Chef Gordon Ramsay of Hell’s Kitchen fame premiered his new show tonight, Kitchen Nightmares. In this new show, Chef Ramsay is visiting restaurants which are on the brink of disaster and applies his own brand of tough love to get them back on track. Chef Ramsay has basically become the Nanny 911 of the restaurant world.

In tonight’s episode Chef Ramsay visited Peter’s a family owned Italian restaurant in Babylon, New York on the south shore of Long Island. Peter’s was once one of the top restaurants in Babylon but, the quality is declining, and the restaurant is not making the kind of money it used to make. After meeting the family Chef Ramsay sampled the food and the service where he found obvious problems. His criticism resulted in a shouting match in the kitchen clearly audible in the dining room. This set the stage for the entire episode. When he investigated the kitchen he found leaking refrigerators, broken ovens, and rotten food. The problems in the kitchen are causing very slow service and frustrating the staff. Just seeing the old, rotten, soggy food was almost too much for my wife. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to watch this show. She was afraid that she would be able to eat in a restaurant again.

The best part of the whole show was Peter the co-owner and manager of the Peter’s. He was an enormous, Tony Soprano wanna-be, who didn’t lift a finger around the place and had some serious anger management issues. Not once, but twice during the show, bill collectors stopped resulting in Peter screaming at them in front of the staff and customers and in one case physically throwing the guy out of the restaurant and needing to be restrained by the staff from attacking the guy.

Peter was obviously the main problem with this establishment. So Chef Ramsay makes him work the kitchen for an obviously producer-packer house. Peter was a disaster, he couldn’t work in the kitchen because nothing worked. Chef Ramsay proved his point and then sent Peter home. Overnight, Chef Ramsay has a new kitchen installed and then works with the chefs to create a new menu for the restaurant focusing on family-style food to help them differentiate them from the other Italian restaurants in the area.

During the reopening the place is loaded with new customers, once again probably sent their way by the producers. Once again Peter did nothing but berate the staff, eat the food and generally get in the way. After dinner Chef Ramsay confronted Peter about not pulling his weight. Chef Ramsay actually told him. “I think this place would run better without you.” He sent Peter home to think about what he said. Peter did just that. He realized that Chef Ramsay was saying all of the things that all of these other people wanted to. Overnight he made an amazing transformation. Peter started helping out and a team player, instead of a just boss. What a happy ending.

As a big fan of Hell’s Kitchen, I have to say I liked this show. It was fun to see all of the horrible, disgusting things going on behind the scenes at these eateries. Chef Ramsay could have yelled a little more. I have high hopes that as the show goes on he will get into full Hell’s Kitchen mode and really start berating these people. I have no problem with the producers helping out with new equipment or sending in patrons. I think that actually helps the show.

While I enjoyed watching this show, I’m not sure that it really has legs though. They will have a hard time to keep up the viewer’s interest beyond the first season. The upcoming episodes look pretty good. Next week Chef Ramsay visits a restaurant in New York city infested with bugs. Mmmmm! I can’t wait.