I’ve only seen a few episodes of Ramsay’s, and I’d like to introduce a friend to it, but I would understandably like to start them with one of the best (or funniest) episodes. As such, I’m wondering if anybody would care to weigh in with their favorites?
I thought the “Fenwick Arms” episode was hysterical. Ramsay couldn’t stop ragging on the chef’s disgusting thick dark brown gravy. At one point he takes a pot of the stuff and proceeds to fill potholes in the parking lot with it.
“Clubway 41”, I also found amusing. At one point, Ramsay challenges the chef to see who can make best broccoli soup. The chef’s soup had around 15 ingredients (some rather expensive), and Ramsay’s soup had only three ingredients (broccoli, water and salt). In a blind taste test with the staff, Ramsay’s soup won hands down.
First off, I have enjoyed every episode I have seen and I have seen so many that about half of the time when one is on it is one I have seen before and I still enjoy it the second or third time around. I’ve seen the Fenwick Arms three times and it is a good episode to show your friend.
Ramsey gets the owner to campaign for “Real Gravy” and him and the owner and staff go walking down the locals streets with a bull-horn shouting, “Get you Real Gravy here!” “Real Gravy!” And they even made up T-Shirts.
It is one of the better episodes. Ramsey is great and funny. He goofs on the owner for having like 30 different kinds of plates that he will never use and accidentally breaks one. The owner is a goof who tries to do everything all the time and keeps sneaking back into the kitchen after Ramsey tells him to stay out because his cooking is aweful.
Pretty much they all seem to have a bit of funny in them. Either Ramsey goofing around or the chef being very incompetant and full of themselves or an owner that is so set in stone to run their restuarant their way even though the locals do not like the place and it is about to be closed down because the owner can not afford it anymore.
So yeah just get your friend to watch any episode and if it’s their kind of thing then they will get hooked.
One thing I love about Kitchen Nightmare is that you can tell Ramsey really does care about the people and place he is trying to help and completely smashes his Hell’s Kitchen image of being an absolute asshole all the damn time.
The one that killed me was the Restaurant in Spain with the Kabobs that hung off a little hook. Ramsey kept refering to them as Donkey Dicks or some such thing as it swung before him.
I love this version of the show, uncensored, the show focuses on fixing a business and not on helping personal problems and Ramsey is a far better narrator
True. I saw one episode where after the restaurant re-opened some nose in the air customer said the food was horrible. Ramsey confronted her defending the restaurant, called her a lot of nasty names to her face and basically threw her out of the place.
I think few can top the very first episode, on Bonapartes Restaurant, in which the supposed “executive chef” was a 21-year-old guy named Tim who was way out of his depths.
Actually, that was more pathetic than funny. The Fish and Anchor in Lampeter, Wales was funny, if only because of the constant fighting between the chef and his wife. And there was a scene where someone complained that he hadn’t gotten his food after over an hour, so she yelled at him and threw him out of the place. Great way to treat your customers. It was amazing to see how much of a change Ramsay was able to make both in the restaurant and in their personalities.
The funny thing is that after you’ve watched the show a few times, the formula seems so obvious, I can’t understand why the owners and chefs can’t figure it out for themselves. Made good food from local produce without overly complex recipes, keep the menu short and emphasize local dishes and those from the chef’s heritage.
That one stands out in my mind as the most profanity-laden episode. When that fridge opens, you can about see Gordon’s eyes bulge out in slowmo. It’s funny in an too-horrible-to-look-away fashion. It made me feel really embarrassed, sort of like Borat.
Fenwick Arms is definitely the best though.
ETA: I just recalled one particularly funny episode, revolving around some French chefs and their restaurant in Scotland. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the restaurant, though.
Hi,
I loved the more recent one with the vegetarian cafe in Paris. The owner was a clueless, lazy $%%!!, the chef was some wacky Rastafarian type from Brazil that had to be bodily carried out of the cafe by Ramsey when his incompetence and attitude got to be too much. All of this with Ramsey making snide vegetarian jokes but still giving all he had to making it work. They hired a new chef, who was awesome then the stupid owner was too lazy to bother and so she moved to Paris for nothing (until Ramsey gave her a job 
Thanks for all of the great recommendations… I think I’m going to show my friend Fenwick Arms, followed by the first episode: Fenwick is great, but Ramsay doesn’t swear *nearly *enough. 
So many of the redone restaurants seem to still fail though.
Yes, as evidenced by the “Revisited” episodes, the owners, managers and chefs usually go back to their old lazy ways.