I have a weakness for cooking shows, and I especially like Kitchen Nightmares (the BBC version much more than the over-dramatized, too soapy Fox version). What I like about Kitchen Nightmares is that, each episode, Gordon Ramsay is confronted with the owner and chef (maybe the same person, maybe two different people) of a failing restaurant. Each episode, he tries the food of that restaurant. And almost each episode, he (rudely, which is his well-known style) explains to the owner and chef that their food blows, and that’s why nobody wants to eat there. Shocker, right? Well, and obviously these shows are heavily edited to maximize the drama and tension, it almost always seems to come as a huge shock to the owner/chef that their food is bad, despite the obvious clue that nobody is eating there and the situation is so grave that you’ve applied to go on a reality TV show and be humiliated for the chance to turn things around (and the show has a pretty dismal success rate, so it’s a slim chance at that). Even when they can acknowledge that their food is bad, there’s usually some hurt feelings because Gordon Ramsay (who, as anybody who’s ever seen one of his TV shows ought to know, either is or enjoys acting like a total asshole) was mean to them when he said the food stinks.
The people who run these restaurants, and again it’s television so I can only comment on them in terms of how they come off on the show, are deluding themselves. They are living in a world in which their restaurant is perfect, the food is fantastic, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with what they’re doing. The chronically empty restaurant that’s bankrupting them is empty because of some other reason, having nothing to do with them, that they can’t figure out, so they need Gordon Ramsay to help them. The fact that Gordon Ramsay ALWAYS finds a reason why the restaurant’s struggles are caused by internal failures is, I guess, irrelevant. They must each be convinced that THIS is the one restaurant that Chef Ramsay is going to walk into and say, “My God, I can’t believe you’re not packed to the gills every night! For the life of me, I just can’t find a single thing wrong with what you’re doing!” But this NEVER HAPPENS. To get upset when a man who’s known for being an asshole criticizes you for your restaurant’s failure in an assholish way is ludicrous. YOU know your restaurant is in desperate straits and YOU agreed to go on Gordon Ramsay’s show to try to fix it. You MUST realize that he’s going to find flaws with your restaurant and that he’s going to berate you for them in his well-known style. How can you be surprised when events unfold exactly as anybody could have predicted?
I feel the same way, by the way, about contestants on Ramsay’s other show, Hell’s Kitchen, who go on the show without knowing how to make risotto, despite the fact that he has every single one of his contestants, every season, make risotto. It’s one of his test dishes; how can you go on the show unprepared to make it and then get pissed off when he yells at you for it? BECAUSE YOU’RE DELUDING YOURSELF. You think you’ll be the one person to win Hell’s Kitchen without having to make a decent risotto.
I’m now convinced that you could swap the Kitchen Nightmares saps with the House Republican caucus and never notice the difference.
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