Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Ramsay quickly identifies the restaurant as having two major issues; firstly, the fine dining menu has no appeal to the mostly working-class locals, and secondly the head chef, 21-year-old Tim Gray is inexperienced and out of his depth, first evidenced when he unwittingly serves Ramsay expired scallops which cause him to vomit, and then when he proves unable to make an omelette. Ramsay shows Tim how to buy cheaper produce from the Leeds Kirkgate Market and helps him make a meal for his family, though is still concerned when Tim botches the meal. Despite this, Tim is successfully able to serve a new bistro menu to nearly fifty guests on Valentine's Day, leaving Ramsay hopeful for the restaurant's future.

While Ramsay quickly sees the potential in the restaurant upon his arrival, due to the attractive building, excellent location and strong flow of tourists, he finds the actual food to be poor, which he blames on new owner Neil Farrell's inexperience and panicky nature, and head chef Richard Collins' lazy attitude, which hampers an otherwise-talented kitchen staff. Ramsay also finds the kitchen to be in a terrible state, and makes the staff join him in cleaning and repainting it. An initial failure to improve sees Richard come dangerously close to being fired, but he talks Neil into giving him one last chance, and Richard is able to improve and lead the kitchen through a service with a simplified, revamped menu.

Before visiting the inn, Ramsay discusses its history and the success it had under former owner Franco Taruschio, which has turned into financial difficulty under current owner Francesco Mattioli, something that has surprised Ramsay, given that the two were already acquainted from Francesco's career as a restaurant manager in London. However, Ramsay soon discovers exactly how bad things are; the restaurant is without a head chef, the food is very expensive and of poor quality (including a seafood stew being full of sand), and the locals have lost interest. Ramsay helps Francesco recruit a new head chef, Spencer Ralph, and create a more reasonably priced menu, before holding a special anniversary dinner to celebrate the inn's 40th anniversary, with Franco in attendance.

Despite the potential offered by the rich locals and the golf course next door to the restaurant, Ramsay finds it wasted by the building's terrible decor (including the exterior being entirely painted a claret shade), and the outdated menu that relies extensively on deep-fried food cooked in ageing, filthy equipment. The inexperience of owners Richard Hodgson and Nick Whitehouse also poses a major problem, as does the seeming indifference of much of the kitchen staff, especially head chef Mark Robinson, whose background is mostly in IT rather than cooking, and is berated by Ramsay for spending time golfing rather than cooking, which eventually leads to Ramsay destroying the kitchen's deep-fat fryers by throwing them into a water hazard on the course. Things begin to turn around when an experienced sous chef, Andy Trowell, is hired, and Ramsay gives him a burger recipe which he turns into the restaurant's new signature dish and introduces in a successful Mother's Day lunch.

Ramsay meets Executive Chef Alex Scott in the kitchen, where he finds no authentic Italian ingredients, and too many precooked and prepackaged dishes. His meal consists of greasy minestrone soup, breadsticks in a paper package, and sausages on garlic bread that remind him of "two poodles' penises doused in parsley". In the walk-in, Ramsay finds old food, Pot Noodles, and rotten vegetables. Worst of all, the kitchen and floor are filthy, with food debris everywhere (but amazingly, no rats or mice). Despite Alex losing 1,000 pounds per week, Ramsay opens his garage to find a brand new BMW with custom numberplates – "A1 CHEF". Ramsay discovers that Alex had spent £48,000 on the car, and straight away sets off to sell both the car and the numberplate – calling a number of celebrity chefs about the latter, with amusing results. Ramsay teaches Gavin, the ineffectual manager, to be more authoritative – even roleplaying an uncooperative cook, to let Gavin tell him off. Ramsay also has the cooks engage in a pizza contest; which the sous chef, Aldona Novak, wins. This ignites some passion in her for food, where before she completely lacked it. Ramsay also updates the menu and the decor, bringing in paintings from a local art school. On reopening night, Alex starts to get overwhelmed and takes too long getting food out, but Gavin's newfound assertiveness saves the night.

While his biggest problem is with the restaurant's name, Ramsay finds that rookie owners Israel and Tara Pons are allowing themselves to be steamrollered by general manager Dave Bone, who Ramsay finds confrontational and ineffective, and head chef Philippe Blaise, who is vastly experienced and somewhat talented, but also arrogant and prone to taking shortcuts. Ramsay gets the owners to rename the restaurant as the Saracen's Café Bar, after the hotel which the restaurant is situated in, and creates a better menu with a club sandwich as its centerpiece. While Philippe needs a lot of persuasion (and more than a little yelling) to fully embrace the new menu, Dave's inept handling of the reopening lunch service rapidly causes it to descend into chaos, leaving many guests without food. This causes Israel to finally run out of patience, and he fires Dave on the spot. Ramsay leaves with an uncertain outlook, noting that Israel and Tara are finally toughening up and Philippe's attitude seems a little better, but that it remains to be seen whether the changes will stick.

In a break from form, Ramsay declares that the restaurant's food is excellent, and easily the best he's had on the show so far. However, he finds that owner-chef Charita Jones is far too easygoing when managing her staff, tends to rely on freezing her food (ruining its flavour) and has made little attempt to promote the restaurant. With Ramsay’s help, she adjusts to cooking all her food to order, and manages to pull in more customers. The kitchen staff initially finds it hard to adjust to the hugely increased custom, but soon adapt as the week goes on.

Ramsay has mixed feelings on the restaurant's food, noting that while head chef Loïc Lefebvre's food is technically very proficient, it's overcomplicated, not cost-efficient, and would have limited appeal even in London or Edinburgh, to say nothing of Inverness. After helping Loïc and his team gain a better understanding of local culture by taking them to an Inverness Caledonian Thistle match and even getting them to wear kilts for their reopening service, Gordon helps Loïc create a menu that's sophisticated, but also cost-effective and appealing to the locals.

Revisited episode

Revisited episode

Revisited episode

Revisited episode

Initially, Ramsay deems the restaurant's problem to be its unfocused, overcomplicated menu, and Ramsay helps owner Maura Dooris to address this, along with setting up deals with local butchers. However, Ramsay also finds head chef (and Maura's son) Lenin to be alarmingly inconsistent in terms of ability, and on further investigation finds that he's been drinking in service. Ramsay orders Lenin to stop, but the following night he gets a waitress to smuggle alcohol into the kitchen for him, further angering Ramsay. Ramsay manages to get Lenin to stop drinking on the third night by promising to himself give up swearing for that night's service, but events take a serious turn on the fourth night, when Lenin suddenly collapses in service and has to be rushed to hospital, where it's revealed that he's in the early stages of cirrhosis. This leads to Ramsay bringing in former chef and charity founder Michael Quinn to discuss the issue of alcoholism and drug abuse in the industry, and Michael tells Ramsay that 10% of all chefs will encounter substance abuse issues during their careers, and that Lenin must give up his job and enter rehab. In the meantime, Ramsay and sous chef Les manage a successful service with a new menu focused around Irish cuisine.

Upon visiting the Sandgate Hotel, Ramsay is immediately confused with the hotel's layout. There is a bar, a restaurant, and even a Japanese restaurant downstairs, all run from the same kitchen. To further complicate the experience, each has their own menu and diners cannot order from one menu without going to the other restaurant. Ramsay finds Stuart White, a gentle Geordie, in charge of the kitchen alongside his young inexperienced assistants. Ramsay identifies numerous issues: Stuart is clearly not comfortable cooking the bizarre range of food and has no experience in cooking Japanese food; he must leave the kitchen to his junior chefs while he runs the balcony grill; the orders are sent through an intercom system that disrupts the kitchen; the hotel staff spend too much time and money at their own bar (and in fact are inadvertently keeping the hotel afloat); and the number of managers causes confusion over who is in charge. Furthermore, during the week Stuart loses his AA rosette, severely demoralising him. Despite these problems, Ramsay manages to set the restaurant on the right path by turning the Japanese restaurant into an exclusive dining area, focusing the menu on fresh seafood, and establishing more control over the front of house with owner Lois as the host.

Clubway 41 is run by Dave Jackson and his girlfriend Dawn Brindley, and is heavily promoted on the back of being named Blackpool Restaurant of the Year, but is struggling to attract customers. Ramsay finds that the upstairs restaurant is being kept afloat by the downstairs greasy spoon café. Dave's salmon with strawberry and mash with nectarines are appalling to Ramsay. Dave has difficulty taking criticism from Ramsay and shows little proficiency for cooking, and even less familiarity with managing a kitchen, even with the downstairs cook Nigel Lloyd, who was more capable in handling the rush. Digging deeper, Ramsay discovers that no locals have heard of the award-winning Clubway 41 and obtains copies of the nomination forms, finding the reviews to be almost farcical. Identifying the difficulty with attracting customers to an upstairs restaurant, he takes a risk and turns the downstairs café into the main attraction, focusing on simple English food. In the reopening, the restaurant is renamed Jacksons. With Dave and Nigel in the kitchen, the service begins well, and while Nigel is a capable assistant, Dave continues to struggle with handling the workload.

Daniela Bayfield has invested in a 40-year-old establishment and is hesitant to modernise, and relies on functions to sustain the restaurant rather than a steady customer base. Ramsay states that the restaurant is stuck in a time warp, with dishes and service reminiscent of the 70s and the dishes are severely underpriced, making a loss per sale. Head chef Steve Straughan lacks passion and is unused to busy sessions. During a birthday function, the kitchen uses canned tuna to substitute for tuna steaks, uses bought-in apple pie instead of making it, and mixes freshly made minestrone soup with packet soup to save costs. Steve struggles to maintain order in the kitchen during service without a clear system. Ramsay discards the complicated menu and devises a new, simpler menu and changes the decor in the dining room. He also brings back the flambé table service as a hallmark of the restaurant. The dinner service proceeds well, though Steve still has difficulty communicating with the team.

Laurence Davy runs a restaurant in an ideal Spanish holiday location, but has difficulty attracting locals. Ramsay discovers a menu that encompasses numerous cuisines and appalling recipes, such as prawns with chocolate sauce and chicken with banana. Poor service and improperly cooked food have given the restaurant a negative reputation, especially after Laurence's bizarre recipes and arrogant attitude alienated a donkey sanctuary. To show the staff the importance of letting ingredients speak for themselves, he creates smoothies from the menu items, including the prawns with chocolate, with Lawrence being unable to identify the prawns. Ramsay creates a simple menu for the night's service, but Lawrence insists that he is in control of his large, unpopular menu and only switches to Ramsay’s backup menu after it is too late. To make things worse, the restaurant is robbed during the night, with the thieves taking money from the takings stored in a filing cabinets. Ramsay takes Laurence to a bullfighting school to demonstrate the importance of listening to expert advice. He also berates Laurence over his excessive use of his plancha grill, causing food to be overcooked and taste monotonous, and teaches him to cook fresh food in pans. The final service begins well, but the staff have double-booked tables, causing confusion in the kitchen and ruining a nearly flawless reopening. Ramsay leaves, concerned that the restaurant would not make it through the slower winter season.

The Fenwick Arms is a classic English pub, but Ramsay finds the menu is anything but classic English pub grub, with many dishes ruined by sloppy sauces created by owner and head chef, Brian Rey. At 62 years of age, Brian (and his wife, Elaine Howden) are working between 100 and 120 hours a week and his age and health create disorder in kitchen as he is unable to keep track of orders. Ramsay also finds that Brian is a compulsive hoarder, collecting a bizarre collection of crockery from eBay. To address the problems, Ramsay removes Brian from the kitchen and moves him to the front of house. However, Brian is unable to fully remove himself from his duties and creates another batch of terrible sauce. Ramsay throws the sauce out and gets Brian to begin selling his excessive plate collection. He turns Brian over to a simpler menu, focusing on classic pub dishes instead of pretending to be a restaurant, and to complement the excellent Yorkshire pudding, Ramsay creates a new focus and campaign for the pub to bring back real gravy. Brian is enthusiastic about the idea and the staff market their new gravy in town. Despite some confusion in the service, the kitchen staff hold up under pressure and the customers are pleased with the new food. Ramsay leaves after making Brian promise not to step back into the kitchen.

Despite being a successful chef in the previous decade, owner-chef Nick Anderson has fallen on hard times due to his refusal to modernize his menu or cooking methods, which Ramsay attributes to the way he was abruptly fired from a hotel shortly after earning it a Michelin Star in 1997. After speaking to the locals and finding out about the Rococo's abysmal reputation, Ramsay tells Nick that there's no way he can salvage things as they are, and that the only way to recover is to effectively start over with a new restaurant in the same building. Nick agrees, and Rococo is renamed Maggie's, given a complete makeover and refit, and a new menu focused around local seafood.

Ramsay has major issues with the food, but finds the biggest problem to be the feuds among the owners and staff; owner Sandy Morgan has little knowledge of restaurants and insists on personally buying all the ingredients from a nearby supermarket, younger daughter Laura Kelly has even less, elder daughter Helen Kelly has the most business knowledge but only works at the restaurant part-time, head chef Philip Lee has a confrontational attitude, uses bizarre combinations (such as mashed potatoes and apricot) in the menu and doesn't get on with sous chef Emma, who nonetheless serves Ramsay the only thing he likes, a sticky toffee pudding. Ramsay finds it hard going, and the continued feuds cause Laura to temporarily walk away from the restaurant, but with Helen committing to the restaurant full-time and Phil agreeing to work more with Emma and simplifying the menu, things begin to look up.

Revisited episode

Revisited episode

On his arrival, Ramsay finds that owner and former actor Allan Love is in a fragile emotional state due to the precarious nature of the business and the possibility of losing his house, and that the two chefs, Jamie and Alex are lazy and seemingly only interested in the money. On sampling the food, Ramsay realises that the restaurant's fish is too expensive and sub-standard, and on taking Alex and Jamie to a local fish market finds that pollock is in plentiful local supply. A revamped menu with a pollock fish and chips meal proves a hit, but things nearly stall when Ramsay clashes with Allan over the restaurant's gaudy decor, which Allan is proud of and threatens to stop filming if Ramsay attempts to change it. Despite this, Allan eventually agrees to allow a makeover, and Ramsay also has the restaurant renamed Love's Fish Restaurant so as to take advantage of its biggest asset, Allan himself. Jamie is designated head chef, and the full reopening proves a big hit.

Ramsay is simultaneously delighted to be working in Paris, the city where he originally learned to be a chef, though a little daunted at the prospect of taking on a vegetarian restaurant. He's further daunted when he realizes just how bad things are, and by the end of the first night forces owner Rachel McNally to fire her lazy, incompetent head chef Daniel (who Ramsay has to physically eject from the premises when he refuses to leave), with Rachel's friend and waitress Stephanie quitting a day later after Ramsay criticizes her attitude. Ramsay proves the restaurant's potential by opening it himself for lunch (something Rachel has never done), and makes over €400 from a simple meal of tomato soup and grilled cheese-on-toast. Backup then arrives in the form of Rachel's father Brian and promising young chef India Innes, and despite a brief speedbump caused by Rachel forgetting to buy essential supplies, a strong relaunch service seemingly has the restaurant set up for success.

Revisited episode

Despite enjoying perhaps more custom than any other restaurant seen to date on the show, new owner Scott Aitchison reveals that The Priory is still losing money because almost all the custom is from people using "50% off" vouchers on the restaurant's carvery. Ramsay also strongly criticizes the work ethic and competence of head chef Toby, and is infuriated to discover the kitchen is full of old food and filthy, rusting equipment, which he orders to be replaced. However, Ramsay suspects that the kitchen staff are merely demotivated due to the unchanging menu, and sets up a new grill menu, only for Toby to turn out to be even worse at cooking that than he was the carvery. Ramsay’s patience with Toby runs out, and he orders the restaurant's general manager Matt, himself an experienced chef, to take over from Toby, who is demoted to sous chef. This change in roles finally gets things moving, and under Matt's leadership the kitchen finally gets through a service.

Run by former Italian boxer Mike Ciminera, The Fish and Anchor is a local eatery filled with sports memorabilia and with a tarnished reputation, with Mike and wife Caron notorious for their feuding, which has scared customers away. Ramsay learns that Mike, while passionate and ambitious, is not a trained chef and has based his menu on cookbooks written by celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver, Rick Stein and Gordon Ramsay himself. Ramsay is critical of the menu's complexity and lack of focus, and his concerns are proven in the evening service. As the cookbooks are written for home cooking, the dishes are too complex to manage in a busy restaurant environment and Mike does not know how to handle multiple orders. Half the customers are not served food, and Caron verbally confronts and kicks out several customers. The next day, Ramsay gets rid of Mike's cookbooks and removes the exotic dishes from the menu. He appeals to Mike's proud Italian heritage and creates an authentic meatball item. Mike is capable of handling the orders in the following service with praise for the food, but the night is ruined when Caron forgets an order and throws a tantrum. Ramsay manages to help the couple ease the tension and work together. They go into town to promote their new menu and service. Before the service, Ramsay sets up a punching bag outside to get the couple to vent their anger. The restaurant is packed, and Caron proves to have overcome her temper issues. However, Mike's inexperience in managing a full dining room causes him to fall behind. The service is stopped when one of the waitresses slips and falls, being knocked unconscious and taken to hospital.

Ramsay is initially displeased with the restaurant's atmosphere and misleading claims of being Nottingham's best restaurant (with "Runners-Up" in small print). While owner Arfan "Raz" Razak proudly boasts that his "make your own curry" idea is what sets his restaurant apart, Ramsay tells him that it's actually ensuring the business will fail, as the kitchen staff have to buy huge numbers of ingredients to make all the curries on the menu, and none of them taste especially nice and not even the restaurant staff can taste the difference. At Ramsay’s urging, head chef Khan puts a lamb korma made from a family recipe on the menu for the second night's service, which proves a big hit and wins Raz over. Ramsay also sells Raz on the idea of making curry deliveries to offices in the city center. With a fully revamped menu based on regional flavours, the reopening night is a big hit.

The Granary is run by ambitious entrepreneur Nigel Nieddu. Originally intended as an exclusive club for the rich and famous, Nigel has had to rebrand the restaurant, which now struggles to pull customers and has a poor reputation with the locals for its exclusive impression. Ramsay and Nigel eat lunch together, where it becomes clear that the restaurant does not live up to its focus of modern British food, with too many exotic dishes on the menu, such as shark with mozzarella, that the kitchen staff struggle to cook. The kitchen is run by Martin, who has taken on board two delinquent boys to help them back on track with cooking. Ramsay books the restaurant to half capacity for lunch to test the kitchen, but unused to even these numbers, the staff struggle to keep up. Ramsay identifies the main weakness to be Nigel, who has no experience as a restaurant manager, lacks control over the dining room and has difficulty accepting criticism. This is demonstrated when Nigel struggles to delegate tasks to his staff when challenged to put together a prefabricated chicken coop. After convincing Nigel to turn to a simpler British menu and allowing Martin to have more control, the staff host a food fair to bring the community back. The reopening begins well, but Martin struggles with the numbers and fails to show strong leadership under pressure. The kitchen staff lose discipline, although young cook Pete is able to hold himself together. The service is disappointing, with Martin disappointed with himself and Nigel determined to get it right.

The Dovecote Bistro (renamed Martins' Bistro)

Mick is a former truck driver and burger van operator who has opened a bistro with his wife and adopted daughter, Michelle. Ramsay is firstly appalled by the psychedelic wallpaper. While Ramsay is impressed with the simple menu, he is furious to find that Mick has very little cooking ability, using orange squash to make a sauce and using vacuum-sealed pre-cooked lamb shanks in a microwave bag. Not only does he show little responsibility in the kitchen, he is also secretive with his spending and is hugely in debt. Mick is adamant that the problems in the kitchen are not his fault, and his stubbornness causes a rift with his wife and daughter. Ramsay solves the crisis by taking the business matters out of Mick's hands and kicks him out of the kitchen. His daughter, Michelle, is placed in charge of the kitchen despite having no cooking experience. She rises to the challenge, and while Mick is not convinced over replacing his microwave food, the reopening is a success.

Months later, Ramsay returns to find that the restaurant is making profit. He sent Michelle for further culinary training, and she impresses Ramsay with freshly cooked food.

The restaurant was renamed Martins' Bistro during production.

The Runaway Girl (renamed Silversmiths)

Justin runs The Runaway Girl, specialising in Spanish tapas, with best friend and head chef, Richie. Ramsay is not impressed with the decor, finding the name and appearance to be similar to a strip club. He discovers that the kitchen does no preparation work before service, as Richie has pre-cooked and stored all the meals in advance to prevent wastage. He discovers that Justin invests very little in the kitchen and focuses on organising live music events, which customers find loud and obnoxious. Richie and Justin fall out, with Richie launching a heated tirade about Justin's inability to listen to criticism. Ramsay employs a mystery diner to assess the service, and despite Justin claiming to recognise their purpose, botches the service and forgets to even provide cutlery, resulting in a scathing review. After helping Justin and Richie make amends, he refurbishes the restaurant and renames it Silversmiths, bans live music and, realising that they have no chance of competing against local Spanish restaurants, changes the focus to modern British cuisine.

While previously successful, the Mayfair has fallen on hard times, which Ramsay attributes to owner Jack's refusal to fire head chef Juan, awful hygiene standards (which results in Ramsay closing the restaurant down for the first day for an extensive cleaning), and insistence on filling much of the restaurant with useless junk. Ramsay initially sees Jack's son John as the right man to take over, but quickly loses faith on finding out that not only has the car hire business that John runs separately been a huge failure, he's invested €40,000 of his parents' money into it too. After forcing John to promise to shut down his hire business and eventually repay his parents, and getting Jack to get rid of his hoard, Ramsay renames the restaurant Jack's Chicken Shack and creates a new menu focused around fried chicken. The service that follows initially goes poorly thanks to John's poor handling of the order system, but he eventually gets the hang of it, and service is successfully completed.

As soon as he arrives at the restaurant, Ramsay is outraged by head chef Steve and the staff cooking themselves a sirloin dinner, and accuses them of taking advantage of owners Tim and Debbie. However, Tim is discovered to be a big part of the problem due to his interference in service, refusal to allow Steve to set his own menu, and careless handling of the business side of the restaurant. While Ramsay has further criticism for Steve's lack of local product knowledge and not even being able to speak French, he and the kitchen staff prove their skill by cooking good dishes after Ramsay takes them to a local seafood market, only for Tim to berate the staff when he sees the results, accusing them of holding back and even threatening to fire them. Despite this, the reopening night goes well, and Ramsay tells Tim that so long as he doesn't interfere with the running of the kitchen, he can make Le Deck a success.

In a Kitchen Nightmares first, Ramsay works with a restaurant that has opened only 8 weeks prior to his arrival. Owners Milan and Gina are new to the restaurant industry and their inexperience leads them to lean on head chef Neal to manage the restaurant as well as run the kitchen, putting heavy pressure on Neal. Ramsay notes that the restaurant’s menu is too complicated for a small brigade and discovers Neal fails to delegate to his assistant chefs, which heavily slows down service and causes Neal to be extremely stressed while cooking.

In order to demonstrate the difficulty that Neal and the servers are under, Ramsay has Milan and Gina work a service with only six guests, which forces them to see the negative impact of decisions they had made, like the broken dumbwaiter and the complicated menu. He also implements a new menu around sharing plates, which takes pressure off the kitchen. During the relaunch, the service initially starts off very strong. However, when the sharing plates run out, Neal buckles under pressure and reverts to his bad habits. Fortunately, Ramsay is able to get Neal back on track, saving the service and impressing a local food critic.

Initially, Ramsay is put off by the fact that siblings Joe and Terry Quelcutti seem more interested in running the establishment as a bar rather than a restaurant, which has caused chef Terry’s food to be abysmal. However, he identifies a bigger problem: server Joe’s inability to keep cool during service leads him to regularly confront guests he’s meant to be serving. In order to improve the siblings’ abilities in the front and back of house, Ramsay has them work a lunch service at Quique De Costa, a Michelin-starred restaurant in the area.