Wrestling with Sass

Yes, here we are again.

Welcome.

Turns out, there is no concept of ‘The Top 5 Most Essential Kitchen Nightmare’s Episodes’.

Since that article went live on April 4th, 2016 it’s gained over 200,000 unique views. Which, to be honest, is fucking insanity. It turns out I’m only one of a number of people who is fully obsessed with this TV show.

Which is why the concept of the ‘Top 5 Essential’ must be wrong, there must be more than only five amazing episodes, right? YES, YOU ARE CORRECT SIR.

For all the people desperately searching for more genius from Sir Gordon Ramsay, here it is.

List two, five more amazing, batshit, mental, who-would-invite-a-TV-crew-into-their-restaurant episodes for your reading pleasure.

If you have no idea what I’m talking about

Then go back and read list one The Top 5 Most Essential Kitchen Nightmare’s Episodes.

1. Prohibition Grille

An underrated gem but this has got everything for a perfect shitstorm of an episode.

• A Head Chef called ‘Rocky’
• An owner who does belly dancing halfway through service
• Gordon spits in the kitchen bin
• Gordon pours out gross chicken juice – literally, one of his favourite things to do

You can’t help feel bad for owner Rishi Brown. I mean, if your a bellydancer whose earned some money, what else should you do with it? Buy a restaurant, OF COURSE. Not only that but constantly insist to Gordon that you like the food and you think it looks ‘neat’.

A must watch for fans, Gordon explaining to Rishi what ‘Soup of the Day’ means is classic. Him realising that she truly doesn’t understand that the soup has to be different every day rather than ‘it’s just the soup we have that day’ is perfection.

2. Luigi’s D’Italia

So iconic that I actually got a message from someone, FURIOUS that it wasn’t included.

Iconic because Grace, the brother of Head Chef Luigi, is now permanently in the opening credits of the show. She’s the one shrieking and crying ‘NO I CAN’T TAKE IT NO MORE’.

As a person from England, I always thought ridiculous Italian stereotypes on television and in movies were also a bit much. No modern-day Italian family is slapping tables, knocking meatballs out of customers hands going ‘HEY YOU DON’T LIKE IT WELL GO FUKKA YURSELFFFF’.

But turns out I was wrong.

Luigi’s D’Italia has miraculously not been given a movie deal or a reality TV show of its own, but it deserves it.

Keep an eye out for:

• The waiter desperately looking on the back of a box to find out what cheese is in a frozen ravioli.
• This chicks eyebrows, like, what the fuck happened.
  
• Grace and her brother-in-law making sausage.

3. Down City

Okay, up until now, we haven’t had any properly classic batshit owners make the list.

However, Down City’s co-owner Abby Cabral is perfection.

Gordon doesn’t even get in the door before he starts saying that the room service in the boutique hotel he’s staying in was awful. Abby is aghast, Down City does the room service for that hotel and already tells Gordon that he’s full of shit and doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

And, of course, everyone watching the episode is like YAAAAAAAAAAS SHE’S GONNA SHOUT AT GORDON AND HE’S GONNA SHOUT BACK AND I LOVE THIS FUCKING SHOW.

After Gordon tells Abby everything she’s worked for, for the past 33 years is total dogshit, she lies down on a sofa and talks to herself for a little bit.

After her nap, service resumes and Gordon goes rifling through the fridge to find all manner of gross food. Which leads to a confrontation with Abby where Gordon delivers one of his most iconic piece of swearing, on par with ‘YOU FRENCH PIG’ which was covered in part one.

PERFECT.

Things to look out for:

• Gordon hates mis-spellings on the menu and wasn’t happy with the peppppery calamari.
• All the waiters springing on Abby that they all actually hate the food.
• Gordon invites BLOGGERS, another classic move to freak everyone out the night of relaunch.

4. Flamangos

Flamangos is well known to the Kitchen Nightmare’s fandom due to its iconic owner Adele, who just pure hates everything that Gordon does. INCLUDING, the cathartic moment of the show where Gordon gives the restaurant an expensive makeover and Adele is like ‘um, what is the bullshit, I hate it’.

Before that iconic moment, Flamangos could already be legendary.

Where do you start?

• The daughter living at home with her elderly parents?
• Her mother taking all their retirement money to open a restaurant when her husband is clearly 5000 years old and just wants to sit down?
• Opening a Florida, jungle-themed restaurant in New Jersey?
• Serving a filet mignon on a roof tile?
• Literally burning all the weird tiki ornaments and chairs in a bonfire outside so that the fire ambulance gets called?

WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE, WATCH THE EPISODE NOW.

5. La Galleria 33

I’ve saved the best till last.

Ideally, this would have been included in The Top 5 Most Essential Kitchen Nightmare’s Episodes but I already have a two-parter included with The Burger Kitchen.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve watched these two episodes, they are truly among the most bizarre and amazing episodes of reality TV show ever.

Rita and Lisa have opened an Italian restaurant in Boston’s North End, only a few 100 feet from their parent’s restaurants. Their staff includes Rita’s ex-husband who admits that he doesn’t like Italian food and prefers Chinese, an elderly bus-boy who calls himself the manager who has been fired multiple times but stalks them until they hire him, and the impossibly smug waitress Sara who is delighted to be telling Gordon about all the problems at La Galleria 33.

The end of an episode of Kitchen Nightmares is usually the time for the cathartic menu refresh, restaurant redesign and hugging of Gordon. However, in the last 15 minutes of the first episode of La Galleria, one of the chefs drops a chicken breast on the floor and puts it BACK IN THE PAN. Then one of the owners accuses a customer of something not being cold when it gets sent back and asks her ‘how can things be cold then get hot??’

That’s all folks! Think I missed anything? Leave a comment or tweet me at @callsignemily

Oh, and if you are still wondering. Gordon Ramsay still follows me, I still don’t follow him.