Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Complete Series Two

The packaging is inaccurate as this three-DVD set presents the original four episodes of Series Two that aired in summer 2005, but also the four episodes of Series Three that aired in winter 2006. There are also two episodes when Ramsay revisited Momma Cherri’s Soul Food Shack and La Riviera, which aired during Series Four in autumn 2006

Observing the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix” theory, the program’s format remains exactly the same as Chef Gordon Ramsay comes to the rescue of struggling establishments and does his best to turn them around in a week, offering suggestions from changing the menu, the décor, and even the staff as he teaches the basics of restaurant management and astonishingly, even cooking. Each episode features an epilogue where Ramsay returns after a month or so to see how the restaurant is faring. The eight episodes show restaurants on the brink of ruin for a myriad of reasons.

Series Two begins with Lanterna, an Italian restaurant in Letchworth, Hertfordshire. The owner/chef Alex is a young man unaware of his limitations, thinking all he needs to do is call himself “Alessandro” and drive a BMW he can’t afford with a personalized plate that reads “A1 6hef.” Ramsay seeks out Alex’s Italian cooking mentor and finds him driving a cab.

The owner of D-place in Chelmsford, Essex has had the restaurant for five years. They serve a fusion menu, and the French chef, who formerly ran a Planet Hollywood, battles with the restaurant manager.

Momma Cherri’s in Brighton, East Sussex serves American soul food. Ramsay is surprised to find it tastes delicious, but the issues stem from Momma’s lax management with the large staff. When he revisits, and the DVD allows viewers to jump right to the roughly 12 minutes of new material, the Soul Food Shack has expanded to triple its size and becomes the Momma Cherri’s Big House, but Ramsay is disappointed as they have fallen into old, bad patterns to accommodate the growth

Multi-millionaire Barry Larson, who made his fortune off fast food franchises, owns La Riviera in Inverness, Scotland. He has a top staff of French chefs and uses top-of-the-line ingredients, but the prices are too high and the dishes are too elaborate. Yet, they are resistant to Ramsay’s suggestion of simplicity. When he revisits, he finds they took his ideas and put them into a brassiere, which is successful but they are still running the renamed Abstract in the same elaborate manner.

Series Three opens at The Sandgate Hotel in Sandgate, Kent where four different restaurants feature 168 dishes, including Japanese, which the chef doesn’t know very well as his sushi reveals. The place is overstaffed, the owner too lax with the staff, and the menus excessive.

Clubway 41 in Blackpool, Lancashire suffers because the chef doesn’t have a great deal of experience and his girlfriend, with no culinary background, picks odd flavor combinations, such as mixing salmon and strawberry, and brie and nectarine. They have a café downstairs that runs moderately well, but the fine dining upstairs isn’t working.

Oscar’s in Nantwich, Cheshire is a heartbreaking story as the woman put her retirement into restaurant having never run one before. Her son is the chef but he’s an alcoholic, and is taken to the hospital when he passes out during a service. Ramsay reveals addiction is a problem in industry as chefs deal with the high-pressure demands.

La Gondola in Derby, East Midlands is another case of a woman, not knowing anything about the restaurant business, buying one because it seemed like a good idea after she got half million quid in a divorce settlement. The chef, who had been there since the ‘70s, doesn’t take the job seriously.

What’s intriguing is Ramsay seems to honestly care about saving these restaurants, more than the owners and staff at times, some of whom seem to not grasp why he was brought in to help. He swears constantly on these uncensored shows, which doesn’t seem like a proper motivator. These two series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares remains compelling as it presents regular people trying to make a go of it with a restaurant, and he offers valuable tips applicable to other businesses.

To read the current state of participants of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, News of the World did a recent update.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares - Complete Series One

Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay opened his first restaurant in Chelsea, Gordon Ramsay at Royal Hospital Road, in 1998 and has gone on to create an empire of restaurants worldwide. After a couple of documentaries about him, his first television series in the U.K., Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, premiered in 2004 and has aired five seasons so far. An American version of the show, Kitchen Nightmares, debuted in 2007 and will be returning for a third season in 2009.

The premise has Ramsay show up to failing restaurants where he's given a week to help turn them around by trying to break the owners and staff of their bad habits and failed mindsets. He tries their food, watches them in action, and then offers suggestions ranging from new menu items to complete restaurant revamps.

Much like American Idol judge Simon Cowell, Ramsay is both brutally honest and usually correct in his assessments. He appears to sincerely want people to succeed, but he won’t lie to them. He has quite a foul mouth, but with this uncensored version I found myself no longer noticing the profanities. Another similarity between AI and RKN is the participants’ self-denial. Some of the people Ramsay encounters resist change, likely because it is an admission of their own mistakes and failure, but if their ideas were so good in the first place, they wouldn’t need his help.

The beauty of the program is that there’s no guarantee Ramsay can save the restaurants. By the time he arrives, it may be too late to recover from the mounting debts and limited abilities of the owners and chefs. He leaves them the tools to help improve their situation and then returns a few months later for a visit to see how things are going.

Series one includes four episodes. Bonapartes in Silsden, West Yorkshire was run by Sue, an owner new to the restaurant business. Her 21-year-old chef had never cooked an omelet before and his scallop dish literally made Ramsay ill. The Glass House in Ambleside had a very stressed-out owner and a head chef who held back the talents of his staff. The Walnut Tree in Abergavenny, Wales had been a Michelin-starred restaurant under chef Franco Taruschio. When Ramsay arrived, there was no head chef, so the viewer got to watch as they interviewed and tried out prospects. The executive chef at Moore Place in Esher, Surrey relied too much on a deep fryer and microwaves. Ramsay introduced carving chickens tableside.

The DVD set also includes Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares – Revisited which followed up on all four restaurants and aired during Series Two. Much of the material is re-purposed from the original episodes with Ramsay returning a year or so later to check in. The DVD allows the option to jump straight to the new material. The most notable visits were The Glass House, because Ramsay took two talented chefs to work in a London restaurant of his, and Bonapartes, which then only had the pub open. Sue had talked to the London Evening Standard in a story that alleged the show faked how bad things were. In June 2006, Ramsay took the paper to court and won.

Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares is extremely engaging as is its star. The behind-the-scenes peek behind the restaurant doors is fascinating and eye-opening. It should be mandatory viewing for all who are considering going into the business.