Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmare -The Granary

Gordon Ramsay is driving in rural Hampshire, talking about how he's bought a "tiny country cottage" around here - by which he probably means a mansion. The c***.

He's looking forward to lunch, he tells us, obviously setting us up for his own bitter disappointment. He's going to The Granary, a 200-seater owned by Nigel Nedhugh, an entrepreneur (only, it appears, in the sense that he looks like a wanker and drives a posh car). This is going to be good. 

Nig can't understand why the place isn't busier. He's losing 4K a week but still manages to drive a chopper and show Gordon around the area from the air. 

Nige had a posh club where people paid 2K to join and rub shoulders and other body parts with people like Jordan and some guy from Eastenders. But  - surprise  - no one wanted to go... Now he's still got the place but is running it as a restaurant that no one wants to eat at. 

Poor Nig.

He calls his menu "Modern British" and has a chef called Martin who is supposedly all over it. I immediately feel bad because I dislike him on first meeting and then it turns out he's helping tearaway teens - he learnt to cook in jail and is now wanting to help others. I'm a bad person.

He has young blokes Pete and Paul in the kitchen and they're total lads, but they love cooking... You just know one of them is going to end up being really good at it.

Nig shows Gordon around and Gordon hates the interiors. Nig gets his back up. "There's not a fing here 'e likes," he says. No Nig, not even you.

Gordon can't get his head around the menu - they say it's modern British food and yet there's shark steaks and Moroccan chicken. 

Nig waits for Gordon to tell him he hates it all. 
So do I. 
And he does.
"That tastes fucking ghastly," he says, supportively. "But don't get all defensive. How's your lamb?"

"Beautiful" says Nig, defensively.

They go like this for a bit, I feel someone may lose an eye. Nig starts trying to attack Gordon's menu, but we're not at Gordon's restaurant now. Nig, give it up.

Gordon orders the steak and says it looks like someone was sick on his plate. 

Finally Gordon goes into the kitchen to meet Martin and the boys.
He tells them he hated everything on the menu, but says he liked how the vomit steak was cooked. Peter blushes. It's cute. But then Gordon tells him off for moving the pans while he's talking and Martin tells him to show some respect. It's a roller coaster. A loud, uncomfortable roller coaster filled with shark meat and plates of sick.

Gordon tells us in the voiceover that everything about the Granary is fucking wrong. Yeah, I think we got that already, Gordon.

Nig is having a fag. It looks like he's crying.

Possibly he is.

Gordon is going to test them by having 90 locals come in and eat, to see how well they cope.

30 minutes in and people are sending food back left right and centre because it's cold, and, well, "fucking ghastly" I imagine. 

One table has been waiting 2 hours. which begs the question, why didn't they just go home? 

But I digress.

Martin decides he can't do any more. He strides about saying he's been stitched up and he doesn't want to do "no more", then walks out saying, "it's bollocks". 
Nig soon follows and accuses Gordon of stitching them up.

"Why did you do this to us?", he asks, a fag tucked behind his ear for when things get too much.

He has a point, Gordon. 

Gordon says, "Don't be so ridiculous!" He calls Nig a weak man. Nig tells him to fuck off. 
It's better than TV. Except it is TV. 

Martin comes back in and tries to sort things out. He said he had a "funny five minutes there". But he realised that he was letting people down. What a guy. 

Nig, on the other hand, has to have a fag and a drink. And a whinge.

Gordon tells them they're fucked, but to never give up - which is confusing, to say the least.

Then he says "We'll get it right, OK?" It's all tough love 101. I feel duped.

Gordon asks the locals why they don't go there and they all say it's too expensive and that they don't want to eat shark. Some of them say other things but I'm trying to work out if one of them used to be on Eastenders.

Gordon has a plan. You can tell because he is looking off to the side of the camera and telling us about it. It involves getting people excited about produce... and probably taking shark off the menu. 

He drives a tractor along a bumpy path with "the boys" - Martin, Pete and Paul and some guy I've never seen before but who must work there. 
He's taking them to pick their own veg, presumably as picking beetroot is the best way to get them excited in the way he wants. Weird.

They're all laughing at how useless they are at digging up carrots. Ah, bonding.

They're having the best time ever. 

"Instead of nicking cars, you're nicking carrots!" someone guffaws.

Oh, how easy it is to rehabilitate the young...

"Martin, are you excited?" he asks, as Peter brandishes a carrot in the air. 

"Superb," says Martin.

I'm not sure the vision of the carrots should have come in right there.

Gordon is telling us how cooking saved him from a life of petty crime (he crashed a car whilst uninsured, he says. "Who still uses the word 'whilst'?" I think).

He takes the boys aside for a little chat about how he was just like them but that he changed everything and did it by staying focussed. "You can stay focussed," he adds.

They tell him Martin keeps them on the straight and narrow. I like Martin. Martin for President. 

Now Gordon is going to show them how they can serve 90 people without having dummy spits and too many fags (Nig, I'm talking to you). Apparently the secret is roast pork. Who knew. 

Each table gets a roast and loads of veg. Inspired. The pork is from down the road. He gets Peter to carve at the table and the poor thing is so shy he can't talk, much to Gordon's amusement. "I was shitting myself" Peter says. Unsavoury in a restaurant setting, I would have thought.

Nig is happy. Not a fag in sight. Gordon gives another pep talk about letting your work shine so the shit takes care of itself. 
Suddenly Gordon brings them chickens and they have to make henhouses for them - it's a team building exercise that Nig fails at, and it's a worry for Gordon who has 100 people coming in for dinner. If Nig can't build a henhouse, apparently, he can't run a restaurant. I'm not sure of the rules but I'm imagining Gordon knows better than me.

He's back in the kitchen now, telling us he has to get on and teach the boys how to make some British classics. Starting with mushroom on toast, which, if I were a betting man, I'd say would surely consist of mushrooms and ahem, toast?

Ah no. he adds an egg. That's why he's Gordon Ramsay and I'm not. The c***.

Anyway, he's also now letting Pete cook calves' liver. Which may or may not be a compliment.

Tonight they have 48 air traffic controllers from the local airport coming in. There are so many gags to be made. 

Gordon tries, saying "they know how to avert disaster, I only hope I can do the same." 5/10 Gordon.

Once again Nig can't handle the heat and food is going to the wrong tables (those air traffic controllers didn't help, then? Boom! Surely a 9 out of ten?)

Nig is outside having a fag. He's talking about how stressed he is. 

He comes in for the debrief and everything kicks off. He won't talk to Gordon.

Gordon calls him fat. 
Nig calls Gordon a twat.
Nig then calls Gordon a c***.

It's great.

Gordon asks him if this is how he runs his business.
Nig calls him a knob.
Peter laughs and tries to contain it by stuffing a Red Bull can into his mouth. 
It's so uncomfortable, it's amazing.

Nig walks out. He will need more to buy loads more fags at this rate.

Gordon comes and talks it out  - suggesting Nig needs a restaurant manager. Nig doesn't light up. Things are looking good.

Gordon suggests a family day at the restaurant - a food fair. They set it up in record time, suddenly there's a petting zoo and food stalls in the carpark.

Nig spends his time taste-testing all the chutney. 

Gordon sets the young chefs a challenge to create a salad from local veg and the winner will see their dish go on the menu. They get all competitive. We discover the other young chef is called Sean. 

Only in time for him to lose the challenge and never be heard from again. Shame.  

Pete wins. Of course.

Gordon forces Nig to wear a chicken suit to entertain the kids at the fair day. It's like a dream. Don't smoke anywhere near the suit, Nig, I think - flammable. 
Gordon makes a joke about Nig being "plucking mad". It's a laugh a minute. Now Nig is all in love with Gordon and tells us, from inside the suit, how much Gordon wants to help him. I want to shake him and say, "Yes, but he's making you dress like a chicken Nigel!" but I can't... it's painful.

The love fest continues as Gordon unveils a new sign for the restaurant and he and Nig joke about the logo being a big fat cock and is that what Gordon thinks of Nig? Except you know Gordon means just that. 

Now he's redoing the menu for the opening night. He's worried that Martin won't be able to hack it. He's giving them all a pep talk (and by "pep" talk, I mean just telling them all to "fucking do it".)
Martin is full of confidence. This doesn't bode well.

It's all going well until Gordon tries to make Martin a bit more assertive in the kitchen. Martin loses the plot a bit and then Pete and Paul get antsy and Paul tells Gordon to fuck off. It's A-class TV. I'm on the edge of my seat.

Outside Martin and Nig are  - surprise!  - smoking fags and whinging. They tell Gordon they will get the hang of it without him and that they'll be great. Gordon doesn't believe them. Nor do I.

6 weeks later and Gordon is back. Turns out it's just in time, as Martin is leaving to go work with troubled kids (awww Martin!) and Paul has already moved on, but Pete is still there, and - wait for it! - Nig isn't being a dick. 

Pete cooks red mullet for Gordon's lunch and Gordon loves it. Pete is beside himself with glee. 

Everything is running smoothly - they were right! Maybe it was Gordon who was the problem all along.. Did I say that out loud?

Gordon gives the customers comment cards and asks them to rate the food. They all love it...
"I like the young chef, can I have him cook me a steak" he reads from one. 

Pete grins, "Did they leave a number?" 
"I wrote it," laughs Gordon. They all chuckle. 
"Better than Gordon's food!" he reads. 
"Did they really say that?" asks Pete. 
"I wrote it" says Gordon...
"...No I didn't" he adds. 


Awww. What a soft c****!