If you love Gordon Ramsay, then you can’t get enough of his recipe for culinary success — at least on TV.
It goes something like this: Take obnoxious, over-confident chefs, put them into impossibly difficult situations, add one F-word-spitting, enraged Ramsay, who gets all the control. Allow him to terrify them into submission until they see he was right all along. Tremendous success for all is guaranteed. At least that’s what we’re led to believe.
His newest venture, “Hotel Hell,” is akin to a chef using his own cake recipe on cookies. He takes everything that was present in “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares” and transfers it to failing inns and hotels.
Like all his other makeover shows, Ramsay terrifies, intimidates and somehow makes us believe that owners are really surprised by specialists walking in — as though a giant camera crew wasn’t there letting them know.
“Hotel Hell” is as much fun as the others, even if the formula has been used so many times, you’re ready for a new dish.
First up is the Juniper Hill Inn in Vermont, run by Robert Dean II and his boyfriend, Ari Nikki, with the word “run” being a loosely defined term here.
See, Dean is an arrogant hoarder of what he thinks are priceless antiques (hundreds of thousands of dollars worth, he says). He is so busy buying up things for exorbitant prices that he doesn’t often pay his staff.
The chef makes, if he’s lucky, $15,000 a year, and some staff make $60 a week!
One reason is that they can’t make payroll, what with Dean’s extravagance, and the other is that there are no guests. Dean and Ari comp most of the rooms and food to their pals, who don’t even tip the staff.
This is as ripe for a Ramsay makeover as risotto in a box.
Ramsay is particularly brutal here to Dean — especially after Dean says things like, “We don’t want guests without a lot of money.” Arrogance from a man going broke and living on his boyfriend’s savings.
The most they bring in is $15Gs a month, although it costs a minimum of $30Gs a month to keep Juniper Hill up and taking nourishment.
Ramsay, of course, boils over screaming and cursing at even minor infractions yelling, “It’s gorgeous and it smells likes – – t!”
“Do you honestly need a 70-year-old lady’s tips? Huh? You disrespectful, disgusting man!”
“Foie gras salad? It’s like a piece of beef jerky!”
“Are you always this pathetic?”
“You’re not the lord of the manor or f – – – ing Gatsby!”
And this gem to Ari, whom he almost kills. “Why are you running an inn when you are so f – – – ing bitter?”
Of course, Ramsay figures out how to get the place back on its feet after some truly shocking revelations by making the “catered affair” bar into a cozy neighborhood hangout and fixing up the whole downstairs.
If you love Ramsay, you’ll eat this show up.