Tropes O to Z / Kitchen Nightmares

Kitchen Nightmares Trope Examples
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Omnidisciplinary Scientist: A very frequently-given excuse by restaurant owners to dismiss Ramsay's criticism of their food is to say Ramsay probably doesn't know anything about Cajun/Mexican/Chinese/etc. food, not realizing just how incredibly vast and diverse Ramsay's culinary knowledge really is.
Once an Episode: Given that this is "Gordon trying to save a failing restaurant", each episode tends to follow a particular pattern, almost by definition.
1. The episode starts out with the narrator briefly introducing the failing restaurant, followed by comments from the restaurant's owners and staff, accompanied by footage of the place running badly. Occasionally the narrator will state how *this* restaurant might be Gordon's hardest gig yet.
  1. Gordon arrives and meets the people of the restaurant. This quickly establishes the personalities of the personnel involved. Sometimes somebody gets to meet Gordon prior to his arrival, giving Gordon an early chance to have a more private conversation. Finally, Gordon is seated and has the place serve him a meal. He will always ask for about three different menu items to test the skills of the chef. In some cases, he'll order a wait staff recommendation. At one restaurant in particular, she urged Ramsay to order something she knew was awful just so Gordon could taste how bad it was himself. Since the place is failing, Gordon is likely going to be appalled by the decor, the service, the food, or all of the above In most cases it's the decor and the food. You can count on one hand the number of times in all of the series' that Gordon ordered something he actually enjoyed. And he will call it as it is. Some of the crew will not react to this well, creating tension early on. Sometimes to the point where there could be a firestorm in the kitchen before Gordon even finishes his meal.
  2. After the meal, Gordon lets the place know his opinion on the food, the environment and the staff, giving the crew a chance to backtalk out of frustration or to be spineless, frustrating Gordon in the process.
2. Gordon oversees a session of dinner service. Seeing the place in action allows him to have insights as to why the place is failing, insights he calmly shares with the audience by popping out of the restaurant and speaking to camera, or by directly grilling the owners/workers at the place. The "calmly" part is not guaranteed.
  1. Gordon investigates the kitchen and storage, finding either "subpar" (read: rotten) ingredients and/or tonnes of filth. If it's not during work hours, Gordon will voice his disgust to the audience and bring the issue up eventually. If it's during work hours, this will prompt Gordon to demand knowing who is responsible for the mess.
  2. The service ends badly, possibly with Gordon shutting the place down either due to bad service or health hazard. Armed with the aforementioned insights, Gordon has some facetime with a few key people, demanding change (sometimes immediate), and finally bid them a good night.
3. After a night's rest, Gordon gathers the employees and employers for a meeting to report his findings. Demanding some form of improvement on the personnel, who are occasionally inspired by this. If the place is filthy, there will be a cleaning in the schedule somewhere. If the ingredients aren't good enough, Gordon will try to get something fresh. Here, Gordon will also introduce some changes to the place, such as a few new dishes to the menu, or bringing in some help, testing the water while hoping the changes will lead to a better second service or relaunch. Skip to step 4 if relaunch comes next, which happens quite frequently if the owners are cooperative.
  1. Gordon oversees the second service, which will see some positives due to the changes Gordon has made. However, Gordon's name will draw in a larger-than-usual crowd and the staff will struggle to handle the increased ticket count while adapting to said changes. This is the step where most breakdown occurs, leading to people getting into arguments, getting fired on the spot, or even outright quitting.
  2. Gordon gathers everyone for a post-service meeting to bookend the day. Gordon mostly repeats step 2-B, except this time Gordon has seen how the restaurant reacts to his smaller changes, and will have an even greater understanding of the place. This allows him to demand some big changes, which he then follows up by declaring a relaunch of the establishment, after which he bids everyone good night.
4. Judging the place to be worthy of his salvation, Gordon brings in his designers and workers to revamp the place overnight.
  1. It's a new day, and the crew is rounded up and send to the front door of the restaurant (occasionally with blindfolds). They will find a Gordon who arrived early and see the place sporting a new exterior. Gordon invites the crew in to see the brand new interior, which will be *very* well-received by most, if not all of the crew. Cue manly tears, joyous screams, and lots of hugging.
  2. Gordon gives a rousing speech telling the crew why they didn't suck for once, implements the bigger changes he mentioned in the previous post-service meeting, and starts training the crew on the new routine just in time for the big re-opening.
5. The staff struggles with the new drastic changes and packed house...
  1. But the crew ultimately pulls through and finish the relaunch-day service on a high note.
  2. Very rarely (Again, you could count the times on one hand) the crew on relaunch night will handle everything with no issues at all, or in some cases, only have a few minor hurdles to overcome making the relaunch almost perfect.
  3. The grateful staff waves goodbye as Gordon leaves the restaurant, gives a few cautiously optimistic comments to the camera, and proceeds to ride into the sunset.
- Brilliantly parodied in this BBC America trailer.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Just like Jon Taffer in Bar Rescue, if Gordon is calm about a problem, there is really something wrong. A perfect example is when a customer at a seafood restaurant got sick with ammonia poisoning from bad lobster.
Overly Long Hug: One chef in the second episode is very enthusiastic to be working with Gordon Ramsay. He needs a translator to talk with Gordon, but takes matters into his own hands once, hugs him tightly, and won't let go.
Gordon: Tell him, tell him it's only a scallop, we haven't lost our children. [Beat] Okay, okay, you can let go now. You can let go now. He can let fucking go now!

Percussive Therapy: At Lido's, Gordon notices that the 30-year-old Point-Of-Sale system is the biggest headache in the restaurant, with him humorously pointing out that NASA engineers press fewer buttons to launch astronauts into space. He proceeds to bring the computer out and hit it with a baseball bat a few times, and proceeds to hand the bat to the employees to help them get out their frustration with the machine before presenting them with a brand new modern system that works much more effectively.
The Peter Principle: Some perfectly competent waitstaff or sous chefs find themselves out of their depths as head chefs or restaurant owners.
Pointy-Haired Boss: This points out whenever a restaurant is managed by incompetent owners, whether they cut corners so much the food becomes horrible, fail to lead the staff in a proper manner, or are too out of touch with reality to see that whatever they are doing is driving away customers.
Poor Communication Kills: The main problem in Greek at the Harbor. After seeing his father burn himself out working at the restaurant, Aris made an announcement at his college graduation party that he wanted to make something of himself and wouldn't work at the restaurant. His parents were understandably hurt by this and continued to burn themselves out at the restaurant, despite Aris having a change of heart and quality going down. The problem is that Aris didn't explain that he simply didn't want to burn himself out like his father did, and his parents didn't tell him how much his comment hurt and instead held it over his head for years.
Prayer Is a Last Resort: In certain situations when expectations are especially low, Gordon will pray to at least avoid food poisoning. In one case, he managed to get a priest who happened to be sitting nearby to bless his food. (Suffice it to say, the food was still awful)
Pretender Diss: Gordon's exasperation with egocentric owners and chefs alike leads to these, although Sebastian was an especially special case (after listening to him talk about franchising around the world: "You haven't got fucking one right so far, how can you think about two?").
Pride: The defining fault of many restaurant owners is that they overestimate the quality of their food and service. They may think that their skills are top-class, or that their food is just fine in spite of what the "haters" say, or even that they're resistant to changes they don't agree with. It often takes verbal beatdown from Ramsay, and sometimes incriminating evidence, before they acquire the humility to rescue their restaurant.
Pride Before a Fall: Expect the chef of the featured restaurant to begin the episode bragging about how damn good they are. Then watch their egos deflate in real time.
Product Placement: Very present in later seasons of the US show. Gordon will spend a portion of the "restaurant overhaul" segment of the show talking up the brands of kitchenware, POS system, furniture or silverware provided for the revamp, which wasn't the case in the earlier seasons.

Real Men Wear Pink: Gordon's shirt at the end of "Pantaleone's"... it's actually far brighter pink than the one worn by the owner's wife.
"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gordon frequently gives these to chefs and owners alike.
- The speech Gordon gives the chef at Oceana is also among the most scathing. When Gordon sends his disgusting meal back, the chef spends minutes tearing Gordon down, saying that Ramsay knows nothing about Cajun food and making insulting jokes about Ramsay that make the kitchen staff break into loud laughter...which Ramsay overhears. Ramsay then inspects the kitchen, finds filthy equipment, dead mice, and tons of rancid spoiled food in the fridge, and then delivers a scathing point-by-point verbal beatdown, with a pointed, sarcastic "Chef" attached to the end of each detail and directed at the Oceana chef, all of it stated in a calm, even voice.
Red Oni, Blue Oni: Moe and Rami, the co-owner brothers of the "Oceana" restaurant. Moe is extremely hot-tempered (when the restaurant has to be shut down due to serious food-safety issues, Moe literally throws a couple of chairs across the room), whereas Rami is more level-headed, even a little self-aware.
Rental Car Abuse: Deconstructed when Ramsay discovers that part of the reason for the restaurant's financial woes is that the owners have used their savings to prop up their son's failing car rental business. The son is a lousy businessman and he did not budget for the significant damage his cars would sustain. With his cars in various states of disrepair, no one would rent them and the business entered a death spiral. Out of desperation the guy resorted to sewing damaged bumpers back onto the cars.
Rule of Drama: According to this article regarding season 1's "Finn McCool's", the Fox editors chose to make up drama by claiming that Chef Brian left the kitchen and went home (when in fact he'd merely been asked to work the bar, and the vehicle shown leaving belonged to a plumber) as well as using footage of a Fox staff member dropping a piece of chicken on the floor and then into the fryer to claim that Brian had done this. Then there was the relaunch, in which Fox staff went behind everyone's backs and booked the restaurant for TRIPLE capacity, and the food critic, which was actually a college student ^note sent to say things that Fox had told her to say (this had been her first and only restaurant review). It does make one wonder how much of the show overall really is fabricated, at least the American version. That being said, one commentator rightly pointed out that the Sabrina Mashburn that commented on the article may not be the real one. Furthermore, the article is from Lee Stranahan, who currently works for the government-controlled Sputnik News.
Running Gag: While he did mostly in the British version, in both versions Ramsay often makes a show of praying that he not be poisoned again before eating the food.

Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: Adele from Flamango's. She came out of retirement to run the restaurant, and often swore at her waitstaff when she found their behavior disagreeable.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- Ramsay regularly threatens this, though to date has actually only gone through with a few times:
  - In the UK revisit of the Walnut Tree Inn, when the owner said that he'd rather go out of business than reduce his prices.
  - Billy at Handlebar Grill threw his hands up in exasperation on the first day and walked out of the restaurant with intent to sell it off and would rather do that than have to look at Gordon.
  - Gordon is so overwhelmed by the mess in The Old Neighborhood that he just wants to get away from the place. The owners however, clearly disturbed by what Gordon showed them, convince him that they are ready to do what is necessary to make things right.
  - Ramsay walked out on the owners Samy and Amy from Amy's Baking Company, stating they would never stick with his changes, so he won't be wasting his time any further.
- In cases of subversion, there were also a couple of times were Gordon almost left out only to stay:
  - Subverted in "Hot Potato Café". Ramsay almost went through with his threat to forsake the restaurant for dead because it was clear to ANYONE that everyone except the head chef had given up. The owners had to beg Ramsay to come back after as well as proving that they did care.
  - Subverted in the Fenwick Arms (UK): after the owners undo every change Ramsay has set down (the owner was very stubborn - 30 years of being a cook will do that to you), Ramsay sits them down and says that if they don't want their help, fine: he'd rather much spend the day with his wife than help out a stubborn owner. But Ramsay uses the sit-down to reveal the advert campaign he cooked up that he knows the owner will get behind, and stays behind for the rest of the episode.
- Rachel, the owner of Piccolo Teatro, did this to her own restaurant after Gordon left, stranding her chef in Paris without a job and her dad with a huge finanical loss, because she did not want the stress of running a restaurant anymore. Unlike other examples, the place might have succeeded, as Rachel's dad and the chef managed to open just fine without her, but her total apathy left the father (who had his own life to get back to) with no choice but to close the doors and sell the place to recoup the loss.
Separated by a Common Language:
- In "Pantaleone's," Ramsay refers to the elderly owner/chef as an "old boy." The owner is at first insulted, before Ramsay clarifies that it's a term of respect for older men.
- Subverted somewhat in "Oceana", in which Gordon calls the meatheaded lunk, Moe, a "busy idiot", which means Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Moe, however, is combative and reacts quite badly to being called that, so his brother Rami has to calm him down by saying that in Britain, "busy idiot" is a compliment, with the infamous quote, "He's from British, he doesn't speak English."
Serial Escalation: In nearly every episode, Gordon will denounce a restaurant's food, kitchen, owner, chef, decor, etc. as the worst he's ever seen. He must be visiting restaurants in order of increasing badness.
- Everything about The Burger Kitchen. A place so messed up that it couldn't be dealt with in one 40-minute episode, but made into a two-parter. One of the few times "The most <adjective> episode of Kitchen Nightmares ever" hasn't been any kind of hyperbole.
- Gordon initially believed this about saving the Piccolo Teatro, a vegetarian restaurant in Paris, where less than 2% of the population is vegetarian. It turns out that he managed to get the restaurant turned around, only for the lazy owner to destroy it herself less than a month later.
"Shaggy Dog" Story: The D-Place/Saracen's Cafe episode saw the owners learn a lot about running a restaurant and becoming more assertive, firing their jerkass general manager and forcing the Brilliant, but Lazy chef to actually do his job properly. In the end, however, none of it actually mattered since their landlord had in fact decided to evict them from the premises before Ramsay ever got there, though didn't actually go through with it until after the initial visit. By the time of the revisit the owners (one of whom was heavily pregnant, on top of everything else) were facing near-certain bankruptcy and the loss of their home. The only person who actually benefited from Ramsay's visit in any way actually ended up being the chef, as he managed to get himself the job of head chef at the hotel based in the same building.
Shirtless Scene: A Ramsay changing into/out of his chef jacket scene happens on several episodes.
Sibling Team: A few restaurants:
- Jim and Jeff, the twin brothers who own and operate Capri.
- Moe and Rami, the co-owner brothers of the "Oceana" restaurant.
Sir Swears-a-Lot: What part of "Gordon fucking Ramsay" don't you understand?
Small Name, Big Ego: These are just some of the bigger offenders:
- The owner of Sebastian's pizza parlor went on local culinary websites and posted anonymously to badmouth Ramsay after his restaurant failed. The other posters immediately realized it was him and called him on it. Lesson: When trashing somebody and trying to stay anonymous, don't mention bad breath.
- David from the Black Pearl episode. If his ego were any bigger, it would have its own orbit.
- Allan Love, sub-Z-list actor, from the episode "Ruby Tate's" (renamed to "Love's Fish Restaurant"). Slightly less obscure to a British audience, but nobody was exactly clamoring to find out whatever happened to Steve from Pop Pirates.
- Chef Michel of The Secret Garden. He was frustrated with just about everything Ramsay did and challenged him on all of the attempted changes. At several points, he and Ramsay engaged in shouting matches with each other. At one point, Gordon was so angry at Michel that he seriously considered just walking away from saving the restaurant.
- From Sabatiello's, the owner Samy (not to be confused with the Amy's Baking Company one) is rude to his employees, insists on freezing food up to a week after cooking it, stores food improperly, lies to Gordon's face, and at one point ridicules a lady for saying that her food was microwaved when it was just microwaved in front of her. All the while Samy tells Gordon that he is the best chef in town and that Gordon has no idea what he's talking about.
- In Burger Kitchen, owner Alan is convinced that Yelp reviewers are actually part of a larger conspiracy to deliberately ruin the reputations of restaurants like his. Not surprising, considering that there are some people who are critical of people abusing the ratings system on Yelp.
- Joe of "Mill Street Bistro" insists that his restaurant is the best cooking anywhere between Los Angeles and New York. He plants fake positive reviews of his restaurant online. He fails to see anything that's wrong with his cooking, despite him making amateurish mistakes. His food is deliberately overpriced because he wants to feel upscale. He expects Ramsay to go around town promoting the restaurant because he feels the only problem it has is lack of publicity. When Ramsay presents to him complaints about the food from customers, Joe becomes sarcastic (though he never badmouths customers in front of them). Joe considers himself an equal to Gordon Ramsay. When it becomes clear Ramsay refuses to give in and do as Joe pleases, Joe suddenly goes quiet as he's cooking and ignores Ramsay. Not learning a thing after Mill Street Bistro closes down, he opens another restaurant with an identical approach. ^note
- At "Park's Edge", a chef named Matt was opposed to the new menu, namely the fried chicken wings, because he felt that cooking them was disrespectful to a "fine dining" restaurant and someone (namely the female chef instructing him) should put some "orange shorts" on. Gordon quickly calls Matt out by pointing out he's not the one with the restaurant. His continued defiance gets him fired mid-service.
Sock Puppet: The owners of Fish and Anchor were caught posting fake positive reviews of their restaurant, specifically claiming how their food was better than the one at Gordon's own restaurants. Gordon later made the owners delete them.
Special Guest: Of a sort, on the Sushi Ko episode, the daughter of the owner turned out to be Hana Hatae, who is best known for playing Molly O'Brien from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- Played straight with "The Handle Bar," when Dee Snider of Twisted Sister comes in at Gordon's request to do publicity for the relaunch night, and then stays for a meal during the service.
Spin-Off: 24 Hours To Hell and Back, which is more compact in production.
- A foreign version, Costa Del Nightmare also exists.
- There's also Hotel Hell, which is Kitchen Nightmares BUT FOR HOTELS!
Stalker with a Crush: During their revisited episode, both Rita and Lisa from La Galleria 33 admit to Gordon that since their episode aired, they've gotten lots of creepy fan mail, some from jailed prisoners and one from a guy with a foot fetish who wanted to buy Lisa's used shoes.
Stealing from the Till: Daniel, from Lela's. A grubby prep cook who would turn up, do the bare minimum for his shift and then go home (sometimes excusing himself early even when the restaurant was obviously busy) with takeaway boxes full of leftover food and even sometimes bottles of wine and champagne pilfered from the cellar, while knowing full well that the restaurant's finances were absolutely buggered. His antics were apparently known to the staff who gave him the nickname "Buzzard". Ramsay caught Daniel red-handed one evening with three bottles of wine and an amount of food constituting a four-course meal, and he was promptly fired by the owner when he came in the following morning.
Stealth Insult:
- When Gordon decides to train the staff of Sebastian's in making and tossing fresh pizza dough, you get the feeling that he's enjoying calling all of them "great tossers".
- This gem from Oceana: Moe: 'I'm speechless!' / Ramsay: 'Good! I like it when you're speechless.'
Stealth Pun: The "Sandgate Hotel" episode is incredibly badly run, even by Kitchen Nightmares standards, and it makes heavy use of the Fawlty Towers Leitmotif.
Stillborn Franchise: Sebastian's is an In-Universe example, as well as a deconstruction. The namesake is so concerned with trying to establish a chain of restaurants that he's willing to compromise the quality of his initial restaurant... which prevents him from having the profits to even keep his one restaurant afloat, let alone be able to invest in future establishments. Gordon calls him out on his misguided ambition:
"You haven't got fucking one right so far! How the fuck can you think about two?"
Stopped Caring: In "Hot Potato Café", a trio of owners have stopped giving a shit about anything in the restaurant, and it was clearly evident in their dinner service that was witnessed by Ramsay. Nobody argued this point because they knew he was right. In fact, it's because of this that Gordon almost, by choice, turned his back on the Hot Potato Café and left, because if the owners don't give a shit anymore, why should he waste his time? They had to beg him to return.
Sudden Downer Ending: "Lela's" ends with the titular restaurant re-opening to critical and commercial success, and Gordon leaving the restaurant with the staff in good spirits. Things seem to look up for the restaurant, until the episode reveals what happened five months later...
Narrator: In spite of business picking up at the restaurant, Lela's debts were too large to overcome, and she was forced to close her doors.
Supreme Chef: Yes, they exist on this show. Most of the time, their problem is incompetent owners forcing them to work with subpar ingredients and recipes, and generally not letting them show off their talents.
- India from Piccolo Teatro impressed Ramsay enough that when the restaurant closed down because Rachel didn't care (stranding her in Paris), he offered her an internship at one of his own restaurants.
- Charita/'Momma Cherri' is so far the only restaurant owner whose cooking Gordon never criticized. He thought the restaurant was a little small and needed help with the presentation, but he ate all the food and sent none back.
  Momma Cherri: I fed Gordon Ramsay... and he cleaned his plate!
- The head chef of the Curry Lounge was scouted specifically for his experience cooking for some of the best hotels in India for 20 years. However, because of the owner's desire to please everyone, he was cooking DIY curries instead of authentic recipes. Even Gordon could see that this was killing his spirit. The moment Gordon got him to cook a dish of his own, a Lamb Korma from his own family recipe, it became an instant hit with the customers.
Suspiciously Specific Denial: Many of the owners or staff in every episode fall into this trope. Even when Ramsay can clearly see the denial and he calls them out on it, the staff may keep trying to deny it and insist nothing is wrong or how frozen food is just fine. A couple of people, most notably the owner of the Kingston Cafe, have even denied being in denial, which only goes to prove Gordon's point.

Technology Marches On; The reboot emphasizes the importance of using social media to boost attention for the restaurant. "Da Mimmo" best showed this when the two knuckleheaded influencers brothers had over 1 million combined followers yet never tried to promote their mom's restaurant. Ramsay forces them to do so.
Tempting Fate:
- When talking about the pretentious food served at La Riviera, Ramsay said "I suppose next they'll be telling me how to eat it." Cut to a waitress giving instructions on the order and way to eat the desserts in the dessert sampler.
- Every time a chef or proprietor witnesses Ramsay's food selection leaving the pass and confidently says "I think Gordon's really going to enjoy eating that" or something betraying over-confidence or a dislocation from horrible reality. Oh dear. It never ends well.
There Are No Therapists: If any two of the employees are related, it's almost certain that their relationship problems will be dragging down the restaurant and that Gordon will have to intervene in the role of family counselor.
The Swear Jar: Oscars' (UK) had Ramsay challenge the chef to avoid drinking alcohol and smoking during service. Just to be fair to the guy, Ramsay set a challenge for himself to not swear during service. If either broke their promise, that person had to put a pound into a piggy bank; Ramsay, for his part, put quite a few pounds in.
Thinking Out Loud: In the Curry Lounge episode, Gordon is thinking out loud about how the oversize naan-stand would do a good job of blocking interaction on a bad date, and as he is insulting his hypothetical date, the head-waitress walks up and thinks, understandably since he is the only one at the table, that he is talking to her. Hilarity Ensues.
Gordon: "Oh fuck off-oh, not you!"
This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: In the US episode, Fiesta Sunrise, it turns out that the owner's bills are being payed for by his employee's husband, and to quote the man, this is what he said to the owner.
Don (To Vic): I pay my bills, pal. I pay my bills! In fact, I pay your bills too, bitch!
This Is Gonna Suck: The staff of Mama Maria's (who were a whole lot more competent than the owner) knew exactly what they were going to be dealing with when Gordon Ramsay set foot on their premises, and spent most of the ensuing lunch service bracing themselves for the inevitable outburst.
- Actually, a common reaction for Gordon, usually when he gets his first taste of the food or good look inside a diner. In a few cases, all it takes is looking at the outside of a location for Gordon to realize he's in for it.
Thrifty Scot: You bet Gordon will complain about restaurants wasting produce.
Throw the Dog a Bone: He'll complement actually competent chefs and staff.
Title Drop: Inverted. During filming of the pilot episode, the producers didn't have a specific title in mind for the series. When Ramsay returned to Bonaparte's to find the restaurant in a worse state than ever, he branded the situation "a living fucking nightmare", which gave the inspiration for the show's title.
Took a Level in Kindness: Certain owners, if Chef Ramsay is successful in getting through to them.
Transformation Sequence:
- In the UK version, nearly every episode in Series 1-2 had "civilian" Gordon Ramsay shedding his street duds (aka "stripping") and buttoning up a brand-new chef's coat, usually between him sampling the restaurant's food and witnessing their first dinner service.
- In some episodes of the UK version (and a lot more in the US version), there will be a sequence of Ramsay's crew redecorating the restaurant's interior overnight.
Tranquil Fury:
- Gordon cooks a plate of sea bass for the owners of "Seascape" but the chef refuses to taste it. You know that shit is about to seriously go down since Gordon simply says, "That's the first time someone's refused to try my food. Now I'm seriously insulted." Sure enough he quickly advises the owners to fire the chef.
- Joe of "Mill Street Bistro" reaches his limits with Gordon Ramsay about halfway through. After an hour of top-of-lungs yelling between Joe and Gordon (this was a two-parter), Joe suddenly, and unnervingly, becomes completely silent and reverts back to how he cooked before Gordon arrived, ignoring anything Gordon tried to tell him and walking around Gordon like he was a mannequin. You can tell from Joe's scowl that he's overflowing with rage.
Trickster Mentor: Chef Ramsay himself. He'll swear at you, be brutally honest about what you're doing wrong, tell you about the worst case scenario in explicit detail, threaten to walk out if you don't make efforts to improve, and generally put you through Training from Hell, but he does it all to save your business and your livelihood.
Troll: At the Prohibition Grille, the owner, Rishi, among other issues, used her former belly dancing career by giving extremely awkward performances, to the discomfort of all but Rishi, who was oblivious. For the turnaround, Gordon makes her swear to end the belly dances, but when he enters the restaurant during his revisit, the sitar music plays, he sees her arm around the wall clicking the castanets, and she peeks around, wearing her belly dancing headband. Gordon is shocked and afraid she didn't learn a thing, when she comes around the corner, smartly dressed and having pulled on her jacket, revealing it was all a joke.
- Ramsey does one himself to Rita and Lisa during the "La Galleria 33" revisit. He sneaks downstairs to check out the formerly-overpacked with food fridge, and calls loudly for both of them. Rita and Lisa rush downstairs in a panic thinking they've messed something up, but after pretending for a moment to be upset, instead he just compliments them on the fact that the fridge is virtually empty save for some homemade ice cream.
Turn in Your Badge: Gordon Ramsay jokes about this in "Mill Street Bistro, Part 1" when he says "turn in your badge" to members of the serving staff who have been made by the owner of the restaurant to wear ridiculous nametags.
Twitchy Eye: Chef Damon of Oceana blinks extremely frequently, sometimes even one eye at a time; this becomes especially pronounced when he is angry.

The Un-Favourite: This came up on "La Frite" — the son, Alex, was part-owner of the restaurant and resented it when his younger sister, Celine, joined the restaurant and was also made a part-owner. He felt that his father preferred her to him.
Ungrateful Bastard: Adele from The Junction (formerly Flamango's), which is out of business, and many considered her an example of this. Adele was completely unappreciative of Ramsay's new changes, decor, menu... just everything about The Junction... she hated it so much, she would have rather shut the doors and go home. During interviews after the changes, Adele even insults Ramsay's attempts to help her failing restaurant and she had zero gratitude, nitpicking over every little thing just because it wasn't her precious tropical decor. To give you an idea, she complained about the new paint job because she hated the color blue while wearing a blue shirt and complained that Gordon's salmon dish tasted too much like fish. In fact, Adele hated the changes so much, she reverted back to the old ways sometime after the revisit (in which Gordon gave her a new crocodile to replace the old crocodile statue which was burned in the Flamango's episode), rendering his efforts to save her restaurant in vain, something she admitted to doing in a comment on the Kitchen Nightmares' official blog. It's probably because of this woman's immense refusal to change for the better that the restaurant eventually failed.
- There's also Joseph Cerniglia, who repaid his wife's immense love and support by cheating on her with a waitress (Jessica).^note It ended very, very badly for him, to say the least.
- Chappy, the eponymous owner of Chappy's, certainly qualifies. The man was basically nothing but a Jerkass to throughout the entire episode, and undid all of Gordon's menu changes as soon as he left. Unsurprisingly, the restaurant closed shortly thereafter - and yet Chappy had the absolute nerve to blame Ramsay for its failure (when, in truth, they were actually forced to close down when the property was seized for nonpayment of taxes).
- Sebastian of "Sebastian's" Also qualifies. One of Gordon's most scathing rebukes of him can be found at the top of the page. He seemed to get his act together by episode's end, but it was a ruse, and he went back to his failing "concept" menu and ended up closing as a result.
Unsatisfiable Customer: The one woman at Campania who hated the new menu. However, it turns out to be a subversion, since the staff and Ramsay both believe that she was looking for a free meal.
Unstoppable Rage:
- Gordon absolutely loses it in "Hannah and Mason's" when he finds out the owners have been storing raw meat and cooked meat in the same bin, right next to the other.
- "Hannah and Mason's" is but one example. Virtually any unclean kitchen with spoiled or rotten food, or a rodent or bug problem, puts Gordon immediately into a rage (for good reason). His rage only intensifies from there if he discovers one or more of the rotten or spoiled food items was served to him during his lunch test of the food. In a majority of the cases, it also results in an instant shut down of the kitchen, and orders for everything to be cleaned.

Vast Bureaucracy: In Sandgate, Gordon had to go through three levels of managers just to find out how to get Japanese food. This while the restaurant only had four actual customers!
Very Special Episode:
- The episode with Oscar's in the UK version unwittingly became one of these. Halfway through filming, the restaurant's head chef, Lenin collapsed mid-service, and it turned out that his alcoholism had become so bad that he had developed early-stage cirrhosis. This led to Ramsay having a discussion with an ex-chef and charity founder about just how bad alcoholism is in the culinary world, and it's revealed that as many as 1 in 10 chefs will experience a serious addiction to alcohol and/or drugs. Fortunately, Lenin's cirrhosis was early enough that with hospital treatment and help from the charity shown in the episode, he was able to beat his alcoholism and make a full recovery.
- The US episode Mangia Mangia. During the post-dinner dissection of all the restaurants' flaws, Gordon browbeats the head chef into admitting that he once came to work high on crystal meth due to the stress the idiot owner placed upon him, and after the chef admits that he still uses it on a regular basis, the owner immediately fires him. Ramsay then shuts them down until they find a new head chef, then encourages the restaurant's former chef to enter a drug rehab program and offers to pay for it himself as long as the owner considers rehiring him to his old job after he cleans up. (By December 2016, the chef appeared to have made a full recovery, but Mangia Mangia has closed down.)
Vetinari Job Security: A recurring issue is that someone on the kitchen staff will be insufferable and/or a liability but will still manage to avoid being fired. Usually they keep their job because the owner can't find a replacement, though sometimes it'll be because the owner (or whoever is their immediate superior) is too much of an Extreme Doormat to fire them.
Violent Glaswegian: Of the "Angry Scotsman" variety. Gordon was born in Renfrewshire. The viewers are reminded of this in the revisit section of the Ruby Tate's/Love's Fish Restaurant episode, as he puts on his original Glaswegian accent to disguise the fact that he's ordering some food from them.
Viva Las Vegas!: In Pantaleone's Gordon flies the restaurant owner and his son to Las Vegas so they can meet with the manager of Rao's at Caesars Palace and hear from him how a proper family restaurant operates.
Vomit Discretion Shot:
- If Gordon rushes to the bathroom and you hear retching, you know the place is in trouble.
- In another episode, Gordon threw up before he could even get up from the table. How bad is that?!
- In another, he ran out of a filthy bathroom and threw up in the kitchen. Yikes!
- In the Spin-A-Yarn episode, the owner's wife ran off to throw up when Gordon showed her the state of the walk-in fridge.
- In Oceana, he threw up immediately after smelling rotten shrimp from the fridge. He was very fortunate that a trash can was right beside him at the time.

We Don't Suck Anymore: What many restaurants hope to achieve with their appearance on the show, provided they have the humility to admit their restaurant sucked in the first place.
Wham Line: "Since my parents died."—John's response when Gordon asked him how long the specials sign had been up. Suddenly his resistance to change takes on a whole new meaning.
While Rome Burns: Ramsay arranges a screening for the staff of PJ's Steakhouse, to view what the word on the street is about their establishment. Several people have nothing good to say. Eric, the head chef, is actually smiling and eating popcorn, treating it like a joke... despite the fact he should be the one most ashamed.
The Wonka: Inverted, as the quirkiness of some restaurant owners end up hurting the restaurant, either because they over-complexify the food-making process, or they incorporate elements that have poor synergy with the restaurant environment.
Wrong Genre Savvy: Sometimes Ramsay encounters chefs trying cook complex recipes from a recipe book, occasionally even one of his. Those recipes are designed to be cooked in anywhere from 1-3 hours in a home setting, not in a restaurant where you're expected to put out a large amount of orders within a certain time period. Some of the recipes may be good for a show like MasterChef, but they're not going to impress Ramsay on this show.

Xanatos Gambit: Some fans believe that a few restaurant owners are running something like this. Gordon Ramsay shows up at their restaurant, fixes it up and gets them a ton of publicity. Thus, they can get a better price for selling out if business doesn't turn around. If it does turn around, then they have a successful restaurant.

You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Ramsay's reaction when Moe of Oceana suggests they go have a drink to debrief on the relaunch.
You Keep Using That Word: "Pub food" in Fenwick Arms. The menu of the Fenwick Arms pub took care to point out that they are a "traditional old English pub" before moving onto their food which consisted exclusively of painstakingly presented and complicated food like pigeon pâté with lettuce in red wine sauce. So Gordon asked the owner(/head chef de facto) what he thought traditional English pub food was, and the owner listed off mid-level restaurant items like scampi, before saying that wasn't what he wanted to be. Gordon told him pub food was "nothing of the sort", asked when the last time he was in a pub was, and he responded that he didn't really go to pubs since he owned his own.

Kitchen Nightmares / Tropes O to Z

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