Kitchen Nightmares: A Softer And Gentler Ramsay Commentary by Maja Seif
September 20, 2007
FOX's new reality series, Kitchen Nightmares will not disappoint fans of the BBC version of the show, the similarly titled, Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. However, Hell's Kitchen fans may be somewhat disappointed at the lack of Gordon Ramsay's red-faced, name-calling kitchen tirades. While Ramsay's angry outbursts can often be entertaining, it's sometimes heart-wrenching to watch the humiliating treatment he often dishes out to those hopeful contestants. With only Hell's Kitchen to draw from, Ramsay often seemed a bully and while the competitive antics of the contestants were entertaining, the man was difficult to like.
Viewers of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, which aside from location and European accents is, so far, identical to the U.S. version, have had a more well-rounded view of Gordon Ramsay. In that show, as in Kitchen Nightmares, rather than playing the relentless drill sergeant, using humiliation and intimidation to illicit perfection from his kitchen staff, Gordon seems more like a combination of coach, teacher, counselor, and cool, albeit sometimes rough, truth-dispenser, as he relentlessly inspects, diagnoses, and prescribes cures for ailing restaurants.
The first episode of Kitchen Nightmares begins with clips of Ramsay waiting to be picked up by Peter - a co-owner and manager of Ramsay's first U.S. assignment a family-owned Italian establishment, Peter's Restaurant in Babylon, New York. Ramsay is left waiting for just under an hour for the wanna-be mobster - or as I call him 'mockster' - to pull up in his flashy car.
The mockster is really something - but not the something he thinks he is. In the midst of a failing restaurant, this man has a flashy car, a diamond-studded watch, $2,000 suits, and bleached white teeth he says cost him $1,000 per visit. He stands around the business pretending to be the boss, but doesn't do a thing to help his family and staff to run the restaurant. He eats customers' orders causing his kitchen staff to start over and his customers to wait. He takes money from the cash register for his personal use. He takes no responsibility for the restaurant's failing status and its kitchen, which is in dire need of repair, and instead blames everything on his kitchen staff.
As we get to know Peter, I can't help but wonder how Ramsay is going to handle this big Mama's boy. And that's what Peter is. You've likely known one - from an old school family who pampers its sons. They are usually macho men, have an unbreakable sense of entitlement, and no sense of personal responsibility - perfect fodder for a Ramsay tirade. I couldn't wait.
However, the worst Ramsay said to the '250 pound spoiled baby,' as one of Peter's kitchen staff described him, was "Go fuck yourself." That was only because, in the middle of completing a Ramsay assignment for the restaurant's improvement - that Peter and his father spend some time in place of the kitchen staff, so they could experience working in the bleak conditions of the broken-down kitchen - Peter asked Ramsay to get him some orange juice.
Yes, that's right - the mockster, faced with having to do a few hours of actual work in his own unkempt kitchen - with one working oven and barely-working stove ranges - asked world-renowned chef, best-selling author and reality television star, Gordon Ramsay to take a break from helping him to reinvent his restaurant to go and fetch the baby some juice.
"Go fuck yourself" was one of the nicer things Ramsay could've said, in my opinion. After watching the colorful verbal attacks espoused by Ramsay on Hell's Kitchen, I can only imagine what Ramsay was actually thinking - I'm sure he held back quite a bit. Perhaps, though, Ramsay is more strategic in his anger than we see on Hell's Kitchen because just that barb was enough to stun the mockster into quiet. I expected a tantrum from the big baby, but instead, the show went on with no more than a moment of tension and some slamming of pots and pans.
Gordon does, eventually, give Peter.....
Maja Seif is a freelance writer residing in the Sacramento, California area. Holder of a B.A. in Journalism, she has published feature articles in Outword Magazine and has experience writing political news and opinion pieces, as well as marketing material. Reality television is one of her favorite diversions, so writing for Reality TV Calendar is a perfect combination of two of her hobbies. You can reach her at: maja.m.seif@gmail.com
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