HELL'S KITCHEN- the starting point of Gordon Ramsay's TV empire

Now for the big enchilada- the one that started it all- Hell’s Kitchen

speaking from personal experience...

I’ve been fortunate enough to have gone to two Gordon Ramsay restaurants in my life, both in Atlantic City.
The pub we did for lunch in 2016 (it was January, before any of the bad stuff associated with that year happened) and we got to meet season 13 winner La Tasha She spent maybe 90 seconds with us and she was really nice. Not sure if she’s still there but she and Meghan, the winner from season 14 worked there on different shifts.
I had my first lobster roll and crispy skin salmon there and both were amazing. 

Then the previous year we went to the new Hell’s Kitchen for my birthday. Aside from the tvs flashing all kinds of scenes from the series and the dimmer lighting, it was exactly like being on the show. It was Alex’s weekend off so we didn’t meet him but from what we gathered from the staff we talked to, he sounds like a great boss and he’s settling in really well.

The only real negative of the experience- shaved truffle. An add-on our server pushed but kinda forgot to mention was $30 extra. We found this out when we got the check, which would’ve been pricey regardless, but a heads up would’ve been appreciated. Between the 4 of us, I think all of us had ordered truffles with one of our dishes so that's an extra $100 we didn't plan for.

That aside, the rest of the experience was overwhelmingly positive.
It was my birthday and they made me feel like a rock star in a classy understated way. Up to being handed a peanut butter cheesecake with one candle in it from the guy who got us our drinks.
My mom ordered their signature smoky Manhattan and it was a really cool presentation. It was inside an olde English lantern lantern and smoke billowed out as soon as you opened it. I think I ordered a blueberry cocktail with the Queen's name in the title- enjoyed that as well.

All the food was excellent. Kitchen was a tight ship as expected and they did not disappoint.
Lobster risotto (plus truffles), really good. And more crispy skin salmon although that charred broccoli on the side- one of Alex’s signatures from the menu- omg, SO good! Almost stole the spotlight.

Of course nothing beats the view from the stairs on the way out where you can see all of the kitchen action below.
Seeing all of this on tv is one thing but actually being there to see it with your own eyes (and smelling and tasting it)… it’s something else and something I’ll never forget.

Par for the [main] course

For the show itself, it’s stayed mostly the same over the years. Occasionally they’ll change up the theme to keep it interesting. This year they’re doing head chefs only. They’ve done at least one all star season and the previous season was about the American dream (the eventual winner was originally from Cork, Ireland).

Every season pretty much begins and ends the same way. We have the signature dish challenge that sets the tone- although I couldn’t tell you how many people who dazzled this early wound up actually winning in the end. There’s a red and blue team with women vs men. Eventually the two brigades are narrowed down to one- the highly coveted black jackets.
Then we have the final two who make up their own menu, choose their brigades from previous contestants, run their kitchen for a service and whoever’s door opens off Gordon’s office is declared the winner.

With everything in between, the mileage varies.

There’s challenges- some are mainstays that happen more frequently but mostly they’re different games that ultimately determine the ingredients certain people cook with. This concludes with rewards for the winners and punishments for the losers.
There’s dinner service where anything can and will go wrong, people get yelled at and whole teams get thrown out when Gordon loses patience with the mistakes made.
And at the end, two people from the losing team(s) get nominated to defend their place on the show and someone is eliminated.

Some decisions for elimination are easier than others and some are straight up petty- people just don’t like certain people and keep trying to send them home. One time they got creative and put someone up they wanted to get rid of along with someone who’d been so consistent that there’s no way Gordon would chose them to go home. (I’m pretty sure this gamble worked but I’m not positive).

One person infamously marched up to Gordon to give him a piece of his mind and security swarmed in to keep things civil. Joe did not return, needless to say.

This isn’t full proof but when you’re up for elimination, you have a good chance of surviving if you fight for your place. Gordon appreciates people who do that. What he doesn’t appreciate is people who tell him they volunteered to put themselves up. I’ve seen this play out multiple times on another reality series— would-be bosses don’t want to hear that their would-be employees are quitters. It eliminates whatever confidence they have in you and that essentially eliminates you from consideration.
There’s a fine line between accepting responsibility and throwing yourself down on your own sword.

Some of the regular challenges include:

The infamous blind taste test

• it’s a lot harder than it looks and it’s incredibly rare for anyone to correctly identify all 4 of their ingredients
• I’ve heard rumors that the kitchen is made to smell like bacon so it completely throws off people’s sense of smell but I can’t find anything to confirm this
• I DID find that the headphones they wear actually play music so that adds difficulty. Plus everything is cut into smaller pieces, unseasoned or otherwise altered from the way you’d typically come across it
• It’s rare but there have been a couple people over the years to get 4/4 correct. One of them won the entire competition in the end
• One thing a lot of fans have noticed over the years… so many of these contestants smoke. There was actually one year Gordon said to them the day prior to stop smoking for a while because it ruins their taste buds and this challenge was around the corner.

Seriously, why do so many people on this show smoke? I do not understand this… but I also never understood the concept of smoking at all. There's no incentive to start, no benefit and you have to fight like hell to quit...

Taste it then make it

• sometimes when this comes up, Gordon will make a dish at random and offer it to everyone to taste… waiting until afterwards to mention “oh by the way you have to recreate it”. But in later years, the chefs are usually mindful enough to know this is coming up
• There’s usually 4 categories. The protein, the vegetable, the starch and the sauce and whoever is the closest wins the challenge
• I haven't seen this in years... not sure if they've retired this or not but it was an interesting challenge nonetheless

As far as dinner service goes, every station has its difficulties and it’s hard to be sure which is the hardest. Sometimes fish will drive the ticket and sometimes it’s garnish. But it’s always crucial to taste everything. Meat is always cooked medium rare. (The same goes for Masterchef- the ideal cook for steak is always medium rare, which I never fully understood because I prefer a less bloody medium cook on mine).
Appetizers are commonly risotto and scallops with the occasional pizza/flatbread.

We’ve made risotto at home once… it’s EXTREMELY labor intensive. I’m pretty sure they parboil the Arborio rice ahead of time so they can turn out portions faster but it’s insane. You definitely build up arm muscle with all that stirring. If we ever do it again, it's gotta be for a larger gathering so more people are available to take turns stirring.
Time and again, risotto gets rejected at the pass either due to lack of seasoning or not enough of the liquid is reduced.

Salmon and halibut can be difficult, come entree time, and hurt you if you bring up raw fish. But it’s probably much worse to have seafood for a risotto and you’re the reason the risotto is held back.
As for scallops, they’re pan-fried and it takes a total of 90 seconds.

This doesn’t happen as frequently anymore but there’ll be instances where Gordon gets so mad at someone that they’re thrown out of the kitchen. Once, the chef in question was ready to leave the premises and the matri’d Jean-Philippe talked to them, saying “don’t go, he’s testing you and wants you to fight back.”

It might sound crazy but there is a method to all this madness. All of the cursing and yelling you see on the show- yeah, it’s over the top and more insane than the average person is equipped to handle but it’s hard to argue with the results.

How to run (and not run) a kitchen

The biggest thing that sinks dinner services isn’t proteins and risottos being cooked incorrectly. It’s lack of communication. Sometimes there will be entire challenges dedicated to this, whether chefs have recipes written on their backs and other people have to read it to them or there’s a tag team challenge. Where chefs are taken out one at a time and their teammates have to instruct them what’s left to be done and what the next step is for their dishes.

A well run kitchen is always the one that’s the loudest. People calling out “how long” and replying that they need however many minutes they need to finish. All of the pans and ovens are usually screaming hot so it’s rare to hear a time longer than 7 minutes. And with things like scallops, those are usually fired when there’s 2 minutes left before the rest of the ticket comes up. How all this works, I never figured out. Are they all wearing watches? Is there a clock on the wall? All of them have a concept of how long certain things take to cook but from the perspective of a viewer, how these times work just looks random and they somehow know how much longer.

One thing that’s pretty much guaranteed is that everyone will struggle in this place. Experience means nothing. This recent season, the head chefs had a really rough start despite their pedigrees. Even having black jackets isn’t enough sometimes.

Because this is a high profile chef, celebrities make regular appearances although some of them are shameless self promotion for Fox. Sometimes they’re at chefs’ tables but in recent years, they’ve become part of one of the more pivotal dinner service challenges.

Charity Night- where there’s two tables of 12 or so with a notable celebrity founder/contributor at the head. Each chef runs a course and the most important thing is that both kitchens coordinate to serve all of the diners at the same time. Attention to detail is just as important as communication here and the pressure that comes with all that is immense.

After all those hurdles, though, comes probably my favorite of the hurdles and it determines the finalists.

Each of the final 4 chefs take a turn running the pass and doing Gordon Ramsay’s job of calling tickets and expediting orders. It’s fun just seeing who’s able to rise to the occasion and handle all of the curveballs thrown at them.
And there are MANY curveballs, which get more creative each season. They’re always thinking of new and exciting ways to trip people up. Usually the sabotage will come from the sous chef running their old station in their place. A classic example is using orzo instead of rice in a risotto or their Wellington is something other than beef. But in recent years, the sabotage is the actual ticket and having the wrong number of plates. Sometimes from Gordon Ramsay himself
If you watch the show for enough years, you have a good idea of what to expect so it’s exciting any time you get something new you wouldn’t have expected otherwise.

Gordon Ramsay over the years

The environment is still a major pressure cooker but Gordon has definitely mellowed out over the years.

It used to be that he’s such a hard ass that the only time you see him being “normal” is on a reward. Some dinner at some place where he spends time with the chefs and they get personal time with him. It’s a good time to make an impression but also to pick his brain and learn from him. Even for people who don’t make it far, I’m sure most can say they came away from it stronger or at least more knowledgeable than when they entered.

He doesn’t call people “donkey” or “fat cow” like he did but he’ll still throw an entire team in the pantry to give them hell if they’re struggling with service. One thing he does regularly and it annoys me as much as “someone is going home, make sure it’s not you” (it’s a pet peeve because he says this almost EVERY week on Masterchef), he’ll complain about a bad service and say “you’ve given up, you don’t care”… it’s probably some reverse psychology thing but it’s frustrating when he says this while the chefs are clearly struggling and working their butts off and the food just isn’t coming out right.

But he’s showing his sympathetic side a lot more in recent years. Sometimes when he sees someone having a hard time, he’ll take them aside and say “talk to me” and they work through what’s going on. This year has been especially hard for whatever reason- a number of chefs have gotten homesick and wanted to quit because of it and he’d talk them down.

Memorable chefs- the best and the worst

I don’t have much more to add as far as contestants go or my favorite winners. Only because it’s been around so long and there’s so many.

One of my favorite winners was Christina who became the sous chef in the red kitchen for several years after. I knew from day one she’d be a front runner. Probably called her winning too but I can’t be sure because most of the time I call winners for anything, I’m wrong. I’ll always remember her winning Hell’s Kitchen the same year Christine Ha won masterchef.

Most of the time on the finale, the also-ran takes it in stride and is really gracious for the experience. I’ve only seen one exception to this and it was season 8 where Russell lost to Nona. He was a front runner for much of the competition and she gained momentum as it went on but he was such a sore loser afterwards I lost whatever respect I had for him. (Re-reading his comments in the Wikipedia article, he said his brigade helped him lose and he'd blackball them to ruin their careers... it's even worse than I remembered, yikes)
Finale dinner services have their difficulties but one of the biggest tests a budding executive chef can face is dealing with a strong personality.

In typical reality show fashion, troublemakers and attitude problems are kept around longer than they should for the sake of drama. And often they play a role in the final dinner service and it's up to the finalist to contain their mistakes or throw them off the team altogether.
It’s par for the course but omg, I hate it so much. Gordon likes arrogance and respects it when there’s skill to back it up but he’s also like Judge Judy in the sense that his voice is the final say and he doesn’t like people talking over him or challenging him when something is sent back at the pass.

Two of my all-time worst contestants who were kept longer than they should’ve- Elise (season 9) and Jason (from the American Dream season prior to this current one).
It’d be interesting to see them as the final 2 of the same season and me trying to decide which I’d rather win, assuming I’m able to choose a conclusion I can live with. (I hate the Cowboys as an Eagles fan but I can cheer them on to beat Tom Brady… which they did on his final season before he finally stayed retired)
But their seasons for me were all about waiting for them to get kicked off the show… and it was a LONG wait in both cases.

Jason was an arrogant jerk who got along with no one (because, apparently, this show isn’t about making friends) and the feeling was mutual. Physical altercations almost broke out a couple times but I was almost begging them to smother him with a pillow while he slept. The most reprehensible thing he did a number of times- he took shortcuts and flouted procedure. Hell’s Kitchen is run a certain way and you don’t effing mess with that! He may have had more experience than most of the contestants but he certainly didn’t have any Michelin stars to back up his “improvements” on a long proven formula. On the other hand, he did show solidarity for the finalists he cooked for in the final service. Putting your own feelings aside to help someone else win is always a good thing.

Elise is easily the worst of the two because she’d been on the show TWICE. And clearly she learned nothing from her previous season because she would not stop shouting at everyone who dared stand up to her.  Just in general, people like her are very hard for me to stomach being around. I can see myself getting the brunt of her fury until I break down and surrender saying “you were right, you win” when I’m clearly in the right… I’ll just surrender just to make the shouting stop.
She also had that reality TV attitude I hate where she refused to take accountability and when she was nominated, it was because "people are intimidated by me" or some arrogant bullshit... ugh!!

The one consolation I got from her being on the all star season (aside from falling short of black jackets)… the winner had been a regular target of her bullying. I don’t understand her whole vendetta against Michelle or why she constantly said in confession that she wasn’t good enough to stay in the competition. But her subdued, almost broken reaction to Michelle being crowned the winner… I could go on and on about how that’s proof karma is an even bigger bitch than she is. But really, I felt bad and it made me hope she learned from the experience just to be a better person.
Michelle is now the new sous chef in the red kitchen so I doubt she’ll want anything more to do with the series for the rest of her life.

I mean, I get it. You can’t go through life or work your way up certain industries being a doormat. I’m sure several of these people had to grow a thicker skin to get to where they are. But if you’re professing arrogance, you better have the skill to back it up. And even if you do have a sizable skill set, if you want people to work for you and respect, you have to give them that in return.
Of course this logic isn’t as airtight as I’d like it to be. There are plenty of arrogant CEOs and politicians out there and they don’t always get there just by playing nice.

This doesn’t happen often but it’s always interesting when there’s crossover between Hell’s Kitchen and Food Network. At least 3 chefs had gone onto Chopped (Dana, Roshni and Sakari) and Roshni went on to become a chopped champion.

In terms of success stories after the show, it’s a mixed bag but more chefs have probably found more success working for Gordon Ramsay than restaurants have benefited from kitchen nightmares… although there’s a much bigger sample size for the latter.

The bigger successes I can attest to are Heather, Christina and Michelle because they became sous chefs on the tv show. Plus Jay (notable for his blue hair and his showmance with Holli until learning she was married) who finished second and became the sous chef of the blue kitchen.

I’ll have to look up Rock’s time after winning but considering he appeared on one of Gordon’s “restaurant saving” shows, they’re still on speaking terms.
According to Wikipedia, he worked at the Gordon Ramsay restaurant for a year before branching out into other opportunities. One gig was being the National Celebrity Chef for March of Dimes. So he seems to be doing well even now. And his appearance was on 24 hours to hell and back for a Virginia restaurant, Halterman's Eatery.

One or two I remember reading that they turned down the job after the fact and have a successful restaurant in their own right. Holli, who won season 7 and was set to work at the Savoy in London- she lost out on the restaurant due to issues getting a work visa. A few others wound up turning down head chef roles after winning for family reasons, which is completely understandable. Just going off this recent season, it’s a rough gig and being away from your support system makes it harder.