Hell's Kitchen: The Trump Card

When I first saw the advertisements for Hell's Kitchen a few years ago, I wrinkled my nose in disgust. At that time, I knew nothing about Gordon Ramsey, but I had determined he was the greatest asshole I'd yet seen on TV, and swore I'd never watch that mockery of a show. At the time, I was also far less of a foodie than I am today. Of course, now times have changed, and Gordon Ramsey is one of my most favorite food personalities. I understand him.

So when I saw that I could set up a recording for Hell's Kitchen on my DVR, I thought "What the hell," and set up the series recording (which is poorly consistent as it is being aired on Fox Reality.) A few episodes eventually recorded, and last week, I sat down to watch the first few that had recorded from the 2005 season. My mind was blown.

My gripe for the past two years, while watching Top Chef, has been simply that it lacks the gusto of a true cooking competition. Many of the competitions are simply ridiculous, and few really test a chef's ability in the kitchen. The judges are too kind unless a food is simply inedible. Worst of all, to me, a chef's ability to truly work as a team with his peers is completely lost: all contestants work as individuals and never truly look at the success of the entire team as one would look at in a kitchen. The chefs also tend to cook for their judges, and not for their audience (who never pays anyway.) And, although I have been bothered by these trends, there are many shining and interesting moments that allow me to derive a certain enjoyment from the Top Chef competition.

Hell's Kitchen, as I should have expected from Gordon Ramsey, is a no-bullshit program. It recognizes that a chef cooks in a kitchen, and that a kitchen consists of a working team. This requires leadership skills, and it requires a great deal of swallowing down one's own ego to get things done. It doesn't just require the knowledge to be able to cook a dish; it requires the ability to work in a fast-paced, demanding environment, and the willingness to pick up the slack of your team members, to be versatile in the kitchen. And, most importantly, your food is always going to be judged, on a nightly basis, by paying customers that will, on the most part, be strangers to you. Hell's Kitchen points out, as harsh and blunt as it can, that it takes an extraordinary person to be a quality chef.

I regret not having watched Hell's Kitchen until now (and doubly regret that I cannot get these episodes recorded fast enough.) I take back the harsh words I offered it privately in the past. This is a cooking competition that I can admire, one that can prove that reality shows don't always have to be about personal drama.

Kitchen Nightmares (US): WTF?

I've long been a fan of the Kitchen Nightmares series from the UK. So when I saw that Kitchen Nightmares was coming to the UK - while the UK was also starting a new season - I was thrilled. Now, having watched the first episode, I'm shocked.

I have to admit, I can't stand the American Reality Show Narration. I much prefer Gordon's own dialog; I imagine they decided Gordon was too vulgar to narrate. And that was a wise choice, once the problems of the first restaurant were revealed.

Rotten food? Outside a place with a Zagat plaque? Terrifying. The kitchen was 90% nonfunctional in technical aspects. Normally, a great deal of the problems with restaurants featured (at least in the UK edition) are on the menu or the kitchen staff. Here, the kitchen staff was operative, and the menu, while revised, was still fair. But at Peter's, the kitchen itself was in complete disrepair, and the state of the food! Reheated food purchased from a depot, refrigerated vegetables that had gone rotten, mostly due to a refrigerator that was leaking and wasn't cold enough. Terrible! And the owner... I've never seen such a temper or an attitude. Really, this episode can only be expressed by watching the nightmare literally unfold before your eyes.

And the next episode is supposed to feature a restaurant so incredibly infested, the place deserves to be condemned. This series is making the restaurant industry in the US look terrible.