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Why I Love...Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Gordon Ramsay
  • Posted at 1:27pm
  • 22 October 2007
  • by NickGriffiths-RT
  • 6 comments

Well, it's not because there aren't enough sightings of Gordon Ramsay on television. There was a time, not so long ago, when the former Rangers footballer seemed more ubiquitous than Santa at Christmas. And, Gordon, I say that in the spirit of light-heartedness - please don't hit me.

See, there's one of the points. Ramsay's a hard-looking bloke, which makes for palpable tension. He's powerfully built - we know that because for some reason he changes into his chef top at the start of each programme, when surely he has a changing room at home - he sneers brilliantly, and his head, gorgeous and blonde as it is, looks like a topographic version of anger.

He's a perfectionist, he's single-minded, his vocabulary veers towards the profane and he suffers fools about as gladly as a recently disturbed gorilla. How best to employ those, er, qualities?

When the producers lined him up, they knew what they were doing. They didn't pitch Ramsay's Kitchen Loveliness or Ramsay's Kitchen - Let's All Sing Some Happy Songs in It. No, they got straight to the point. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. (Ramsay's @&%*! Kitchen Nightmares would have been better, but you can't swear in titles, only during the programme itself, presumably in case British children learn to read.)

Let's find a restaurant that's in dire straits, where incompetence is rife, where packet sauces and outmoded ingredients are culinarily destroyed as a matter of course, shove Gordon through the door, wind him up and watch him go.

And how.

Surely everyone remembers that hapless "head chef" Tim who fed him rancid scallops, and Ramsay vomited them up out back. The look on Tim's face. Beetroot shame mingling with bewilderment and dented pride. Witnessing it was like being back at school, witnessing a classmate getting a severe rollicking. And actually starting to worry that you might be next!

You can hear it coming through Ramsay's tone. It goes from soothing ("Right, let's see what you can do") to cajoling ("That lamb should be ready by now") to frustrated ("Oh, come on!") to ballistic (lots of rude words with perhaps "trout", "gravy" and "stupid" in-between). Ramsay tells it like it is. (Gary Rhodes, on the other hand, tells it like he's being dunked in treacle.)

Which would be all very well. Cookery + business + fireworks = great television. But there's more to the show than that - because Ramsay patently cares. He genuinely wants to guide these people out of schtook. He's passionate about food. He's passionate about success.

He may also be passionate about money and celebrity. But you can tell him that.

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Comments

  • Posted on 23 April 2009
  • at 6:52pm
  • by Pidge

I might start a rubbish restaurant just so I can meet the legend that is 'Chef Ramsay'

  • Posted on 11 March 2009
  • at 10:42pm
  • by emma

the guy is a legand! he is a work of art.

  • Posted on 06 March 2009
  • at 7:24pm
  • by Choggey

I love it. It's great television, but as has been said he's so clearly genuinely passionate about what he's doing, and while I'm sure they don't all pull it together, there are clearly a number of family businesses and, dare I say it, family relationships, that owe their redemption to Gordon.

There aren't that many people, let alone chefs, that can say that!

  • Posted on 20 February 2008
  • at 9:38pm
  • by joshua_peter

I Agree with both comments Gordon Ramsay was one of the the influences that made me go into the world of catering!!!

Josh

  • Posted on 20 February 2008
  • at 9:05pm
  • by mrandyg

Just to agree with what vardy just said the guys an inspiration. You could take his way of thinking and the ideas and ideals that he puts across and apply them to any walk of life.

  • Posted on 18 December 2007
  • at 4:30pm
  • by vardy
I find Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares compulsive watching. His character of being so direct, passionate, impulsive, aggressive and yet compassionate does not surprise me that he is amassed nearly £100 million in his self made business ventures. I suppose his talents fascinate to me is because I have lacked these qualities in my business (not in cooking by the way) and one could apply his intuitive skills to any business to improve standards, moral, output and profit. In an age of celebrity overload I see Ramsay and sadly just a few others as flagships to what should be on the television as a means of education through entertainment, not as is so much the case; entertainment for entertainment's sake. I could go on for hours, but how Simon Cowle can sit back in those tight pants and give sarcastic remarks to the odd end of Joe Public while earning millions saddens me to tears. I would like to see Simon Cow sing a song so we could understand just how he thinks they should do it. Back to Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares... More of it... and more like him too.

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