After a 10-year hiatus,Gordon Ramsayis back to looking under the hood of some floundering restaurants.
It doesnt take long for Ramsay to spot multiple problems.
DEADLINE: The show is coming back after 10 years.
Gordon Ramsay with the owners (R) and crew in the season premiere “Bel Aire Diner” episode of Kitchen NightmaresJeff Niera / FOX
DAVID DE ANGELIS:So, we dont want to shock anyone when they watch this show.
Restaurants have never had a harder time than they had over the last couple of years.
Gordon and his restaurants were not immune to that, either.
DEADLINE: How did you choose the restaurants that would be featured?
So in a lot of ways, restaurants started reaching out to us.
Those were important to us for a couple of reasons.
Then, that area also allows us to have a wide variety of restaurants.
But, we were looking for a restaurant that needed help.
That was the number one criteria for us.
Does your restaurant need help?
Who are we going to meet, and are your problems fixable?
Are they something that Gordon can really dig into and help out with?
So that was also equally important in the casting process.
Thats part of our beginning of [gathering] the intel for Gordon.
Gordon wants to know everything about his restaurants front to back.
What are the refrigerators like?
How many people come in on a Wednesday afternoon?
How many people come in on Friday night?
So we make a run at gather up as much information as possible.
We do a site visit.
And we really want to see where this restaurant is and they really do need help.
That said, theres only so much we can do.
We are so used to the more aggressive version of Gordon.
The notorious GR, thats guaranteed every time, no problems there.
Its just Gordon going in.
People call him Gordon in this series.
They dont call him Chef Ramsay.
Theres not a lot of Yes Chef, No chef going on.
The restaurants we picked, we picked for a reason, because Gordon wanted to fix these restaurants.
Its not a shiny show likeNext Level Chef,which I also do and is close to my heart.
But its a different Gordon.
Its an accessible Gordon.
It is a vulnerable Gordon.
It is an intimate Gordon that most of his other shows do not have.
We have elements of that.
Those people arent important in your life.
Whats important is what youre doing right now and that youre happy with yourself.
None of those people matter…
He sees the dysfunction.
Hes desperate to help any way.
You see him as a father.
You see him as a business owner.
You see him as a brother and a son and a chef.
You just see all the sides of [him in] the show.
I basically gagged with Gordon.
Did you find yourself in other situations where you were unsure how youd even handle it?
DE ANGELIS:Pretty much every time, especially with deli or diners.
The underneath of that place insane.
Its a 24-hour diner.
And the meat fridge is a perfect example.
We have the best crew in the business.
We have the best talent in the business in Gordon Ramsay.
DEADLINE: Now I have to ask your advice on what to look for when eating in restaurants.
DE ANGELIS:The first thing I do is go to the bathroom.
The most intimate outward face of a restaurant is how they keep their bathrooms.
DEADLINE: Thats a great point.
DE ANGELIS:So thats probably number two.
First of all, watching the bathroom.
Theres no way that they can keep that much food stock fresh.
And theres no way that their cooks connected to all that.
Coq au vin on a menu in a diner in New York?
They have a lobster tank?
What in the world are they doing?
No ones even ordered that in the last month [or] year.
However long, its very telling.
DEADLINE: What else is in store this season?
And on top of that, they have a chef who calls himself the culinary gangster.
Bobby the culinary gangster.
He certainly exhibited some gangster tendencies in and out of the kitchen that certainly rubbed Gordon the wrong way.
So that is another spectacular episode that Im super excited for people to see.
They opened five days before the shutdown in 2020.
So they had all these grand ideas, only the world shut down and theyve been struggling since.
So thats another great episode.
Kitchen Nightmarespremieres Monday, September 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on Fox.
