Hell's Kitchen (2005– )

World renowned chef Gordon Ramsay puts aspiring young chefs through rigorous and devastating challenges at his restaurant in Hollywood, "Hell's Kitchen", to determine which of them will win... See full summary »

Stars:

Jason Thompson, Gordon Ramsay, Scott Leibfried

Nominated for 5 Primetime Emmys. Another 3 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Series cast summary:
Jason Thompson	...	Narrator (155 episodes, 2005-2013)
Gordon Ramsay	...	Himself - Chef (155 episodes, 2005-2013)
Scott Leibfried	...	Himself - Sous Chef (143 episodes, 2005-2012)
Andrea Van Willigan	...	Herself - Sous Chef (78 episodes, 2010-2013)
Jean Philippe Susilovic	...	Himself - Maitre D' (77 episodes, 2006-2013)

Storyline

World renowned chef Gordon Ramsay puts aspiring young chefs through rigorous and devastating challenges at his restaurant in Hollywood, "Hell's Kitchen", to determine which of them will win the restaurant of their dreams. Their dreams are quickly becoming nightmares.

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Plot Keywords:

restaurant | chef | kitchen | opening credits use first name only | food waste | 

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Taglines:

Hell's Angel

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Genres:

Reality-TV

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Certificate:

TV-14

Details

Official Sites:

Fox [us]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

30 May 2005 (USA)

Also Known As:

Gordon Ramsay - A pokol konyhája

Filming Locations:

3322 La Cienega Pl., Los Angeles, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Granada Entertainment, A. Smith & Co. Productions, Upper Ground Enterprises

Technical Specs

Runtime:

42 min 42 min

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The first episode of Season ten had its 125th dinner service.

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Quotes

Chef Ramsay: Is this your attempt at the sabotage?

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Connections

Spin-off Hell's Kitchen: The Video Game (2008)

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Soundtracks

"Fire"
(uncredited)
Written by Ralph Middlebrooks, Clarence Satchell, William Beck, Leroy 'Sugarfoot' Bonner, Marshall E. Jones, Marvin Pierce, James Williams
Performed by Ohio Players

User Reviews

Put together like trash, but it's top notch guilty pleasure entertainment

Network: Fox; Genre: Reality, Game; Content Rating: TV-14 (strong language, mostly edited); Perspective: Contemporary (star range: 1 - 4);

Seasons Reviewed: Season 3

Had this been written about season one of "Hell's Kitchen" it would have been a completely different review. Still reeling from the reality series hostile takeover, I was un-amused by British tornado Chef Gordon Ramsey's blood-vessel bursting tantrums over food and sadistic treatment of his would-be chefs. A treatment that was a perfect metaphor for the way Fox was abusing it's own viewers.

But flash-forward to season 3 and Chef Gordon Ramsey and his team of inept contestants have grown on me. "Hell's Kitchen" is every bit a reality show and all that that implies. You've seen it before, but this time in a kitchen. Teams of chefs – divided by gender "Apprentice"-style – live in suites by night and compete in cooking tasks by day. Tasks like designing their own menu, cooking for an elementary school, turning traditional dishes into cuisine or blind taste tests of their palette. Each time a team looses, people are picked to eliminate and Ramsey picks one to be kicked off. And yes, like any reality/competition the most talented contestants are kicked off for something insignificant so that the most interesting personalities can be standing in the final rounds. No doubt, Ramsey is just as shrew about audience interest as Simon Cowell.

But there is a fiendishly entertaining bent to "Kitchen" that only Gordon Ramsey can deliver. A sadism to the high school reminiscent eliminations that is only bubbling cynically under the surface of other reality shows. When Ramsey eliminates people he tells them to "f*** off" then smacks their chef's jacket on a meat hook with a Leatherface-like zeal. It's hard to deny how entertaining it is watching Ramsey scream obscenities at the more inept contestants, shoving food in their face and putting together a string of expletives involving Risotto and Wellington so creative it demands an uncensored DVD release. The show does say a few things about the love and creativity of cooking, but that get pretty buried under it's hyper-sensory reality series excesses. Ramsey has taken this one-note act and spun it into quite a career.

This is not TV for the drive-by viewer looking for something to make them feel good after a day at work. It will be too stressful, too sweat-inducing, too claustrophobic and manipulative. Like any reality show it trusts the audience is stupid and is crammed with unnecessary narration and flashbacks of events we just saw 30 seconds ago. The cooking and elimination action is put together with the ridiculousness of an overblown Michael Bay film, and yet the "world-is-at-stake" action movie music and quick cuts to horrified faces doesn't fail to send up a giddy tickle of guilty pleasure entertainment in my belly.

I wouldn't be surprised to see "Hell's Kitchen" on a list of the worst shows of the year by the HBO-loving, "American Idol" cow-towing media. But I'll take Ramsey's hysterical wrath on inept contestants over reality shows that reach further to mean something any day. This is solid mindless entertainment of the first order.

* * * /4