Reddit Spilled The Tea On Diwan Restaurant After Kitchen Nightmares

The Season 8 finale of Kitchen Nightmares captured chef Gordon Ramsay's trip to Port Washington, New York, where he sought to bring new life to an old local favorite: the Indian restaurant Diwan. During the episode, which was filmed in June 2023, Ramsay cracked down on the kitchen, implemented new health and safety measures, streamlined the menu, and gave the dishes his signature fine dining flair.

After a gorgeous remodel, he even recruited the help of "Next Level Chef" contestant Mehreen Karim to run Diwan's social media platform and increase its online presence. And while, just over six months later, Diwan remains in business and has managed to maintain a rating of 4.4 stars with 437 Google reviews, a juicy Reddit thread suggests that the owners of Diwan failed to maintain many of Ramsay's changes.

The original poster, who claimed they'd been dining at Diwan since childhood, said that they visited the restaurant just two weeks after Ramsay's departure. By that time, the restaurant had allegedly reverted to its old menu. Ramsay's menu only lasted four days, according to the Redditor. "Bobby [Diwan's co-owner] claimed that his return customers weren't loving Gordon's recipes and were requesting old favorites," the user wrote. "I always enjoyed the old menu so that was not an issue."

Despite the fact that Diwan's customers appear unperturbed by the fact that they didn't get a chance to try Ramsay's dishes, commenters on the "Kitchen Nightmares" subreddit thread said they could have seen it coming. "I knew he would switch back. That dude was one of the most stubborn owners I've seen on the show," one commenter said of Diwan owner Bobby Chhikara. "In the episode, you could see the smirks on the owners' faces," wrote another user, who saw the restaurant's appearance on the show as a ruse meant to secure money and free renovations.

However, after the episode aired in December, Chhikara told Newsday that he agreed to be on a restaurant renovation series after producers reached out to him, but they allegedly failed to mention the show in question was the long-running Fox hit "Kitchen Nightmares." He said he and his wife were looking forward to the restaurant gaining exposure and getting as well as getting it revamped, but they purportedly didn't expect everything that came with those upsides. A commenter on the thread said that other restaurant owners have told a similar story, writing, "It could be the restaurant owners saving face, but they're pretty much all making the same claim."