Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is a television programme featuring British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay first broadcast on Channel 4 in 2004. In each episode, Ramsay visits a failing restaurant and acts as a troubleshooter to help improve the establishment in just one week. Ramsay revisits the restaurant a few months later to see how business has fared in his absence. Episodes from series one and two have been re-edited with additional new material as Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited; they featured Ramsay checking up on restaurants a year or more after he attended to them.

Background

An American adaptation of this show, titled Kitchen Nightmares, debuted 19 September 2007 on Fox. It is broadcast in the UK on Channel 4 as Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares USA to avoid confusion with the original title. Its run ended on 12 September 2014. In October 2009, Ramsay announced that after his four-year contract expired in 2011 he would not continue with Kitchen Nightmares and would instead work on his other shows. Despite this, the show returned for one last series in 2014 (retitled as Ramsay's Costa del Nightmares) where Ramsay visited and helped failing restaurants owned by Britons abroad. The final series also coincided with the ending of the US version after seven seasons (which was later revived for an eighth season in 2023). The show has won BAFTA and Emmy awards.

Series overview

Episodes

Series 1

Series 2

Series 3

Series 4

Series 5

Ramsay's Great British Nightmare

A one-off, two-hour special entitled Ramsay's Great British Nightmare was broadcast on 30 January 2009 as part of The Great British Food Fight, a two-week series of food-related programming on Channel 4. In the programme, Ramsay campaigned for viewers to start supporting local restaurants, especially in a bad economy.

Ramsay's Costa del Nightmares

Libel

In June 2006, Ramsay won a High Court case against the Evening Standard, which had alleged that scenes and the general condition of the restaurant had been faked for the first episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares. These allegations followed reports from the previous owner of Bonapartes, Sue Ray. Ramsay was awarded £75,000 plus costs. Ramsay said at the time: "I won't let people write anything they want to about me. We have never done anything in a cynical, fake way."

Reception

The programme received favourable reviews for its in-depth look into the restaurant industry. Jane Redfem of Off the Telly commented that the show "could have been cynically designed to exploit Ramsay's foul-mouthed reputation... But watch, listen and think about what he is saying, and his genuine commitment to his profession in general, and the task at hand become abundantly evident." Lorna Martin of The Observer said "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is compulsive viewing – packed with excitement, emotion and entertainment." Slate's Sara Dickerman was impressed by the show's "economic realism" in the tired food television genre. She wrote, "There is something refreshing about a show that doesn't promise a ticket to ride (a surgical makeover, a million dollars, Richard Branson's job) but instead offers restaurant owners the hope—if they seriously reform their establishments—that they might, just might, break even for the next few months." Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares was named Best Feature at the 2005 and 2008 BAFTA awards. It also earned the 2006 International Emmy for best non-scripted entertainment.

DVD releases

United States

On 3 March 2009, Acorn Media released series 1 of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on DVD in the US. Series 2 was released on 1 September 2009.

Canada

For the Canadian market, Visual Entertainment has released the first three series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares on DVD in two volume sets.

International versions