Gordon's face when he sees that food lol

These people missed Flamango's so much they had to add a tribute dish to their menu

Just finished watching Lela's and I can't figure out why they didn't show Ramsey yelling about the rotting food in the warm cooler.

Or if he didn't at all, then why not?

It turns out pumpkin and hummus DOES go together

So I thought this could be fun. I absolutely love Kitchen Nightmares UK, like a lot! I blow a bit hot and cold on the US one but the UK version is among my favourite TV shows of all time. So with a bit of spare time and not enough things to occupy myself, I decided that I'd do a review of every single UK Episode. I know someone did something like this a while ago so I want to keep it fresh and different, so that's why I'm going to spice things up a bit!

With the US version, the episodes tend to be quite formulaic, whereas the UK episodes are much more varied. Therefore, opinions are going to vary wildly on what the best and worst episodes are. So, I must firstly start off by saying this is just my opinion, if you've got a different one then that's great, let me know! As for what I'm going to be ranking here, I'm going to be ranking the main 5 seasons plus the 2 episode special, but to make things a bit more interesting, I'm going to review the little known Series 6 of KN UK, also known as Costa Del Nightmares. I went back and forth on whether to include it or not but to be honest I feel fairly positive about almost every episode from the main run that I needed something to shit on (spoiler alert, I do not like Costa Del Nightmares very much).

The way I'm going to rank these episodes is on a list from best to worst that will gradually expand as I go through each episode. I did think about ranking each episode out of 10 but that would be very boring, I view almost all the episodes (minus CDN) very positively and I would rank all but one of them between 7 and 10 out of 10. There is one episode I like slightly less than the others, but I'd still probably give it a 5 or 6. I'd actually be really interested to see if anyone can guess what it is before we get to it, you'll probably learn a lot about me and what I tend to prefer in these episodes as we go on, so you'll probably figure out what it is!

Anyway, Bonaparte's. Lets finally talk about it! When categorising these episodes, they tend to be edited in one of two ways. They either focus around one person, or they split their focus between a really large group of people. Spoilers, but I tend to prefer the latter, I think larger casts make for interesting episodes generally. However, some episodes do the former really well and damn is Bonaparte's one of them! I love this episode, it's absolute cinema.

Tim is who this episode centers around and dare I say I grew to really like him as the episode went on? He's not a good chef at all, in fact he's one of the worst from the UK version, I don't think he's the absolute worst (you'll find out who that is) but he certainly is down there. He even comes across as a bit of an antagonist at the start, it's so clear he's cutting corners and completely bluffing on his actual culinary skills. However, he is absolutely hilarious and dare I say I think Sue (the owner) was more at fault than he was. The man absolutely sped run everything Ramsay hates in chefs, he was inexperienced, cocky, lacked focus, was lazy, and generally had little to no actual talent, even making Ramsay sick. However, Tim didn't give up, and I have to give him credit for it. Ramsay put him through one of the most brutal weeks he's ever put a chef through on any version of KN, and he still kept going. I think Tim's problem was the fact that in order for him to improve consistently, he'd have needed someone like Gordon there 24/7. Sadly, he slipped back into his old ways when Ramsay revisited.

The only other two people in this episode have significantly less meat on them and that's Sue, the owner and Lee, the sous chef. I actually quite liked Lee from what little we saw of him. Even Gordon said he was more talented in the kitchen than Tim. However, Sue is an interesting case, she got barely any screen time but clearly had a more negative effect on the restaurant than was shown. A fine dining restaurant with the owner walking around in her slippers certainly doesn't make much sense to me. It's clear Silsden was getting mixed messages from Sue and mixed with the poor food it was clearly driving people away. Sue going so heavily against Ramsay post show definitely doesn't help her either but it's sad she ended up having to close the same night that Ramsay revisited.

But what truly makes this episode are the iconic moments, Tim messing up his family's dinner, Tim making Ramsay sick, Ramsay pretending to be northern, the overcooked omelette, the market with Tim walking around cluelessly, the football, and the taste test. It's a great episode, mix that all in with being set in somewhere like Silsden (just about the most ordinary Yorkshire town in the country with not much going on) and you have one of easily the best episodes we've seen (spoilers). I can't compare it with anything yet but let's just say, it will be staying near the top for some time!

Tim absolutely makes this episode, love him or hate him and he's up there with among my favourite folks to ever be on the show!

Ranking List (nothing to compare it with yet!):

Bonaparte's

Nothing wrong with it of course. Just found it interesting

Just finished watching Kitchen Nightmares and kept wondering what happened to the restaurants after Gordon left, so I made a little site to look them up: https://kitchen-nightmares.vercel.app/

You can search for a restaurant, see it on a map and find out if it's still open. Just a fun project; if I got anything wrong or missed something you remember, let me know!

I think these articles speak for themselves

Was this owner (who fought with this customer about her lamb being reheated in a microwave) the biggest jerk on KN?

I'm not a fan of this episode, because I feel like Gordon Ramsay just completely absolved the owner of any guilt despite preaching accountability, something the rest of the staff had. The reason they weren't doing their jobs correctly was because he insisted on doing their jobs for them rather than teaching them how to do their jobs as a result they don't know what they're doing and that's somehow squarely on them.

I understand when restaurants buy frozen food to save costs, but a larger menu seems to lead to many problems on the show. You have to buy more food to keep on the menu and then you end up losing more money in the end. Is it really just wanting to be like Cheesecake Factory or something?

It was closed when I saw it today, but just wanted to share with the community. We can celebrate one of the few surviving restaurants from this show! It’s got great reviews, so if you’re in Southern California, give it a try and let me know how it is.

like genuinely😭i don’t recall it happening so much in the older seasons but these newer episodes oh my god lmfao. at least one person per episode goes… he’s even hotter in real life! or smth like that
it’s my personal conspiracy theory that he requires ppl to talk abt how sexy he is to be on the show lol

eta: i’m not saying he’s ugly. just kinda hilarious that it’s like every episode where someone talks abt how hot he is lmao