Tue, Nov 14, 2006
Tonight, for the first time ever on Kitchen Nightmares, Gordon takes on a nightmare restaurant abroad. La Parra de Burriana is an ex-pat restaurant in Nerja on Spain's Costa del Sol. Nestling among the cafes lining the seafront offering all-day English breakfast and chips, La Parra is the brainchild of twenty-six-year-old ex-nightclub manager Laurence. He set himself up in business eighteen months ago with a loan from his dad and, although he's not an experienced chef, mans the kitchen on his own, determined to offer something better than chips to his largely British clientele.
Top-rated
Tue, Nov 21, 2006
In tonight's second programme Gordon tackles a pub for the first time, getting to grips with The Fenwick Arms in rural Lancashire. The pub is run by landlord BRIAN who, after thirty years in the business and a quadruple heart-bypass, still puts in 120 hours a week and insists on laying down the law in the kitchen. Despite their best endeavours Brian and his partner ELAINE are £250k in debt, losing £1500 a week and facing bankruptcy within three months unless there's a drastic reversal in their fortunes.
Tue, Nov 28, 2006
Gordon finds a chef caught in a time warp when he tackles a picturesque, but largely unfrequented, upmarket restaurant in King's Lynn, a traditional market town on the Norfolk coast. For the last 18 months ex Michelin-starred chef Nick has owned and run Rococo, but his past success is now eluding him. The menu is past its sell-by date, the service is stuffy, the food is over-priced and the only thing being fed is his ego. Yet, despite debts of £100,000, with the prospect of putting his home at risk and his young family on the streets, Nick continues to cook comatose in a 1990s fantasy land of his own making. Gordon forces him to face his failures, strips down the menu and dismantles the claustrophobic dining room. But when he discovers the depths of Nick's stubbornness - and that he's locked him out of the restaurant--a Kitchen Nightmares first--even Gordon is forced to face the prospect of failure . Will Nick ever get up to speed and recapture his glory days, or will he carry on sleep-walking his way to disaster?
Tue, Dec 12, 2006
Gordon returns to La Riviera--now renamed Abstract--a fine dining restaurant in Inverness. Owned by multi-millionaire Barry Larson and costing £8000 a week to run, the place boasted top French chef Loic Lefebvre and an impeccably-trained kitchen staff, all of them on a mission to bring sophisticated French cooking to the home of the haggis. But the locals weren't biting and the restaurant was empty most nights. Gordon's recipe for survival forced them to tone down their act and demystify the menu to get the punters in. Today the restaurant's return to form has led to plans for expansion. Loic is still there, and now he's been promoted to Executive Chef he will oversee any new ventures. But can he continue to resist a return to French frills, and has he managed to pull off his own personal ambition, a Michelin star?
Tue, Dec 19, 2006
Gordon returns to Momma Cherri's Soul Food Shack, an intimate forty-seater in Brighton where he oversaw one of the most spectacular changes of fortune at a single venue. Owner Charita Jones was producing a menu of irresistible unique classics from the Deep South, but at the same facing financial disaster. The punters were missing, and so was her business acumen, but Gordon succeeded in shutting her out of the kitchen, getting the chef back on the boil and putting the soul back into the business. Today, Charita is fully-booked round the clock and bursting out of the Soul Shack to take on the 110-seater Momma Cherri's Big House. But expansion brings a different set of challenges, and she's still struggling to control her staff and manage her success. Has she got what it takes to make the next step up, or will she be forced to rethink her grand plans?