EP David DeAngelis Promises 'Kitchen Nightmares' Will Feature the Absolute Best Version of Gordon Ramsay
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Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares has been on a 10-year hiatus, but this fall, the MasterChef host is back in the business of restaurant makeovers, and he will once again try to coax sometimes reluctant owners and chefs to revamp their failing restaurants.
Fans of the series can thank COVID-19 for Gordon’s decision to revisit Kitchen Nightmares because the restaurant industry was one of the hardest hit by the lockdown—and Gordon wasn’t immune to that as he has 75 restaurants around the world.
“He just took a look at an industry that he absolutely loves, that he absolutely has put his entire life into, and realized what better time than now to try to reach out and help some of those restaurants that survived through that time,” executive producer/showrunner David DeAngelis tells Parade. “And we also have included a couple of restaurants that have just kicked off as well, to look at how are they adapting to the changing dynamics in the restaurant world? We just felt like now was a great time to bring Kitchen Nightmares back.”
Everything that people love about Kitchen Nightmares will be back, including out-of-control chefs, clueless owners, lazy staff, dirty kitchens and horrible food. What’s going to be different is Gordon himself. Gordon in 2023 is different than Gordon in 2013.
“I think he has evolved in the last 10 years,” DeAngelis says. “I think you’re going to find a wiser, I don’t want to say kinder and gentler Gordon Ramsay, but I think there is an element. I think what you get in Kitchen Nightmares is the absolute best version of Gordon Ramsay. Because it’s Gordon without any pretense; it’s not Gordon on a cooking game show. It’s just a guy named Gordon who walks through the front door of your restaurant and desperately wants to help.
“And the way that Gordon approaches that is tough love and complete and utter honesty. He’s going to tell you like it is. And you might not like it, but if you’re smart and if you’re self-aware, you’re probably going to have to agree with what he does and says.”
Related: Exclusive Look at the 10 Restaurants Gordon Ramsay Will Remake on Kitchen Nightmares
DeAngelis also shared with us some of the highlights of the season, why Gordon is so good at his job, the importance to Gordon of follow-up after his visit, and more.
How will Kitchen Nightmares be different this year?
I think it’s going to look better than it’s ever looked because the cameras that we use and the technology that we put in place makes it look beautiful. And then you’re going to see all the best sides of Gordon. Gordon as a mentor, Gordon as a confidante, and then Gordon as a hard ass who comes in and sets people straight.
CR: Jeff Niera/FOX
Is there a highlight, something that was just catastrophic or the people that were over the top, that you can share?
We can definitely talk about over-the-top characters because we have a handful. In the second episode, Bask46, you’re going to meet a chef who calls himself the “Culinary Gangster,” Bobby the “Culinary Gangster.” And this guy is everything I think you could want from an egotistical, over-the-top, out-of-his-depth chef. He and Gordon definitely go at it.
We’ve got a couple of social media stars who own a restaurant with their mom called The Gigante Brothers, and these kids are as ridiculous as you can imagine from two 20-year-old kids with a combined following of three million people. They’re ridiculous. We had some really toxic relationships that we got into too, between owners. Two owners who couldn’t stand each other, and got brought together by a third owner who then bailed and left these two alone to run a restaurant.
We’ve got some really heartwarming characters, too. Bobby, the owner of Diwan restaurant is one of the pioneers of Indian food in the United States, but Bobby is still stuck in 1983 and can’t let go, and has a different concept for a restaurant every week and tries to shoehorn it into his restaurant. At one point he had an Indian restaurant on the first floor and a Mexican restaurant on the second floor because he thought those flavors might be similar. And Gordon said, “Well, who cooks your Mexican food?” And Bobby said, “I do. I do, of course.”
And then there’s a waiter at that restaurant as well called Fernandez who I think people are going to absolutely fall in love with. This poor guy is the outward face of the restaurant, he’s trying to run the dining room and Gordon just keeps sending food back, and this poor guy has to run back into the kitchen and try to figure it out. He’s definitely a really memorable character.
All of the restaurants are based in New York or New Jersey. How did you decide to stick with that section of the country and why those particular restaurants?
That was a production concern for us. We needed to squeeze in 10 restaurants in 5 weeks. We figured the best way to do that was to stay localized. We looked around the country and we also thought, ‘Where are we going to get some of the better personalities and also a variety of restaurants.’ For us, New York and New Jersey ticked all the boxes because we knew we could get big personalities. East Coasters are known to be open and honest with their emotions, big characters for sure, and a wide variety of restaurants.
We have Italian restaurants, Indian restaurants, Puerto Rican restaurants, bars and grills, a hot dog restaurant on the Jersey Shore, so we tried to get a wide breadth of restaurants as well. We thought it was really important for the health of the show to give audiences a look at restaurants that felt, not universal, but national. Everyone has a favorite Italian restaurant, everyone has a favorite Indian restaurant, everyone has a favorite bar and grill, and so we felt like that area was really reflective of the entire country.
Related: We’ve Got the Complete List of Gordon Ramsay’s Restaurants So You Can Check Them off Your List!
Gordon does have international experience with cuisine, so he can cover all those. In fact, they eat a lot of Indian food in Great Britain.
They do. Actually, some people may not know this but Gordon’s very first restaurant job was as a pot washer in an Indian restaurant that he lived above, and where his sister was a waitress. At 14, Gordon started washing up in an Indian restaurant and the owner of that restaurant taught Gordon and his mom how to make curry.
Gordon’s first introduction to food was really Indian food, so it was fun to put him back in that environment because he has such a rich history and love of Indian food. And then Gordon has pizza restaurants, he has bars and grills, he has Michelin star restaurants and he has street food restaurants. So yeah, he’s pretty keen when it comes to food, that’s for sure.
You filmed 10 restaurants in five weeks. Isn’t that half of the time that was spent before? I thought they used to spend a week.
We do. We do spend a week. We had two crews. So, we do spend a week in each restaurant, and Gordon will spend about four days in each restaurant. So, basically, we’re working non-stop for those five or six weeks that we are out there. Our crew is in the restaurant not only before we start shooting but after as well to make sure that our aftercare is in place, they feel comfortable with the menu, they feel comfortable with the changes that we made, and sometimes they’re just getting new purveyors because we found them better deals.
CR: Jeff Niera/FOX
Aftercare is super important for Gordon because we don’t want it to feel fly by night. We don’t want it to seem like the circus just came to town, upended your whole life, and then took off. It’s important to Gordon to feel like we’re leaving something behind and we’re leaving them an opportunity to succeed.
Related: And the Winner of MasterChef Season 13 Is...
You’ve been with Gordon for 12 years now, what has impressed you most about working with him?
Gordon is as good or better a television producer as anyone in the business, and that’s just behind the camera. As on-camera talent, he is always on time, he’s always prepared, and all you need to do is have your shit together, point him towards the front door, and let him go. He’s incredible in knowing what he needs to do. Especially in this show with a hundred episodes under his belt. For us it was just about making sure we were prepared, making sure we were ready to go, and then just unleashing him on the restaurant and letting him do what he does.
Did you get the feeling from Gordon that the restaurants that he had visited in the previous incarnation were still successful? Does he ever check?
Yeah, a fair amount of them are still successful, and yes, he does check. Although it’s been 10 years, it’s a little harder to go back, but I think a fair amount are still successful. The success rate in restaurants is somewhere around 25 or 30 percent. So, when you look at it like that, if seven of our 10 restaurants succeed in the next year then we’re well above average. We’re really hoping that the owners and the staff take to heart the things that Gordon brought to them, and they embrace it. But we can only lead restaurants to water, we cannot make them drink.
CR: Jeff Niera/FOX
And we’ve seen it already. I get calls from restaurant owners now saying, “Well, you know, we’re going to go back to our old menu.” And I’m like, “You can do as you wish, it is your restaurant. But it’s our recommendation and Gordon’s recommendation that maybe you simplify things.” Bel-Air Diner is a perfect example of a restaurant that had literally hundreds and hundreds of items on their menu, including things that should never be there like coq au vin and traditional fine dining French items. Stick to things that your chefs, your cooks can actually do, and I think that is a lesson that they learned. Their menu has definitely simplified since then. High hopes.
How silly of people not to take his advice.
That’s another reason why Gordon wanted to come back. He started seeing that the lessons that he tried to teach over 100 episodes have clearly fallen on some deaf ears because a lot of the same issues that he had 10 years ago, we’re still dealing with today. Touch wood some of these restaurants will turn themselves around and be successful
You did renovation shows just prior to this, before switching to the food. What’s great about the food shows? You get to eat the food?
So that’s a funny thing, because once you go into these restaurants ahead of time like we do, we do a lot of scouting and we get there ahead of time, and you see some of the practices inside them, you’re not really ready to eat that food until after the renovations, that’s for sure.
But what I love about it, I just love the food space, I think it’s interesting. I bounce back and forth between food and home improvement TV. I like food, I think it’s cool, and it touches people in a way that just renovating their kitchen doesn’t. Everyone loves food, everyone needs food, and if you do it right, it can be very special. Even if it’s something as simple as a well-made omelet, it can be really special for someone.
Kitchen Nightmares premieres Sept. 25 at 8 p.m. ET/PT on FOX.
