45 Best Kitchen Nightmares Episodes Ranked

If you're looking for a textbook definition of schadenfreude, Gordon Ramsay's long-running "Kitchen Nightmares" show might just be it. The BAFTA- and Emmy-award winning program, with versions in both the U.S. and the UK, follows the hotheaded, Michelin-starred chef as he visits different failing restaurants and tries to help suss out what the problem is and turn it around. But with obnoxious, arrogant owners, hapless chefs, and undermining staff, the underlying issues often lead to explosive standoffs between the Scotsman and the people he's there to help.

Between the fiery U.S. version and the slightly more understated UK version of "Kitchen Nightmares," there are 12 seasons and therefore over 100 episodes to choose from. But some are far more memorable than others, whether for the sheer incompetence they display, for Ramsay's wildly colorful insults, or, very occasionally, for a heartwarming moment or two. If you ask us, these 30 episodes of "Kitchen Nightmares" are the must-watch ones.

Take a trip back in time to the very first episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" and meet a calm, understated Gordon Ramsay who is far from the screaming tyrant we've grown accustomed to. A gobsmacked Ramsay still shows plenty of frustration in the episode, particularly when served "minging" scallops from the episode's bumbling head chef, who smooth-talked his way into control of a kitchen that he's got no business running. More than screaming matches, this early episode is full of genuine tips and tricks that would help any chef run a smoother ship.

The show is practically a mini study guide for cooking school, complete with instructions on properly carving a chicken breast and avoiding waste in the kitchen. Ramsay takes Bonaparte's head chef to the market, showing how to barter, charm, and inspect your way to better value for your money. It's also just fun to reminisce on the good old days when restaurants could sell a French onion soup for £3 and still make a profit. Most importantly, Ramsay emphasizes that cooking professionally at a high level is all about the fundamentals — before we try to cook black truffle scallops, we should probably learn how to make an omelet.

You should probably watch this episode with the volume turned down. Emotions run incredibly high in this family-run business, and nobody cares to censor themselves when the camera starts rolling. Luigi's restaurant is run by two brothers and their wives who start things off by pointing fingers, smacking the table, and blaming anyone but themselves. Luigi's wife, Grace, hurls a few F-bombs toward disgruntled customers but she saves the brunt of her anger for Luigi's brother, Tony, whom she blames for all of the restaurant's problems. Tony looks more like Steve Busciemi's brother than Luigi's, but that's a story for another time. 

When Ramsay showed up, Luigi's had been open since 1981 and enjoyed a solid run of success before things started going downhill (a fact Luigi repeats repeatedly throughout the show). Unlike many kitchen nightmare episodes that feature gross kitchens and horrible service, the problems here are more subtle. Ramsay quickly identifies that the restaurant needs to adapt or die, and he's on a mission to help the family innovate and recapture their joy of cooking. Before the family can do that, they'll have to figure out how to speak to each other without screaming, crying, or cursing. In this episode, Ramsay is more of a therapist than a chef, calmly walking the family through chilling arguments and bringing them all together over Italian-style sausages with all sorts of teary eyes along the way. 

Anytime someone refers to the restaurant as a nightmare inside a show called "Kitchen Nightmares," you know you're in for a treat. Maura Dooris, the owner of Oscar's, calls her restaurant a nightmare within the first 60 seconds and repeats it often. We quickly see why, as the first service forces Dooris to comp over a hundred dollars in free drinks after the passionate but drunk head chef named Lenin takes hours to get food out.

This episode is intense, with hot kitchens and talented chefs with serious problems. Ramsay realizes he doesn't need to whip this kitchen into shape but slowly breathe it back to life. Rather than marching in with his revamped menu, Ramsay encourages the head chef to create his own menu and shares asparagus cigarettes with the chefs to help build camaraderie. Ramsay works to streamline the process and instill confidence in the kitchen, and things are going well until the head chef gets back on the drink. It's a devastating reminder that even when we have the talent, our minds can be our own worst enemy. 

Gordon comes into this episode with a completely different approach, full of positive endorsement and genuine belief in the abilities of this young chef who clearly wants to be great. Lenin does all he can, but things still take a turn for the worst as we come face-to-face with the alcohol and drug abuse problems plaguing the restaurant industry.

Chef Ramsay saved some of the best for last on Season 3, airing a season finale so flamboyant the Oceana Grill tried to sue him over it — twice. Two brothers, who describe themselves as enemies, run a restaurant that has two different dining areas served by the same menu. The brothers, Rami and Moe, expect Ramsay to waltz in there and see them as equals. When he doesn't, the folks in charge find it tougher to swallow than Ramsay found their duck.

It's everything you could dream up in a "Kitchen Nightmares" episode, complete with Chef Ramsay vomiting, head chefs getting fired halfway through the episode, waiters desperate to get out, and a staggering selection of flabbergasted quotes, hair tugs, and raised eyebrows. The owners really make this episode, showing so much disbelief at every new discovery that you wonder if they had ever stepped foot inside their own kitchen.

There were so many quotable moments from this episode, but we can't put them down here because each one includes a few solid f-bombs. Here's one we can use, though: "he's from British, he doesn't speak English." The last thing these owners want is to break out their British dictionaries, but after Ramsey dangles the limp tails of dead mice in front of their eyes until they admit they have a problem, they suck it up and try to listen while simultaneously threatening to chop up Ramsay and feed him to alligators.

There's a refreshing amount of honesty in this "Kitchen Nightmare" episode, which features Ramsay trying to make sense of two restaurants owned and operated by one pizzamaker. Mama Maria's head chef is excited to show Ramsay how awful the food is, and the servers and waitstaff immediately spell out the problems: Brooklyn has changed, but owner John has stayed the same. That, and the general manager serves up moldy dessert displays with a smile.  

Poor John can't do much more than flip pizzas, but because he's the owner, the entire restaurant dumps blame on his shoulders. At one point, his head chef serves a rotten lobster tail to a customer, resulting in Gordon dramatically whispering, "Call an ambulance." The kitchen still faults John because he bought the lobster. Things go from food poisoning to worse with a long string of Ramsay reacting to frozen penne discoveries. He squeezes an entire season's worth of "Oh my god," "Look at this," and "Oh, come on" into a moldy meatball montage as he goes through an entire basement full of badly frozen food. 

Gordon plays a great showman in this episode, propping up the mounds of frozen food like a police photo op at a drug bust. He absolutely nails the restaurant re-design that allows the owner to embrace the new Brooklyn while still paying homage to his mom and dad. 

At Bazzini Café, Chef Paul Bazzini has transitioned from star chef to restaurant owner ... and the process was a rocky one. His wife claims that the pressure is taking a toll on her husband, and this episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" definitely shows a chef at the end of his rope, snapping at waiters, staff, and even customers. His wife is bankrolling the business while Paul has temper tantrums on the line. "My résumé and all my accolades don't mean a hill of beans if I can't make it work here," says Paul.

A "starving" Gordon Ramsay stops by the "minute" restaurant for lunch, which ... the restaurant does not serve. When Paul comes by to prep for dinner, Ramsay asks him to make a selection of his faves, but the chef finds the chicken dry and tough, the risotto stodgy, and the pasta cold and bland. The only thing he likes is the carrot cake, made by smiley pastry chef Sharyn, who takes a liking to Ramsay and flirts with him throughout the episode. But after the sous chef walks out during service, Sharyn sheds her flirty, funny side to emerge a real team player, and it's super gratifying to watch.

It's perhaps no surprise that some of the most explosive "Kitchen Nightmares" episodes focus on family-run restaurants, and Fiesta Sunrise is no exception. Here, Vic Flores is running a restaurant bankrolled by his wife Yolanda and stepdaughter Patti, and the mother-daughter duo aren't shy about expressing their bitterness over the situation from the first moments of the episode.

With one failed restaurant already under his belt, Vic's management leaves much to be desired; kitschy décor and too-strong free margaritas do not distract Gordon Ramsay from the awful food. In fact, the cocktails are the only things Ramsay likes; he quips that perhaps the only way to enjoy the food is by getting drunk. Watching Vic try to explain his choices to Gordon is amusing for all, though not in the least Yolanda and Patti.

The Gondola has been open since 1968, bringing a touch of glamor to Derby in U.K. Today, however, it's riding on its reputation ... and failing. The new owner has lots of love for the historic spot, which is admittedly "a bit of a time warp," according to Gordon Ramsay, boasting plastic flowers and '70s chandeliers.

Chef Ramsay is always a bit softer in the U.K. edition of "Kitchen Nightmares," but there are some pretty funny moments in this episode; that includes when the head chef tries to hide powdered minestrone from the crew ... and when he defends the dated menu, which he's been cooking since he arrived in the '70s.

Situated in a suburb of Atlanta, Park's Edge is a chaotic restaurant run by long-time friends, Richard and Jorge. Even though Jorge went to culinary school, the food on his menu is strange and unfocused. To make matters worse, his business partner Richard who runs the front of the house has absolutely no restaurant experience under his belt and even admits: "I just dress up and smile. That's all I do."

One of the first things Gordon Ramsay orders to check out the food is a grilled Caesar salad. When it arrives at his table, Ramsay notices that the romaine lettuce is wilted and limp from being charred over open flames. Ramsay is so dumbfounded that he interrupts the dining room to get everyone's attention to show them the scorched lettuce and the entire room erupts in laughter. Even though customers are constantly sending food back and the restaurant is losing business, the chef has delusions of grandeur and remains convinced that his food is amazing, setting up some epic confrontations between the cooks, staff, and Gordon Ramsay himself.

In the heart of Sheffield in the U.K., tapas restaurant The Runaway Girl has caused a rift in the friendship between owner Justin and Chef Richie, who has an even fouler mouth than Gordon Ramsay. Richie is obviously bitter after his childhood friend poached him from a previous job to help him run this spot, with "sh***y equipment" and no budget for anything fresh. At this point, Richie says, "I couldn't give a f**k. I could just walk."

The reason this episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" is one of our all-time faves? The catharsis in watching Richie's honesty with Ramsay over his frustrations ... and watching him go off on his childhood friend with some highly colorful turns of phrase ain't bad either.

Gordon Ramsay has a talent for zeroing in on the hypocrisy of some restaurant decisions, and watching him try to comprehend the bumbling that has led the family-run Hot Potato Café to serve him frozen potatoes is pretty hilarious. We are particularly big fans of the "Kitchen Nightmares" scene where he demands to know where the inside of his baked potato is (spoiler: it's in the mashed potatoes). 

Once Ramsay revamps the menu, it's really enjoyable to watch young Chef Danielle — the owners' niece — rise to the occasion and really impress the Michelin-starred chef, despite telling cameras at the outset that she had no interest in cooking professionally at all.

Gordon Ramsay visits J. Willy's, a failing BBQ joint in South Bend, Indiana. Because the owners live three hours away, they hand the reigns over to a manager who's proven to be incompetent and has plummeted the restaurant's business into a downward spiral. From the generic jarred barbecue sauce to overly fatty ribs, it's clear that the menu at J. Willy's is uninspired and poorly executed.

What makes this episode so special? After Ramsay comments on how depressing the atmosphere is — calling it "sad and grim" and describing how the dirty floor looks like "it's had a thousand buffalos walk all over it." Ramsay's loaded baked potato pizza comes out looking so atrocious that he hilariously asks a table of priests nearby to give his food a blessing. But after Ramsay redesigns the restaurant's layout and reimagines its menu, the genuine joy and gratitude that the owners and staff display makes this a memorable episode with a truly wonderful emotional arc.

Despite its idyllic location in the heart of the Lancashire countryside, The Fenwick Arms unfortunately has pretty much no idea what makes a pub a pub. And the married co-owners haven't had more than two days off in two years, so it's not for lack of trying!

Despite Chef Brian's three decades of experience, the tacky décor and overwrought table settings are all wrong. "It's got all the formality and awkwardness of a wake," Gordon Ramsay commented. And the food isn't any better, with offerings that are "pompous" and "absurd beyond belief." After cutting Chef Brian down to size, this episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" is all about rendering the pub much more homey and traditional, with Ramsay teaching the pair how to get "back to basics."

The Jack's Waterfront episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" has all the components that fans of the show so love: feuding, lying owners, a booze-guzzling manager, and some truly vivid descriptions of just how bad the food is.

When the food is bad at the restaurants he visits, Gordon Ramsay pulls no punches. He's got a few standby critiques — "ghastly," "greasy," and the ever-popular "bland," — but when Ramsay gets creative, it's even more fun to watch. And at Jack's Waterfront, the food is awful. After lots of wordplay on the similarity between artificial crab and crap, Ramsay dubs the omelet "rubber" and says the fish and chips is "almost like you've got a breaded condom in your mouth."

Front-of-house is very rarely the problem on "Kitchen Nightmares," and we love watching Gordon Ramsay's rapport with servers doing their best in a work environment where they have to deal with a tyrannical chef or incompetent owner. While there might be one too many mentions of "my darling," given the toxicity we now know runs rampant in many professional kitchens, it's always nice to see Ramsay's kind side emerge — especially when he's about to ream the back of house. And what's more, servers often repay him in kind by telling him what's really going on in the kitchen.

Such is the case at El Greco, where server Dustin admits, "we use Chef Mike a lot." Aka ... the microwave. "Whenever there's lights on in this restaurant, Chef Mike's working," Dustin says. "He's a dedicated employee."

Gordon Ramsay heads to Seattle for the first time when he comes to the rescue of Yanni's, a struggling family-run Greek restaurant that's on the brink of financial ruin. It becomes immediately clear that Peter, the owner and head chef, is stubborn and hot-headed.

What really makes this episode stand out is Gordon Ramsay's penchant for extra colorful language to roast Peter and his culinary creations. When Ramsay tries a bunch of dishes to get a feel for the menu, including a strange pumpkin hummus and an awful moussaka, he says the eggplant is undercooked and bitter and the ground meat is gritty and overly sweet. It's impossible not to chuckle as Ramsay caps off his critique by saying, "Moussaka? Mous-sucka." Another highlight: when Ramsay asks what's in the pile of white mush he just tasted, his server tells him it's canned salmon caviar mixed with mashed potatoes — and the disgusted, bewildered look on Ramsay's face is priceless.

There are a lot of hotheads on "Kitchen Nightmares," Gordon Ramsay included, but 22-year-old head chef Trevor at Mangia Mangia is far worse — and far more toxic — than most. "Ten percent of the time, he's an a**hole," the owner tells Ramsay. 

Trevor ostensibly knows he's unfireable, and he has the arrogant attitude to prove it: He unapologetically rates his own food a 5/10, he walks out of the kitchen and smokes whenever he feels like it, and worst of all, he tried to punch one of the servers about a month before Ramsay's arrival. Watching Ramsay cut this cocky, arrogant cook down to size is extremely satisfying.

Sushi Ko is run by Akira, a Japanese-trained sushi chef who's lost his passion for cooking and has taken on managing the restaurant instead. The restaurant used to be lively and profitable, but as Akira's spark faded, so did the restaurant's clientele. 

One of the best moments is when Ramsay orders the sushi pizza — made with rice, salmon, crab, mayo, and cheese — based on the recommendation of Akira. His server immediately warns him that it's not very good, but Ramsay bravely wades into the culinary darkness in order to get a better idea of Akira's style of cooking. Ramsay barely gets through the first bite of the sushi pizza before openly spitting it out on the table, declaring it "rancid." As it turns out, Sushi Ko is a Japanese restaurant that doesn't use fresh fish — only frozen — and they're also using a broken fridge to store food. To add insult to injury, Ramsay also pulls a gnarly hair out of his food. Akira is so lifeless and tongue-tied that at one point, Ramsay begs him to say something and all the stoic Akira can muster is: "What do you want me to say?"

What makes this episode so extraordinary is the transformation the family goes through. At first, there is very little communication between them, but after an intervention with Ramsay, they lovingly reunite. The heartwarming catharsis of the family finally coming together is so endearing that it's enough to bring tears to your eyes.

Aside from its really odd name, Flamango's Roadhouse also boasts some really bizarre, Florida-inspired décor that one of the servers dubs "hideous." Adele, one of the co-owners, is painted from the very beginning of the episode as being borderline abusive to her staff, and she and her husband refuse to let Chef Bryan make any changes to the menu.

It's kind of wild to watch Adele resist Gordon Ramsay's changes down to the very last moment of the episode. While the staff is thrilled to bid goodbye to the kitschy décor and menus — literally setting them on fire — the owners are less than thrilled. (Adele's daughter, co-owner Cheryl, can't stop shrieking, "I want my alligator!")

But when Ramsay shows off the new name — the Junction — and the new, simplified décor, Cheryl gives in and is pleased with the makeover. Adele, however, is still resistant — to the new menu, the new dishes, and even the new dining room. "I don't like it," she says as she looks around the newly decorated dining room. "I hate blue." "I don't think I have ever heard anyone say they hate the color blue," waitress Jodi says. We agree ... and seeing as Adele is wearing a blue sweater in the first scenes, we can't help but think this is just petulance.

Sometimes, Gordon Ramsay's reactions to food seem overwrought on "Kitchen Nightmares," but when the food actually makes him physically ill, it's hard to argue with him.

Lancaster, California's oldest restaurant, Casa Roma, is run by a mother-and-son team with no restaurant experience. The business can occasionally make as little as nine dollars a night, and it's not hard to see why: cleanliness is a major issue. The dining room is filthy, and Chef Erick's food isn't just slow to come out (it takes 60 minutes for Ramsay to be served), it's also dangerous. From "vile" mushrooms to raw pizza, it only gets worse when Ramsay digs into the walk-in and finds Parma ham "caked in mold" and three-month-old ribs that led the chef to vomit in the trash can.

The Olde Stone Mill looks beautiful from the outside, but as the saying goes, looks can be deceiving. The owner, Dean, is a pretentious hothead who tends to inflame situations rather than calmly resolve them. Even though business at The Olde Stone Mill has slowed down so much that on one day not a single customer entered the restaurant, Dean has the audacity to say: "I don't believe there's a better operator or restauranteur than me."

When the kitchen brings Ramsay a chopped salad that was formed into a cone by plastic funnel, Ramsay asks if the chef is also a mechanic. Ramsay looks directly into the camera and pleads, "Please don't make me eat any more of this sh*t." Everything Ramsay eats off the menu is terrible, and even though he was invited to the restaurant to help, Dean takes offense to all of Ramsay's feedback, saying, "This is my house. He was in my house and he was embarrassing me." Dean's overly defensive brand of oblivious narcissism is what makes this episode particularly enthralling.

At Café 36, high school sweethearts Terry and Carol are trying to realize Terry's dream of running a French bistro. Instead, they're running a frozen bistro. 

To be quite fair, Terry is trying really hard on "Kitchen Nightmares," but he just can't delegate. Additionally, Chef Pinto is getting lazy and has some questionable sanitation standards. Worst of all, pretty much everything is either frozen, like the crêpes; old, like the risotto, which has been living in the reach-in cooler for over a week; or a baffling designation — "fresh frozen" — like the grouper and salmon. 

It's kind of sad to see the owners have no real idea of what's going on until Gordon Ramsay opens their eyes, but witnessing sous chef Barney's vindication in what he's been saying all along is kind of awesome.

Blackberry's is a soul food restaurant that's "run with an iron fist" by overbearing Chef Shelly, who according to sous-chef Mateen, is "down the throat" of her staff on "Kitchen Nightmares." The owner and executive chef is too hands-on, incapable of delegating, and, according to Gordon Ramsay, "in denial" about everything that's wrong with her restaurant. The only thing the chef likes? Shelly's mom Mary's desserts.

Ramsay asks Shelly's staff to tell her honestly what's wrong, but her mood escalates and she goes so far as to try to send a staff member home for contradicting her. Even Shelly's mom, Mary, says she's too stubborn and "needs to learn to listen." 

While most "Kitchen Nightmares" episodes get wrapped up nicely, by the end of this one, Shelly's attitude hasn't improved, and she still claims to have "planted" a dead mouse Ramsay uncovered.

The Mixing Bowl's chef-owner Billy is putting his all into keeping his restaurant open, and it seems he can't catch a break. Server Kim says that "if it was up to Billy's wife, the restaurant would be closed next week." But Lisa isn't Billy's biggest obstacle. That honor goes to manager Mike, who drinks, yells, and generally just manipulates everyone (including production, shedding his own crocodile tears in his seated interview).

Gordon Ramsay is a bit of a bully to Mike from the outset, though maybe that's just because he susses him out from the very beginning. He's tough on him for his lack of knowledge about the menu (rightly) and for his weird, hovering behavior (idem), but also for his weight (not cool, Gordon). Ramsay ultimately likes at least some of the food, which is always nice to see, and Chef Billy's love for his work shines.

Things get off to a bad start right away at PJ's Steakhouse when Gordon Ramsay takes a peek at their menu and notices that the restaurant only offers two cuts of steak. Things only get worse from there, when Ramsay encounters a weird gak-like sauce underneath his crab cake and even finds little pieces of plastic scattered throughout the crab meat. When the server confronts Chef Eric, he smugly assures everyone that he doesn't have any plastic in the kitchen, even though plastic can be openly seen everywhere on the food line all around him.

It's extremely gratifying to see Chef Eric get put in his place by Ramsay after he tastes the lobster ravioli, telling the camera, "That looks like the biggest pile of sh*t to ever be served in Queens." Ramsay's discovery of horrifically rotten vegetables in the cooler — and the game of hot potato the staff plays to pass the blame — is also pretty wild to witness.

The "Kitchen Nightmares" episodes with clearly defined bad guys are some of the most fun to watch, and that's exactly what we get at Charlie's Italian Bistro. While at first owner Tatiana is painted as the ignorant villain, it soon becomes clear that she's just a bit spineless, and the real problem is Chef Casimiro: he just doesn't give a hoot. His bread is undercooked, his ravioli is raw on the inside, and he has no intention of changing — or listening to Gordon Ramsay. Luckily, sous-chef Daniella is pretty capable, but without her, this restaurant would have sunk a long time ago.

The episode begins with Tatiana hiding Ramsay's criticism from her chef, but eventually, she reaches her limit. The catharsis of watching her tearfully fire Casimiro is a bit bittersweet, but the episode does deliver a pretty happy ending.

The Handlebar was pretty rundown when owner and former construction worker Billy and his wife took it over a year before this "Kitchen Nightmares" episode was filmed, and things have gotten no better. The owner is dejected, hands-off, and moody, and Chef Melissa admits within the first few minutes of the episode that she does not want to be a chef. "The food is crap," she admits. "I don't intend for it to be my career."

Gordon Ramsay transforms The Handlebar into a gastropub (a concept he first has to explain to the staff), and starts the bar's first annual motorcycle rally with special guest Dee Snider. However, Melissa's still kind of phoning it in by the end — she burns the salmon, then serves the replacement raw — but by the end it looks like she's delegating a bit, and that's not half-bad.

Between its mostly abandoned dining room, the filthy interior cracking and falling apart, and the pervasive scent of death in the air, Seascape almost seems more like a haunted house than a restaurant. Seascape is run by a deeply dysfunctional team, owned by a mother and son who constantly verbally abuse each other with a head chef who's loud and obnoxious.

When the crab cakes arrive, Gordon Ramsay says they aren't fresh as they crumble apart on his plate. He adds: "They've got it wrong on the menu. It's not a crab cake. It's a crap cake. Because I feel that if I eat anymore, I'll be crapping for the next 105 years." Ouch. The terror continues when Ramsay goes into the walk-in cooler and discovers putrid pork, fish stored in a big bag of dog food, and a large bucket of moldy pesto. Adding fuel to the fire, a disgusted Ramsay erupts on the Seascape owners when he realizes that he'd consumed pesto from the same tainted pesto bucket when he ordered the salmon earlier on in the episode.

From his super-tall toque to his "ghastly" dining room, too-fancy bow-tied waiters, and inflated prices, Chef Chappy is running a restaurant from a different era entirely. The food is watery, unappealing, and overpriced to boot, from the rubbery steak-and-lobster "rocket" to the gumbo that, to Gordon Ramsay, looks like, "Chappy took a crappy."

The chef doesn't take kindly to the negativity on "Kitchen Nightmares." At all. But watching him overreact to Ramsay's totally on-point criticism is amusing, and what's more, Chappy's still not really on board with the changes by the end of the episode. "You are one stubborn man," Ramsay says before leaving him and his wife to their own devices.

Sabatiello's owner Sammy might seem like a charming stereotype of an NYC Italian-American man, but dig a little deeper and he's more conniving than you'd think. After running a successful pizza restaurant, Sammy stepped into the shoes of a higher-end restaurateur, but head waiter David says he's a "nightmare." Hot-headed and manipulative, Sammy attempts to deceive Gordon Ramsay into thinking he does far more work than he does, stepping on David's toes from the outset on "Kitchen Nightmares." He even tells Ramsay outright lies: that his lasagna is home-made, "his signature item," before serving a reheated frozen lasagna. And while he calls himself a "star" and "awesome," his interactions with customers are decorated with even more f-bombs than Ramsay drops.

Watching Sammy bumble his way through the episode, with Ramsay calling out his lies again and again and again, is the purest schadenfreude.

LA's Sebastian's is staffed by actors — including the eponymous chef-owner — and it shows. But that's not what worries Gordon Ramsay on "Kitchen Nightmares." He's focused, instead, on Sebastian's overwrought menu of mix-and-match "gourmet flavor combinations," items that's so complicated that the servers can't even explain the concept on-camera. Add a hotheaded temper and an owner who doesn't want to run a restaurant so much as hang out with his friends in one, and you've got a recipe for one of Ramsay's explosive talking-tos.

Ditzy server Sonja offers some lighter moments in this episode, but it's above-all amusing for Sebastian's bull-headed resistance to change.

On this very special episode of "Kitchen Nightmares," Gordon Ramsay journeys to Paris to help the owner of a vegetarian restaurant in the city center. At first, Rachel comes off as relatable and exhausted, and you almost feel sorry for her — for the ineptitude of her chef and how overwhelming her job really is. But over time, it becomes clear: Piccolo Teatro is being run by a spoiled child backed by Daddy's money, and no amount of work from Ramsay is going to help. 

The ending of this episode is pretty devastating and will definitely send you to Google to see what became of lovely Chef India.

Sisters Rita and Lisa couldn't be more different; one's constantly drinking, the other constantly smoking on "Kitchen Nightmares." One's aloof; the other's stressed to pieces (and has a little crush on Gordon Ramsay!) But they're endearing and adorable in their mission to sustain La Galleria 33 in the image of their parents' nearby restaurant in the Italian neighborhood of Boston's North End. 

That said, there are some serious problems at this restaurant. From conniving waitress Sarah to Chef (and Rita's ex-husband) Doug to truly bonkers busboy Pat — a former shoe salesman who tells Ramsay he's the manager — the staff here is pretty wild. Rita's story of how she rehired Pat after he spent an afternoon pacing in front of the restaurant forlornly in the rain is definitely worth a watch.

In NYC, two friends and co-owners of a neighborhood lobster shack tried to scale up to a full seafood restaurant in Midtown with a third partner ... and things did not go according to plan. The Black Pearl started losing money, the owners stopped speaking to one another, and when Gordon Ramsay arrives, the situation has gone from bad to worse. One's a resentful; one's egotistical; one's lazy. Or as Ramsay dubs them, "Sleepy, Dopey, and Grumpy."

The staff at The Black Pearl are the only ones who can get anything done. At the outset, the food is pretty horrid, though that's far from Chef Phil's fault as he's not allowed to change anything. Throw Ramsay into the mix, and this lobster pot is gonna boil over for sure.

Mama Rita's got its start not as a restaurant, but as a successful catering business, and this identity crisis is at the heart of what's plaguing it on this episode of "Kitchen Nightmares." Instead of making food to order, owner Laura has her staff bulk cooking and freezing everything, using the microwave as an agile sous chef for the sweet but rather incompetent Chef Perla — who is more of a cook than a chef.

From the very beginning, Laura takes at least some responsibility for the issues plaguing her restaurant. It's heartbreaking to watch her trying so hard to succeed at implementing Gordon Ramsay's changes, only to witness just how little creativity Chef Perla displays. When challenged to create a new recipe for the menu, even Laura throws her hat into the ring, concocting a plate of blackened shrimp tacos. Perla can go no further than "garlic breasts:" chicken breasts seasoned with garlic and salt and served with plain white rice and blanched veggies.

Café Hon owner Denise Whiting is an overbearing control freak serving bad food in a garish, tacky dining room. And that's only the beginning. When Gordon Ramsay visits this Baltimore restaurant, Whiting has completely alienated the locals by appropriating — and trademarking — the common Baltimore slang term "hon." "You can't own something that doesn't belong to you," columnist Dan Rodricks wrote for The Baltimore Sun. "'Hon' isn't unique to Denise Whiting, no matter how special she wants us to believe she is."

Thankfully, this episode gets a happy ending, with Whiting relinquishing her trademark at a press conference organized by Ramsay.

Gordon Ramsay visits Old Neighborhood — a family-run restaurant in Arvada, Colorado — and observes some truly horrifying and unsanitary stuff, including meat thermometers being stored inside of holes in the kitchen wall, filthy shoes inexplicably stashed inside of dining room furniture, and a flattened mouse corpse mummified next to some cleaning supplies.

When Ramsay discovers a dusty, towering pile of outdated and useless kitchen equipment and other random oddities hidden in the back of the restaurant, Ramsay accuses the owner Randy of being a hoarder, to which Randy dismissively replies, without even a shred of awareness for how blind he is to the problem, "I don't really think that I'm a hoarder, it's just hard for me to throw things away." But later on, getting to witness Randy turn a corner towards the end of the episode and purge all of his junk by throwing it out into a dump truck feels deeply satisfying and redemptive, making this episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" a highly gratifying watch.

Burger Kitchen owner Alan Saffron is convinced that Yelp reviewers are out to get him — and that's just the beginning of the weird politics plaguing this restaurant on "Kitchen Nightmares. Both Alan and his wife Jen are conniving and just plain odd, while their stressed-out son, Daniel, has become an unwitting investor in the restaurant after Dad stole his money and funneled it into the business.

Chef David is certainly talented, and watching him and Gordon Ramsay team up to create a better menu whilst Alan and Jen huff and puff makes for some very enjoyable television indeed. 

Sante La Brea is somehow doing bad business on one of the busiest streets in Los Angeles. The restaurant is run by Dean, who proudly claims that he's also the cook, janitor, manager, and maintenance man. As usual, Gordon Ramsay's first order of business is taste-testing the food, but what makes this particular segment so unique is how often Ramsay's reactions are simply reduced to laughter, as if he's so dumbfounded all he can muster is a chuckle. At one point, Ramsay actually feeds his dried-out patty melt to a neighboring diner's dog. Ramsay even discovers a fake frozen duck steak in the kitchen — an item that the owner refers to as "unduck" while Ramsay chimes in to add, "f**k duck."

But what makes this episode worth a watch is the insanely dramatic stunt Ramsay pulls on the owner. Unbeknownst to Dean (spoiler alert), Ramsay arranges for a cop to come into the restaurant and put Dean in handcuffs. As it turns out, this is Ramsay's way of getting Dean to learn how to vocally delegate orders to his staff during dinner service.

Prohibition Grille's owner Rishi has no idea how to run a restaurant. Sweet but a bit ditzy, she flirts hard with Gordon Ramsay while also showing a miraculous inability to understand even the most basic of restaurant norms. She doesn't know what soup of the day means. She's got no idea what's going on in her kitchen. You get the sense that the whole reason Rishi is running a restaurant in the first place is so that she can have an audience for her belly dancing. (And to hear servers tell it, the audience is far more captive than captivated.)

Brown isn't manipulative or conniving like many other owners on the show. She's just a little ... ignorant. And it's very fun to watch Ramsay school her.

Mill Street Bistro owner Joe is one of the most awful bosses we've seen on "Kitchen Nightmares," with an unparalleled snobbishness and a temper to boot. To that end, watching Gordon Ramsay put this arrogant owner in his place, bit by bit, is wholly gratifying. Mad props to the editors of this episode, who manage to catch Joe contradicting himself at almost every turn; he claims to be a chef and then says he's not; he asserts his food is fresh as chefs pull things out of the freezer and microwave them.

But our favorite moment? When Joe compares himself to the equally arrogant Ramsay, calling himself Ramsay's "twin." Ramsay, seething, leans in and says, sotto: "I can cook, Joe." Goosebumps.

Aside from the occasional pastry or dessert — usually made by someone other than the head chef — Gordon Ramsay very rarely likes the food on "Kitchen Nightmares," at least not at the outset. But Momma Cherri's in Brighton gave him a different experience entirely: He loves the soul food flavors at this restaurant, and the rapport between the chefs is delightful to watch. 

Ramsay's work here is twofold: modernizing Cherri's menu into a tapas-style offering and guiding her to become a bit less controlling in the kitchen. This gives Chef Brian room to shine and allows Cherri to delight customers as the ebullient front-of-house hostess.

When an episode opens with the operations manager saying into the camera, "It's hard for me to believe that Dillon's has lasted this long. We kind of lurch between catastrophe and disaster," you know you're buckled up for a wild ride. With three different managers that don't seem to really know what their responsibilities are, it becomes crystal clear that there's a complete lack of communication at Dillon's. 

Things indeed get off to a rocky start when Gordon Ramsay orders with vegetable appetizer sampler and the fritters that look so bad that he prays that he doesn't get poisoned, describing them as looking like "dehydrated turds." Upon first bite, Ramsay notices that the fritters aren't vegetarian as advertised, pulling strands of lamb out with his fork. Things get worse from there when the restaurant garnishes his biryani with a rose of rotten tomato. As Ramsay attempts to eat a grilled salmon filet that looks like a "doormat," he's constantly swatting flies away from his food.

Later on in the episode, Gordon pulls back the curtain to reveal just how truly infested Dillon's is: food being stirred on the floor, rotten raw hamburgers, rat traps, cockroaches, and vats of moldy liquid that even the chefs can't identify. For the sheer gross-out factor alone, Dillon's is one of the most entertaining episodes of the entire series.

There are owners who are arrogant and conniving ... and then there's Nino. The son of the original owners of the restaurant that bears his name shows a delusion that's baffling — not just to Gordon Ramsay and the viewer, but also to staff and colleagues. His brother, in particular, goes on a long rant, undermining Nino's claims that he does all of the cleaning and setup in the front-of-house. He then chides Nino for his habit of sitting down with the customers, inserting himself into their space with a pompous, "Hello, my name's NINOOOOO."

You won't be able to keep yourself from laughing at the absurdity.

Owners Amy and Samy Bouzaglo are perhaps the most famous characters on "Kitchen Nightmares," and they never even finished shooting their episode, which still manages to be one of the most shocking — and amusing — in "Kitchen Nightmares" history.

Amy's Baking Company is rife with problems when Gordon Ramsay arrives, from a controlling owner who siphons his server's tips to a chef who cannot cope with pressure or criticism. But the reason that we keep coming back to this episode? Amy's very odd behavior. On paper, she could be portrayed as just a little quirky: she gives voices to her cats, she's proud of her husband's playboy past in Vegas, and she believes that baking raw, doughy pizza is her God-given talent. But when Ramsay — or any customer, for that matter — criticizes her, she and Samy waste no time in exploding in anger, evicting them from the restaurant. And that's exactly what happens to Ramsay in this dramatic episode.