Gordon Ramsay wants YOU ... to be a MasterChef. Premieres 7/27.

[Timby]

"Hello, ladies, I'm Gordon Ramsay. Look at your husband, now back to me, now back at your husband, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped using boxed macaroni and cheese, he could cook like he’s me. Look down, back up -- where are you? You’re in a kitchen, with the man your man could cook like. What’s in your hand? Back at me. I have it: It’s a scallop with a perfectly cooked beef wellington. Look again: The wellington is now lobster risotto! Anything is possible when your man cooks like me and not an idiot. I’m on a donkey."

MasterChef is celebrity chef and television personality Gordon Ramsay's latest program, and, like all his other U.S. shows, it originated in the U.K., though this incarnation is apparently more based on the Australian version. Here's how it works, shamelessly cribbed from Wikipedia:

Initial rounds consist of a large number of hopeful contestants from across North America individually "auditioning" by presenting a food dish before the three judges in order to gain one of 50 semi-final places. Contestants must be at least 18 years or over at time of audition, and their main source of income cannot come from preparing and cooking fresh food in a professional environment (such as in restaurants, hotels or canteens).

Invention Test
Challenge night. It features two challenges. The first is the Mystery Box challenge, where each contestant is given the same box of ingredients and are to create a dish using only those ingredients. The judges move around observing and questioning during the challenge, and when it is completed, choose a selection of dishes that interest them the most. These dishes are then tasted, and a winner chosen.

Immediately after the Mystery Box challenge is the Invention Test. A theme is given to the contestants, and they are to invent a dish relevant to this theme. The winner of the Mystery Box challenge is taken into the pantry and given a choice of three feature ingredients. Whichever ingredient is chosen is the main ingredient all contestants will cook with. Once the dishes are cooked, they are all presented to the judges for tasting. The top three are selected by the judges, from which a winner is chosen. After this the bottom three are revealed, who will face off in an elimination challenge.

Pressure Test
Pressure Test challenge which includes the bottom three from the previous Invention Test. The three receive a recipe for a certain dish which they then must recreate in a particular time frame. Once the contestants have finished cooking, the dishes are taken to the judges to be tasted, the judges then criticize, vote and eliminate the lowest scoring contestant.

Celebrity Chef
Celebrity Chef Challenge, where the winner of the Invention Test compete against a celebrity chef in a cook off. The celebrity chef gives the contestant the recipe to reproduce. The contestant receives a head start to cook the dish before the celebrity chef starts cooking and after a certain time the dishes are presented to the judges who taste and score out of ten. The dishes are tasted by the judges in a blind-tasting fashion, meaning that they are never aware which dish was made by whom. If the contestant scores higher than the celebrity chef, they receive an immunity pin which they can use during an elimination to pass the elimination challenge.

Off Site Team Challenge
Off Site Challenge. The contestants are split into two teams, blue and red which consist of equal numbers and are given a task, for example, running a restaurant or catering for a party or wedding. After the task has been completed, the teams are given the results, which can be determined by third party votes. Members of the losing team compete in an elimination challenge. The winning team receives a reward.

Elimination
The two worst performing contestants decided by the Judges from the losing team in the team challenge compete against each other in a head to head challenge with the losing contestant being eliminated. Depending on contestant numbers, all members of the losing team will compete as individuals in the elimination challenge.

Masterclass
MasterClass Challenge, where the judges Gordon, Joe, and Graham hold a masterclass for the remaining contestants, which sometimes shows dishes that relate back to the challenges from the previous week.

MasterChef premieres following tonight's episode of Hell's Kitchen, at 9 p.m. eastern / 8 p.m. central.

Discuss!

 

[Pindar]

Re: Gordon Ramsay wants YOU ... to be a MasterChef.

Reads like the Australian version.

I just read an interview with Ramsay on DS saying they want it to be like Pop Idol.

I am currently watching both the British and Australian versions, but I really hate Gordon Ramsay.

I guess I will probably give it a go when it comes onto the food channel here in the UK.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

Re: Gordon Ramsay wants YOU ... to be a MasterChef.

I love Gordon Ramsay. I used to work in a kitchen when I was a teenager. My grandmother was the kitchen manager and maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan she was much meaner than Ramsay. I would have much rather worked for him. He's a pussycat in comparison to ol' Grandma.

 

[FPAlpha]

I'm not a very good cook but seeing how these professionals make absolutely fantastic food with basic stuff anyone can buy simply amazes me.

What i like about Ramsey though is that he's a loudmouth who actually can back up his attitude with quality and experience and he let's you feel it. You get arrogant in his face and he'll make you regret it.

Now obviously the restaurants and people in his shows are handpicked to give the best possible drama (who'd want to watch a calm and eager guy learning to cook with Ramsay?) but who cares.. it's guilty pleasure to watch set up shows

 

[tomalak301]

I might watch. They've been promoting this during Hell's Kitchen ad nauseum and it doesn't look too bad. I'm going to watch HK before so might as well keep the channel on.

 

[Garak]

I have such a man crush on Gordon Ramsey.

Some people don't understand that he's playing up his fiery personality on his US shows, you watch his English shows and while the passion is still there, he's much mroe level headed. He is always right though, no matter what, his experience and expertise always shines through.

Can't wait for the show.

 

[Admiral James Kirk]

I've seen the UK version of Kitchen Nightmares and you're right about Ramsay. He really is a kind man at heart but when you insist on doing things the wrong way he's gonna let you know it. Of course the restaurant owners in the UK don't seem to be as stupid and/or negligent as the restaurant owners in the US so he never really loses it on the UK show. Well sometimes...

 

[Timby]

Ramsay himself has said that if he spoke to employees in his restaurants the way he barks at people on his American programming, he'd fully expect them to walk out and wouldn't blame them for doing so. His behavior on the U.S. shows is a persona, just like all American reality television.

 

[Roger Wilco]

I have such a man crush on Gordon Ramsey.

Some people don't understand that he's playing up his fiery personality on his US shows, you watch his English shows and while the passion is still there, he's much mroe level headed. He is always right though, no matter what, his experience and expertise always shines through.

Can't wait for the show.

I was just about to say the same thing, I love his old UK shows, and also Boiling Point really showed what Ramsay is about. He takes food very seriously btu he hates cooks who are pretentious (which is btw why that blue-haired guy on Hell's Kitchen has absolutely no shot at winning imo). And he cares.

He's a professional, and the reason he screams as people is not to humiliate them but to make them realise they can't charge their customers and then serve them crap. I think he's a phenomenal teacher, most of the people on Hell's Kitchen are just far too stupid to benefit from what he's telling them.

 

[Holdfast]

Kitchen Nightmares is awesome, in either the UK or US incarnation. Not so sure about this Masterchef format though.

 

[Roger Wilco]

Kitchen Nighmares should be mandatory viewing for everyone who wants to open a restaurant imo.

 

[Timby]

Kitchen Nighmares should be mandatory viewing for everyone who wants to open a restaurant imo.

Anyone who wants to open a restaurant is better served by taking all their money, putting it in a burlap bag, lighting it on fire and tossing it into the nearest body of water. At least then you're only torching your own money, as opposed to pissing away your bank's money and winding up $200,000 in debt. The rate of success for new restaurants is so infinitesimally low that you have a better shot of return on investment by putting your money into shares of AOL than you do by opening a restaurant.

And, really, Kitchen Nightmares is pretty formulaic. The staff is coached and scripted, the ownership is coached, and the "makeovers" are (with a few exceptions) pretty mild, as are the re-openings (which are filled with patrons paid to be there). A one-night changeover won't fix a broken restaurant.

I actually have a bit of a problem with the U.S. Kitchen Nightmares in that respect, as it can lead people to think that if they just listen to what Gordon Ramsay says, they can run a successful restaurant. I know two people who have followed that idiotic line of thinking, and they're both living in low-income housing after completely losing their pants and shirts on their endeavors. One somehow got a bank loan and bought a historic, 94-year-old building and then spent the money to turn it into a fancy Italian restaurant ... and because he had no experience or knowledge of F&B, he hired the wrong management, the wrong management hired the wrong people, and the place went tits-up in a little under nine months. The other guy, who had inherited all of the city's McDonald's franchises from his dad (who, in turn, had inherited them from his father, and his father worked for Ray Kroc at the original McDonald's) but then sold them all back to McDonald's, decided to take his money and open up a seafood joint in the middle of eastern Iowa. Again -- poor hiring, poor management, poor everything ... it resulted in him selling everything, his wife divorcing him, and the last I heard, he's living in a studio apartment of Section 8 housing in a shitty part of town.

 

[Roger Wilco]

And, really, Kitchen Nightmares is pretty formulaic. The staff is coached and scripted, the ownership is coached, and the "makeovers" are (with a few exceptions) pretty mild, as are the re-openings (which are filled with patrons paid to be there). A one-night changeover won't fix a broken restaurant.

Well, of course, but it's better than nothing I'm sure. I've never seen the US Kitchen Nightmares, but in the UK version the most surprising thing for me was that most of the restaurants were still running when they were re-visited a couple months later given the basic, fundamental mistakes most of them had made and the state the restaurants were often in.

And not even Ramsay can teach an arrogant idiot how to cook in a week; for example I remember an episode about an Italian restaurant run by a 20-ish Brit named Alex who styled himself Alessandro although he'd never even been to Italy and learned Italian cooking - get this - from a cab driver in his neighbourhood. He hadn't earned any money yet but bought himself a brand new BMW M3 with the custom license plate "A1CHEF", he didn't make his own pasta and made his Minestrone with some supermarket-bought powder stuff and yet charged crazy prices. What are you gonna do with such a fool if you're Ramsay?

He did have some successes though, I remember a very nice episode where he visited a US Southern style restaurant in Brighton, Momma Cheri's Soul Food Shack or so, run by a very dedicated lady who basically knew the food but was overextended amd Ramsay really helped her out.

 

[Trekker4747]

You'd think a "master chef" like Ramsay would know how to properly steel his knife.

 

[Timby]

I don't know if anyone else watched this last night, but it was ... underwhelming, to say the least. Woof.

 

[tomalak301]

I did and about 20 minutes in, I was bored. That, and a lot of the sentimentalism looked really really fake and cringe worthy. I'm not sure if I will continue on (When they get to the challenge portion things might improve) but last night's premiere was not all that great.

 

[RedShirt]

I thought it wasn't half bad, thought the feel-good stories I could do without.
Frankly we were hoping for more screen time of Ramsay going off on the bad dishes... maybe there will be an extended edition DVD later on down the line.
Looking forward to some fun challenges and new dinner ideas.

 

[Snaploud]

UK Kitchen Nightmares--my favorite of the Ramsay shows (interesting stuff with a lot of humor and heart)

U.S. Kitchen Nightmares--garbage (lots of manufactured drama with little redeeming value)

U.S. Hell's Kitchen--formulaic but enjoyable fluff

UK The F Word--couldn't get into it

U.S. Masterchef--about average so far

The only two cooking shows I would recommend are Top Chef and the UK Kitchen Nightmares.

 

[Garak]

Like others have said, I could do without the contestant's life stories.

Otherwise I thought it was pretty decent, I'll definitely watch.

 

[Chaos Descending]

I thought it was alright. I don't really care for the one judge, I don't remember his name. He's the thin balding guy, not the heavy tattooed guy or (obviously) Gordon Ramsey.