Letters to the Editor
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Ramsay's not for me
The only thing worse than a foul-mouthed, angry, abusive tyrant is a foul-mouthed, angry, abusive tyrant who is doing it to you "for your own good".
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Kitchen Nightmares
I love this show. I cannot count how many times I've ended up in restaurants like that, usually when traveling to a city that I'm not familiar with. Tired, dated, mediocre food, disheartened staff. The kind of place where after the meal, you start thinking that you would have done better picking up a frozen pizza and nuking it in the hotel microwave.
When Ramsay walks in the front door on this show, you hear the same story over and over again. The restaurant isn't doing the business that it used to or has never really taken off in the first place. They aren't attracting new customers. They're on the verge of closing due to poor business or cannot compete with other restaurants in the area. Ramsay will look the place over from top to bottom and point out what is wrong and the things that will need changing in order to turn business around.
He's walked into some real horror shows. Like the kitchen with the severe roach infestation. And the one where the fryer hadn't been cleaned since they originally bought the thing. Boxes of instant potato flakes and pre-made sauce mixes. Frozen vegetables and meat and fish on the verge of spoiling. Dirty kitchens, unmotivated staff and owners who as a whole are completely resistant to change.
Ramsay tells them what they need to do to get the restaurant back on it's feet and the rest of the episode is of his coaxing, cajoling and arguing them into making those changes. He reminds chefs that their job is to cook and that they should be ashamed for sending out instant mashed potatoes to their guests. He re-teaches cooking basics. He shows the owners how to run a restaurant.
What I find amazing is how often owners know that they can't go on as they have been, but fight Ramsay on every single change he suggests every step of the way. They'll argue "that's not how we've ever done things" and Ramsay will retort that this is why their business is failing. I'll never forget the one who argued with Ramsay about the redecorating, hating the bright new colors and the fact that she no longer had a black counter top in her dining room. They know that they need help and have at their disposal a chef who runs numerous successful restaurants and they refuse to accept his help.
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Screaming Brit Archetype on US TV
Ramsay is just one of a slew of yelling British guys that have taken over tv since Simon Cowell on American Idol. You see it on America Has Talent, the cooking shows, AI and even Dancing With the Stars (where the obnoxious judge isn't British, but he does have a foreign accent).
What is it with us a country that we demand to see a screaming British judge? If you create a reality show today, it must have an angry British white guy. OR a mean guy with an accent. Why? Can our sociologists and culture mavens explain this to me? Why not a white American guy? Why not a woman? Are Yanks so juvenile that we get a kick out of being yelled at by someone with an accent, because Americans associate Brit accents with being posh, learned, cultured...And the conceit is that the learned Englishman is a really screaming lunatic...Do people enjoy the insults more because they are delivered in accented English?
Bizarre nation we've got going here.
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Extras Cameo...
Gordon did a great cameo on last season's closing episode of Extras (HBO). He poked fun at his persona and showed he doesn't (always) take himself so seriously.
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Having spent 10 years in restaurant kitchens...
...I can say that the time pressure you're under is enormous -- especially at lunch, when the customers all show up at the same time and have to be back at work in an hour or less. And one or two things going wrong at the wrong time is all it takes to cascade into a failed service and a bunch of customers who are less likely to return.
So when somebody screws up something basic, it hurts, and even the best-intentioned managers or chefs can resort to yelling. And you learn who can handle it and who can't. The internally motivated people pick up the pace and brush off the criticism. Others shut down or get dewy eyed. My first manager had a great line when confronted with the second type, and it's something I could hear Ramsay say: "Look, I'll apologize later, but right now just get this done!"
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I would like to go all Joan Crawford on his ass
And beat him with a wire hanger.
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love him
i love kitchen nightmares on BBC-A and have bought two of his cookbooks, "gordon ramsay makes it easy" and "a chef for all seasons". his egg scrambling technique (detailed in the former cookbook) truly does make sublime eggs with regards to flavor and texture, i'll never go back to the old way of cooking them. i'll check out hell's kitchen but it sounds as though he's being misused, that's disappointing.
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RE: British comedy from Msconduct
clearly you missed "Little Britain", a wildly popular show that lasted 4 seasons, i believe.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/littlebritain/
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In Defense of Gordon Ramsay
I have to say that some of the letters attacking Mr. Ramsay are a little weird--beating him, really? He is abrasive, to be sure, but perhaps the intense dislike of Ramsay's method is based more on a misunderstanding if the vagaries of a professional kitchen (it can be pretty rough) as opposed to his rants. I first encountered "Hell's Kitchen" during a summer without cable and found Mr. Ramsay to be strangely charming. One cannot find fault with his resume and I would argue that the young hopefuls that make up the show do improve--not in spite of is tirades, but because of them. I wouldn't expect anyone who is turned-off by Ramsay's profanity to look into his biography but he is very honest and self aware and his passion is admirable, I think. At least, under his tutelage, you don't have to guess where you stand. I agree that the BBC version of "Kitchen Nightmares" is a better presentation of Ramsay's formidable skills. In anycase, if he isn't your cup of tea, fine, but let's not fantasize beating him up, ok?