of Loading]]: Many of the failing restaurants have very slow service. On the flipside, attempting to push food out too quickly can create just as bad of a problem.

* [[The Mean Brit|The Mean Scot]]: What part of "Gordon Ramsay" don't you understand?

* [[Missing Episode]]: The US episode with Campania was removed from rotation following the owner's suicide.

## The staff struggles a bit with the new changes, but ultimately pulls through.

## The grateful staff waves goodbye as Gordon [[Riding Into the Sunset|rides into the sunset]].

*** As sure as Gordon is Scottish, at least one staff member will be rude and antagonistic, not wanting the help and thinking everything is fine.

*** Step 5 has been subverted several times, as Ramsay will frequently return to the restaurants he's helped after a month (or longer in ''Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited''). In some cases he can't, because the restaurant has shut down due to A) returning to their appalling service, B) simply not getting the point behind Ramsay's changes, or C) circumstances beyond their control (see [[Downer Ending]], above).

*** The epilogue only happened in the UK version at first, although beginning with US Season 3 the narrator details the restaurant's actual fate after Gordon showed up.

** On occasion subverted, but it happens more often than not; the head chef/owner will be interviewed saying some form of "I am a good cook/we cook good food, I am sure Gordon will like it". Cut to Gordon hating whatever is in front of him.

* [[Shirtless Scene]]: Ramsay changing into/out of his chef jacket happens on several episodes.

** The eponymous owner of Sebastian's pizza parlor went on local culinary websites and posted anonymously to badmouth Ramsay after his restaurant failed. The other posters immediately realized it was him and called him on it. Lesson: When trashing somebody and trying to stay anonymous, don't mention bad breath.

** Allan Love, sub-Z-list actor, from the episode "Ruby Tate's" (renamed to "Love's Fish Restaurant"). Slightly less obscure to a British audience, but nobody was exactly clamoring to find out whatever happened to Steve from Pop Pirates.

** Chef Michel of The Secret Garden. He was frustrated with just about everything Ramsay did and challenged him on all of the attempted changes. At several points, he and Ramsay engaged in shouting matches with each other. At one point, Gordon was so angry at Michel that he seriously considered just walking away from saving the restaurant.

** From Sabatiello's, the owner Sammy is rude to his employees, insists on freezing food up to a week after cooking it, stores food improperly, lies to Gordon's face, and at one point ridicules a lady for saying that her food was microwaved when it was just microwaved in front of her. All the while Sammy tells Gordon that he is the best chef in town and that Gordon has no idea what he's talking about.

* [[Serial Escalation]]: In nearly every episode, Gordon will denounce a restaurant's food, kitchen, owner, chef, decor, etc. as the worst he's ever seen. He must be visiting restaurants in order of increasing badness.

** Everything about The Burger Kitchen. A place so messed up that it couldn't be dealt with in one 40-minute episode, but made into a two-parter. One of the few times "The most <adjective> episode of ''Kitchen Nightmares'' ever" hasn't been any kind of hyperbole.

* [[Tempting Fate]]: When talking about the pretentious food served at La Riviera, Ramsay said "I suppose next they'll be telling me how to eat it." Cut to a waitress giving instructions on the order and way to eat the desserts in the dessert sampler.

* [[The Swear Jar]]: In the UK version, there was an episode where Ramsay challenged a chef to avoid drinking alcohol and smoking during service. To be fair, Ramsay set a challenge for ''himself'' to not swear during service. If either broke their promise, that person had to put a pound into a piggy bank; Ramsay, for his part, put quite a few pounds in.

** The owner of Charlie's also does this.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: Many, many times.

** On the UK version, both Piccolo Teatro and Bonaparte's closed within a short time after Ramsay's visit. The owner of the latter threatened to sue Ramsay, claiming she had been "set up".

** When Ramsay revisited the Walnut Tree Inn, he found the business still failing due to the sky-high prices the owner was charging, and stormed out after the owner bluntly told him that he'd rather see the inn go out of business than look like a cheap restaurant. Guess what happened? Then, for an encore, some more sensible businessmen bought the inn shortly afterwards, set up a menu that was more along Ramsay's guidelines, and made it into a success once more.

** One pair of owners, on the confession cam, complain about Ramsay and state that he doesn't know what he's talking about and until Ramsay's name is on the lease, Ramsay doesn't know what it's like. Let's see...failing restaurant versus five 3-Michelin (out of 3) star restaurants. Sure, Ramsay knows nothing about how to make a restaurant successful...

** Tim Gray, head chef of Bonaparte's. It's hard to tell if he's arrogant or brain dead. After being drilled for a week into becoming a half-competent chef, he manages to forget it all within the span of a few months by the time Ramsay comes back. This results in him being fired. The best part of it all? Ramsay, after the episode, offered Tim the chance to learn on the job at one of his restaurants. Tim ''refused''. Then, despite being exposed as possibly the worst "chef" in Britain, he tried to get ''his own TV show''. Unsurprisingly, it was denied. He's still getting into kitchens, and [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-356190/Ramsays-nightmare-chef-sacked-again.html still getting fired.]

** Ramsay's problems with the food sometimes come across as this. For example, when he eats kourambiethes (Greek shortbread cookies coated in powdered sugar) in the Seascape episode, he inhales some of the sugar and/or crumbs and then makes a melodramatic comment about how the other customers are lucky to be alive. Because not knowing how not to inhale while you're chewing is clearly the cookie's fault.

*** This was less about the dish itself than the amount of powdered sugar used. When Ramsey blew on it, a literal cloud of powdered sugar took off into the air.

* [[Very Special Episode]]: The episode with Oscar's in the UK version unwittingly became one of these. Halfway through filming, the restaurant's head chef collapsed mid-service, and it turned out that his alcoholism had become so bad that he had developed early-stage cirrhosis. This led to Ramsay having a discussion with an ex-chef and charity founder about just how bad alcoholism is in the culinary world (pretty damn bad, as it turns out). {{spoiler|As for the chef with cirrhosis? He got better.}}

** If you've seen this episode, it can lead to a major [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]] in Ramsay's ''The F Word'', where [[Top Gear|James May]] takes part in the cooking challenge and taunts Ramsay for not drinking enough alcohol while he's cooking.

* [[Violent Glaswegian]]: Of the "Angry Scotsman" variety. Gordon was born in Renfrewshire. The viewers are reminded of this in the revisit section of the Ruby Tate's/Love's Fish Restaurant episode, as he puts on his original Glaswegian accent to disguise the fact that he's ordering some food from them.

* [[Vomit Discretion Shot]]: If Gordon rushes to the men's room and you hear retching, you '''know''' the place is in trouble.

** In another episode, Gordon threw up before he could even get up from the table. How bad is '''that?!'''

[[Category:American Series]]

[[Category:Kitchen Nightmares]]