THE RAMSAY EFFECT (BEFORE): Gordon Ramsay modernized the Cambridge Hotel in Cambridge, NY, by ripping up the old carpet and putting in wood floors. He toned down the floral wallpaper by hanging curtains behind the bed and around the windows. (
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THE RAMSAY EFFECT (AFTER): Gordon Ramsay modernized the Cambridge Hotel in Cambridge, NY, by ripping up the old carpet and putting in wood floors. He toned down the floral wallpaper by hanging curtains behind the bed and around the windows. (
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The secret to the success of “Hell’s Kitchen” star Gordon Ramsay, the television-spawned love child of Jerry Springer and Simon Cowell, is that he takes conflict and turns it into prime-time drama. His shows — and the latest, the aptly named “Hotel Hell” — are full of yelling, screaming and bleeped-out swearing.
Not that whoever’s on the receiving end of these rants doesn’t deserve it.
In one of the new show’s first episodes, Ramsay, who presides over an empire, with some 20 restaurants in London — including Gordon Ramsay at London’s Claridge’s — Manhattan, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Paris and other cities, and his wrath descend upon a seemingly bucolic hotel, the Juniper Hill Inn in Windsor, Vt. Although lavishly decorated with art and antiques, the hotel is hemorrhaging money — paying its staff late and less than promised — and the clientele is rapidly diminishing. One gorgeously decorated room has a malodorous sewage problem. The basement, attic and storerooms are stuffed with new furniture, appliances and wine, but the owners live in a $100,000 motor home parked next to the hotel.
“You disrespectful, disgusting man!” Ramsay screams at Robert Dean, the admittedly clueless hotel owner, as he tries to defend treating his employees so poorly.
Much like Springer in his heyday, “Hotel Hell” is full of cringe-worthy conflict — Ramsay’s calling card. Watching him sort through these situations is nearly as stressful as working as the underpaid labor at the Juniper Hill Inn.
Ramsay says he’s not the scold his shows make him out to be, and in person he seems perfectly reasonable. He’s not afraid to let people know exactly what he thinks, though, and that’s what makes him a compelling TV star.
“Do I really come across like that psycho that you’re putting me out to be?” Ramsay asked a room full of TV critics and reporters at the annual summer press tour in Beverly Hills, Calif., late last month. “I think for an hour’s television, we film 175 hours with a bank of 65 cameras. Condense that into 42 minutes of footage. [Each episode of] ‘Hotel Hell,’ we shot in excess of 160 hours, condensed yet again into 42 minutes.”
To find hotels in as desperate need of help as the Juniper Hill Inn, Ramsay’s producers put out searches across the country.
“We had an overwhelming response from small boutique hotels to 40-, 50-, or 60-bedroom hotels across the country, from upstate New York right down to San Diego. Obviously, it’s the ones that are in severe jeopardy, on the edge of potentially closing, that really need help. Then we prioritized by asking ourselves: Is this really fixable? Can we reposition this? And to what extent has the hotel been damaged?”
Fixing some of these hotels seems nearly impossible, but Ramsay tackles the task with the bravado.
“We came across hotels that were charging up to $450 a night, which I think is a lot of money for anywhere,” he says. “And then, there’s a level of ‘taking-for-granted because we’re in a unique position, we have the corner on the market, no one can reach us in upstate New York, and they’re on the way to skiing so they’ve got to stay here.’ That gets very annoying, because like in any restaurant, customers vote with their feet. That’s exactly the same in a hotel.”
Fixing the array of problems that Ramsay comes across involves everything from trying to raise money to save Juniper Hill, to ripping out floors and carpet, to the subject Ramsay knows best — completely revamping the hotel’s restaurant. And when he’s not hectoring someone, he lends a sympathetic ear to Robert and the beaten-down staff.
When he’s not on camera, starring on Fox’s “Hell’s Kitchen,” “Kitchen Nightmares” and “MasterChef,” Ramsay’s mostly known for food. Besides he also owns one hotel, Gordon Ramsay’s Townhouse, a 10-bedroom food-centric boutique in London.
HOTEL HELL
Monday, 8 p.m., Fox