If ever there was a restaurant that we could see Gordon Ramsay saving with ease, it would be a British pub. So in episode eight of Kitchen Nightmares on Fox, that’s exactly what we had.
In this episode, Chef Ramsay headed to just outside of Austin, Texas to help save a restaurant called the Grumpy George. This elevated British pub, was not so elevated. In part, because the owners were barely there. Unfortunately, they had other jobs they had to go to in order to pay the bills.
In a lot of ways, it’s hard to blame them for the issues when you realize that they are doing what they can to save their restaurant, without actually being there. They have left the restaurant in the hands of their chef and even their son. But this is their fault, as they aren't fixing the actual issues, because they don't know what those issues even are.
The problem is that one of the owners of the restaurant is actually British, so you would expect that she would know what British food tasted like. But that did not seem to be the case as the menu was a bit of a disaster and the chef in charge of cooking admitted that his specialty was Spanish dishes. He is not a British cuisine expert. Instead, he admitted that he learned how to make these dishes from watching videos and following the owner's recipes.
All of this meant that when Gordon Ramsay walked into the Grumpy George, he wasn't walking into a British pub at all. He was walking into a place that struggled to make dishes you'd find on a pub menu, let alone a British pub menu.
The thing about this episode that I enjoyed was the fact that this was a chance for Gordon Ramsay to really shine with the cuisine he grew up with. This is food that he has cooked himself, has eaten, and is overall very familiar with. So you know that when he says something is wrong, that he knows what he is talking about.
We never really doubt Gordon Ramsay and his pallet, but there is something about him talking about British food that really makes us sit down and take notice. And honestly, we just love that he was honest without being brutal.
It was clear that he wanted this family to succeed and thrive. He did what he could, including bringing in a chef who could help the kitchen prepare the dishes the right way. And by the end of the episode, it was clear that this restaurant was not only set up for success, but was trying to stick with what Gordon Ramsay had taught them.
I love a successful Kitchen Nightmares episode and that is exactly what this felt like: a success. And the British food of it all was a win for entertainment purposes as well.