We've witnessed some crazy episodes of "Kitchen Nightmares." Some moments certainly stand out,
whether for incompetent staff, Gordon Ramsay's wildly colorful insults, or occasionally for a
heartwarming moment. Whatever the situation, the show has produced some great television.
Here's a countdown of the best episodes.
La Gondola has been open since 1968, bringing a touch of glamor to Derby in the U.K. However,
when audiences tuned in to see it, it was riding on its reputation, and failing.
Chef Ramsay is always a bit softer in the U.K. edition of "Kitchen Nightmares,"
but there are some pretty funny moments in this episode where he loses his cool;
that includes when the head chef tries to hide powdered minestrone from the crew
and when he defends the dated menu, which he's been cooking since he arrived in the '70s.
This episode definitely shows a chef at the end of his rope,
snapping at waiters, staff, and even customers.
Chef Paul Bazzini's wife is bankrolling the business while he has temper tantrums on the line.
Gordon Ramsay stops by Bazzini Café for lunch, which ... the restaurant does not serve. When
Paul comes by to prep for dinner, Ramsay asks him to make a selection of his faves,
but the chef finds the food subpar. The only thing he likes is the carrot cake, made by smiley
and flirtatious pastry chef Sharyn. But after the sous chef walks out during service, Sharyn
sheds her flirty, funny side to emerge as a real team player, and it's super gratifying to watch.
At Fiesta Sunrise, Vic Flores is running a restaurant bankrolled by his wife Yolanda
and stepdaughter Patti, and the mother-daughter duo aren't shy
about expressing their bitterness over the situation from the first moments of the episode.
With one failed restaurant already under his belt, Vic's management leaves much to be desired;
kitschy décor and too-strong free margaritas do not distract Gordon Ramsay from the awful food or
the fact that he's so cheap he uses the same menus from the failed restaurant. Watching Vic try to
explain his choices to Gordon is amusing for all, though not in the least for Yolanda and Patti.
Tapas restaurant The Runaway Girl has caused a rift in the friendship between
owner Justin and Chef Richie, who has an even fouler mouth than Gordon Ramsay.
Richie is obviously bitter after his childhood friend poached him from a
previous job to help him run this spot, with bad equipment and no budget for anything fresh.
The reason this episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" is one of our all-time faves? The catharsis in
watching Richie's honesty with Ramsay over his frustrations and watching him go off
on his childhood friend in a monologue that should be nominated for SOME kind of award.
"This is what I'm talking about kid - you've got to cut the f---ing bull---. Why the f---
are you still trying to make out you f---ing got something?"
Gordon Ramsay has a talent for zeroing in on the hypocrisy of some restaurant decisions,
and watching him try to comprehend the bumbling that has led the family-run Hot
Potato Café to serve him frozen potatoes is pretty hilarious.
Once Ramsay revamps the menu, it's really enjoyable to watch the owners' niece,
young Chef Danielle, rise to the occasion and really impress the Michelin-starred chef,
despite telling cameras at the outset that she had no interest
in cooking professionally at all and is only doing so to help her aunts.
Despite its seemingly perfect location,
The Fenwick Arms unfortunately has pretty much no idea what makes a pub a pub. And the married
co-owners haven't had more than two days off in two years, so it's not for lack of trying!
Despite Chef Brian's three decades of experience, the food is lacking,
and the tacky décor and overwrought table settings are all wrong, with Ramsay summing it up with,
"It's got all the formality and awkwardness of a wake."
After cutting Chef Brian down to size, this episode is all about Ramsey teaching the pair
how to make the pub much more homey and traditional.
This episode has all the components that fans of the show so love: feuding, lying owners,
a booze-guzzling manager, and some truly vivid descriptions of just how bad the food is.
When the food is bad at a restaurant, Gordon Ramsay has a few standby critiques but when he
gets creative, it's even more fun to watch. And at Jack's Waterfront, the food is awful. After lots
of wordplay on the similarity between artificial crab and crap, Ramsay disses the rubbery omelet
and says the fish and chips is quote "almost like you've got a breaded condom in your mouth."
We love watching Gordon Ramsay's rapport with servers doing their best in a subpar
work environment, though preferably with a few less, quote "my darlings" towards female staff.
Still, it's always nice to see Ramsay's kind side emerge — especially when he's
about to ream the back of house. And what's more,
servers often repay him in kind by telling him what's really going on in the kitchen.
Such is the case at El Greco, where server Dustin admits,
quote, "we use Chef Mike a lot." Aka ... the microwave. Dustin summed it up when he said -
"Whenever there's lights on in this restaurant, Chef Mike's working. He's a dedicated employee."
There are a lot of hotheads on "Kitchen Nightmares," Gordon Ramsay included,
but 22-year-old head chef Trevor at Mangia Mangia is far worse and toxic than most.
Trevor ostensibly knows he's unfireable, and he has the arrogant attitude to prove it:
He unapologetically rates his own food a five out of 10,
he walks out of the kitchen and smokes whenever he feels like it,
and worst of all, he tried to punch one of the servers about a month before Ramsay's arrival.
Watching Ramsay cut this cocky, arrogant cook down to size is extremely satisfying.
Adele, one of the co-owners of Flamango's Roadhouse, is painted
from the very beginning of the episode as being borderline abusive to her staff,
and she and her husband refuse to let Chef Bryan make any changes to the menu.
It's kind of wild to watch Adele resist Gordon Ramsay's changes
down to the very last moment of the episode. While the staff is thrilled
to bid goodbye to the kitschy décor and menus the owners are less than thrilled.
Even after the new name and makeover, Adele is still resistant to it all, even telling
customers how much she dislikes the new dining room, Summing it up with the line of the episode:
"I hate blue."
"Unbelievable."
"I'm dumbfounded. I don't think I have ever heard anyone say they hate the color blue."
Adele then reiterated that she hated the new dining room altogether.
Sometimes, Gordon Ramsay's reaction to food seem overwrought on "Kitchen
Nightmares," but when the food actually makes him physically ill, it's hard to argue with him.
Lancaster, California's oldest restaurant, Casa Roma,
is run by a mother-and-son team with no restaurant experience.
The dining room is filthy, and Chef Erick's food isn't just slow to come out - it's also
dangerous. From bad mushrooms to raw pizza, it only gets worse when Ramsay digs into the
walk-in and finds moldy ham and three-month-old ribs that led the chef to vomit in the trash can.
To be quite fair, owner Terry at Café 36 is trying really hard but he just can't delegate.
Additionally, Chef Pinto is getting lazy and has some questionable sanitation standards.
Worst of all, pretty much everything is either frozen, and some dishes like the
grouper and salmon come with the baffling designation of quote, "fresh frozen".
It's kind of sad to see the owners have no real idea of what's going on
until Gordon Ramsay opens their eyes, but witnessing sous chef
Barney's vindication in what he's been saying all along is kind of awesome.
Blackberry's is a soul food restaurant that's run by overbearing Chef Shelly.
The owner and executive chef is too hands-on, incapable of delegating, and,
according to Gordon Ramsay, is quote, "in denial" about
everything that's wrong with her restaurant, including a dead mouse that Ramsay finds.
Ramsay asks Shelly's staff to tell her honestly what's wrong, but her
mood escalates and she goes so far as to try to send a staff member home for contradicting her.
While most "Kitchen Nightmares" episodes get wrapped up nicely,
by the end of this one, Shelly's attitude hasn't improved.
The Mixing Bowl's chef-owner Billy is putting his all into keeping his restaurant open, But the
biggest obstacle goes to manager Mike, who drinks, yells, and generally just manipulates everyone.
Gordon Ramsay is a bit of a bully to Mike from the onset,
though maybe that's just because he figures him out from the very beginning. He's tough
on him for his lack of knowledge about the menu and for his weird, hovering behavior,
but also for his weight, which deserved or not, isn't cool, Gordon. Ramsay ultimately likes at
least some of the food, which is always nice to see, and Chef Billy's love for his work shines.
While at first the owner of Charlie's Italian Bistro, Tatiana, is painted as the ignorant
villain, it soon becomes clear the real problem is Chef Casimiro: he just doesn't give a hoot and
he has no intention of changing — or listening to Gordon Ramsay. Luckily, sous-chef Daniella
is pretty capable, but without her, this restaurant would have sunk a long time ago.
The episode begins with Tatiana hiding Ramsay's criticism from her chef,
but eventually, she reaches her limit. The catharsis of watching her tearfully
fire Casimiro is a bit bittersweet, but the episode does deliver a pretty happy ending.
The Handlebar was pretty rundown when owner and former construction worker Billy and his wife
took it over a year before this episode was filmed,
and things have gotten no better. The owner is dejected, hands-off, and moody, and Chef
Melissa admits within the first few minutes of the episode that she does not want to be a chef.
Gordon Ramsay transforms The Handlebar into a gastropub
and starts the bar's first annual motorcycle rally with special guest Dee Snider. However,
Melissa's still kind of phoning it in by the end.
From his too-fancy bow-tied waiters to his inflated prices,
Chef Chappy is running a restaurant from a different era entirely. The food is watery,
unappealing, and overpriced to boot, especially the gumbo that looks like, as Gordon Ramsay says -
"Chappy took a crappy in my gumbo."
The chef doesn't take kindly to the negativity on "Kitchen Nightmares."
At all. But watching him overreact to Ramsay's totally on-point criticism is amusing,
and what's more, Chappy's still not really on board with the changes by the end of the episode.
After running a successful pizza restaurant, Sabatiello's owner Sammy stepped into the
shoes of a higher-end restaurateur, but head waiter David says he's a quote, "nightmare."
Hot-headed and manipulative, Sammy attempts to deceive Gordon Ramsay into thinking he does far
more work than he does, even telling Ramsay outright lies: that his lasagna is home-made,
before serving a reheated frozen lasagna.
Watching Sammy bumble his way through the episode, with Ramsay calling out his lies
again and again and again, is the purest pleasure from the suffering of others.
LA's Sebastian's is staffed by actors, including the eponymous
chef-owner — and it shows. But that's not what worries Gordon Ramsay in this episode.
He's focused, instead, on Sebastian's overwrought mix-and-match menu
which is so complicated that the servers can't even explain the concept on-camera.
Add a hotheaded temper and an owner who doesn't want to run a restaurant so much as hang out with
his friends in one, and you've got a recipe for one of Ramsay's explosive talking-tos.
"I've gone to a lot of restaurants, but I've never ever, ever, ever met
someone I believe in as little as you."
In this episode Gordon Ramsay journeys to Paris to help the owner of vegetarian restaurant
Piccolo Teatro in the city center. At first, Rachel comes off as relatable and exhausted,
and you almost feel sorry for her — for the ineptitude of her chef and how overwhelming
her job really is. But over time, it becomes clear: Piccolo Teatro is being run by a spoiled
child backed by Daddy's money, and no amount of work from Ramsay is going to help.
The ending of this episode is pretty devastating
and will definitely send you to Google to see what became of lovely Chef India.
Sisters Rita and Lisa couldn't be more different,
but they're endearing and adorable in their mission to sustain La Galleria 33 in the image
of their parents' nearby restaurant in the Italian neighborhood of Boston's North End.
That said, there are some serious problems at this restaurant. From conniving waitress Sarah to
Chef and Rita's ex-husband Doug to truly bonkers busboy Pat, who claims to actually be the manager,
the staff here is pretty wild. Rita's story of how she rehired Pat after he spent an afternoon
pacing in front of the restaurant forlornly in the rain is definitely worth a watch.
In NYC, two friends and co-owners of a neighborhood lobster shack tried to scale
up to a full seafood restaurant in Midtown with a third partner ... and things did not go according
to plan. When Gordon Ramsay arrives, the situation has gone from bad to worse. One's resentful;
one's egotistical; one's lazy. Or as Ramsay dubs them, "Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy."
The staff at The Black Pearl are the only ones who can get anything done. At the outset, the food is
pretty horrid, though that's far from Chef Phil's fault as he's not allowed to change anything.
Throw Ramsay into the mix, and this lobster pot is gonna boil over for sure.
Mama Rita's got its start not as a restaurant, but as a successful catering business,
and this identity crisis is at the heart of what's plaguing it.
Instead of making food to order, owner Laura has her staff bulk cooking and freezing everything.
From the very beginning,
Laura takes at least some responsibility for the issues plaguing her restaurant.
It's heartbreaking to watch her trying so hard to succeed at implementing Gordon Ramsay's changes,
only to witness just how little creativity the sweet but rather incompetant Chef Perla displays.
Café Hon owner Denise Whiting is an overbearing control freak serving bad food in a garish, tacky
dining room. And that's only the beginning. When Gordon Ramsay visits this Baltimore restaurant,
Whiting has completely alienated the locals by appropriating and trademarking the common
Baltimore slang term "hon," short for "honey," even as she portrays herself as the victim.
Thankfully, this episode gets a happy ending,
with Whiting relinquishing her trademark at a press conference organized by Ramsay.
Burger Kitchen owner Alan Saffron is convinced that Yelp reviewers are out
to get him — and that's just the beginning of the weird politics plaguing this restaurant.
Aside from their Yelp conspiracy theories, both Alan and his wife Jen are conniving
and just plain odd, while their stressed-out son, Daniel, has become an unwitting investor
in the restaurant after Dad stole his money and funneled it into the business.
Chef David is certainly talented, and watching him and Gordon Ramsay team up to create a better menu
whilst Alan and Jen huff and puff makes for some very enjoyable television indeed.
Prohibition Grille's owner Rishi has no idea how to run a restaurant. Sweet but a bit ditzy,
she flirts hard with Gordon Ramsay while also showing a miraculous inability to understand
even the most basic of restaurant norms. You get the sense that the whole reason Rishi is running
a restaurant in the first place is so that she can have an audience for her belly dancing.
Rishi isn't manipulative or conniving like many other owners on the show. She's just a little
... ignorant. And it's very fun to watch Ramsay school her and the chef even Rishi admits is lazy.
Mill Street Bistro owner Joe is one of the most awful bosses we've seen on "Kitchen Nightmares,"
with an unparalleled snobbishness and a temper to boot. To that end,
watching Gordon Ramsay put this arrogant owner in his place, bit by bit, is wholly gratifying,
especially to the staff who look absolutely delighted watching Joe's food be criticized.
But our favorite moment? When Joe compares himself to the equally arrogant Ramsay,
calling himself Ramsay's quote, "twin." Ramsay, seething, leans in and says, under his breath:
"I can cook, Joe."
Gordon Ramsay very rarely likes the food on "Kitchen Nightmares," at least not at
the outset. But Momma Cherri's in Brighton gave him a different experience entirely: He loves
the soul food flavors at this restaurant, and the rapport between the chefs is delightful to watch.
Ramsay's work here is twofold: modernizing Cherri's menu into a tapas-style offering and
guiding her to become a bit less controlling in the kitchen. This gives Chef Brian room to
shine and allows Cherri to delight customers as the ebullient front-of-house hostess.
There are owners who are arrogant and conniving ... and then there's Nino. The
son of the original owners of the restaurant that bears his name shows a delusion that's baffling.
His brother, in particular, goes on a long rant,
undermining Nino's claims that he does all of the cleaning and setup in the front-of-house.
You won't be able to keep yourself from laughing at the absurdity.
"He makes everybody believe he does crap. Just like last night,
he ran up to every table and said - 'Hello, my name's NINOOOOO.'"
Owners Amy and Samy Bouzaglo are perhaps the most famous characters on "Kitchen
Nightmares," and they never even finished shooting their episode,
which still manages to be one of the most shocking and amusing in the show's history.
Amy's Baking Company is rife with problems when Gordon Ramsay arrives, from a controlling
owner who siphons his server's tips to a chef who cannot cope with pressure or criticism.
But the reason that we keep coming back to this episode? Amy's very odd behavior. On paper,
she could be portrayed as just a little quirky, but when Ramsay or anyone really, criticizes her,
she and Samy waste no time in exploding in anger, evicting them from the restaurant.
And that's exactly what happens to Ramsay in this dramatic episode.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Mashed videos about your favorite food TV are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.