How did American TV producers manage to turn this great British show into shit?

[user328]

The UK version of Gordon Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares is way better than the over-dramatized American version.

There's no over-the-top video game music. They don't play it for the shock value of Ramsay cussing at inept restaurateurs. (I just learned there's no N in "restaurateur.") Yeah, he still cusses at them, but the emphasis is more on mending relationships.

Overall, it comes off as being far less crass than the US version. The difference is like night and day.

[52]

I 100 percent agree with you on this.

[user328]

This is a good 1999 documentary chronicling Ramsay's career before Kitchen Nightmares.



Ramsay wanted to be the youngest chef to win three Michelin stars, but he realized he couldn't do it in a corporate environment. So he quit his job as head chef at the acclaimed Aubergine in Chelsea to start his own restaurant. The entire kitchen staff also quit and went with him.

Around this time, ITV was doing a report on bad bosses and decided to make Ramsay their poster child. They failed to ask an obvious question: if he was such a terrible boss, why did the Aubergine staff quit their jobs to continue working for him?

Chef Ramsay didn't win his third star during filming, but he did so only two years later. Many of his former staff are also Michelin starred chefs now.