Humiliating Restaurateurs Back to Profitability the Gordon Ramsay Way

There was a time when I just adored Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, but eventually I got fed up with it for being obnoxious and predictable, as in being able to set your watch to when a particular show will reach certain milestones, such as Gordon abruptly ceasing to be monstrous, and becoming, well, recognizably human. But in the last few months, as the BBC has dragged its heels getting a new season of Master Chef on the air, I’ve fallen in love with it all over again.

Because of its fervent obnoxiousness and predictability. 

A drone shot gives us an idea of the locale to which Gordon has come to work his magic, to spot exactly why a restaurant is failing, and to point out its tearfully grateful owners how they can fix it, and not lose Everything They Own. Gordon disapproves of the place’s signage. “Fucking hell,” he marvels disapprovingly, rubbing his forehead. He cannot find the entrance to the place. Fucking hell. He eventually finds it. Once inside, the place’s decor inspires him to remark, “Fucking hell”. He meets the owner and says, “Good to see you.” He never says, “Pleased to meet you.” He rubs his forehead.

He orders several things off the places invariably bloated menu. As it’s served, he remarks about its appearance, something usually along the likes of, “Fucking hell, it looks like a mangy dog puked all over the plate,” or, “Looks like something I might see in the toilet bowl if I’d been drinking rancid prune juice the past 12 hours.” The highest compliment he ever gives anything is merely to frown at it and grumble, “Underseasoned.” Very often, he spits things out. His server, who invariably loathes the chef, gets to take it back to the kitchen and tell Chef, “Gordon says it’s the most disgusting thing he’s ever been served.”

Gordon’s production team has inspired other diners to be almost as censorious as Gordon himself.

Gordon goes back to the kitchen to watch it in action. He is incredulous at its inefficiency. “Fucking hell!” he gasps, this time with an exclamation mark. He massages his prolifically creased forehead and proclaims that he has never seen a more chaotic kitchen with more appalling hygiene. He looms over the cooks, makes them nervous, and then sputters with umbrage when their nervousness causes them to get orders wrong. “Fucking hell,” Gordon gasps, rubbing his forehead.

There is a commercial break. Gordon wants to see the restaurant’s refrigerator and pantry. He invariably finds something rotting, and has to dash into the restroom to throw up. He gleefully grabs to hold under the chef’s nose handfuls of whatever has inspired his nausea. “Would you fucking eat this?” he bellows. The chef appears near tears. “Shut it down!” Gordon roars. He will not be party to the restaurant poisoning one of its diners. He will so fucking not!

He has a one-on-one with the chef, who is commonly also the owner. “Do you, at long last, have left no trace of decency?” he roars. No. Hold on a minute. That’s what the US Army’s chief counsel asked the namesake of McCarthyism when Sen. McCarthy was gleefully destroying a young Army lawyer’s reputation. What Gordon demands, with palpable disgust, is, “Have you just given up?” or “Why don’t you fucking grow a pair?” Very often Chef, wanting desperately to urge Gordon to have unpleasant sex with himself, but knowing that the producers of the show won’t buy him lots of new kitchen equipment and remodel his restaurant if he does, just snivels in humiliation.

Television at its best! The cruelest bullying you’ll see anywhere other than a schoolyard!

There is another commercial break, during which Gordon has been transformed. He has stopped gasping, “Fucking hell!” and has had his team remodel the place. As he leads Chef and his crew in, they’re the ones gasping in amazed delight. (If you ask me, the place never looks very much better than when Gordon first strode in, exuding disdain.) All traces of the owner’s personality has been summarily jettisoned. 

Nor does a trace of the dishes of which the chef is most proud remain, as Gordon’s team has devised a wonderful streamlined new menu featuring fresh ingredients. Which the chef and his crew have two hours to learn to cook because — surprise! — Gordon’s producers have invited more locals than the restaurant can dream of accommodating to see how wonderful the restaurant has become. Naturally, the kitchen falls to pieces in the face of a new menu and unprecedented demand, providing Gordon an opportunity to rub his forehead some more and exclaim, “Fucking hell!” a few hundred more times before the kitchen, with him barking like a kennelful of chihuahuas, miraculously becomes a well-oiled machine and sends everyone home cooing with pleasure and promising to return very soon.

Gordon and the beneficiaries of his tough love and deep pockets embrace. Gordon isn’t such a monster after all. Gordon, whom no man has ever accused of failing to man up, strides manfully back to his rented car. 

Sometimes there’s a brief follow-up at the end, in which we learn either that, thanks entirely to Gordon’s patronage, the restaurant has clawed itself out of the red, or that Chef restored everything to its original state the moment Gordon’s rented car disappeared in the distance. I can’t help but wonder if several chefs, knowing that their humiliation was viewed by millions on multiple continents, drank themselves comatose the minute Gordon’s rented car disappeared over the horizon, and haven’t stopped weeping or self-anesthetizing with alcohol since.  

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