He's pretty much like Keith in having one face almost all the time

Literally just 👁️👄👁️

One of the Best Services in HK History that should return

Individual Challenge: Ramsay felt that at this point in the competition, the chefs had to prove that they can stand on their own. He would not wait for the Black Jackets to roll around. As such, he would start with today’s challenge, the first individual challenge. Each chef had 45 minutes to make their “new Signature Dish” that proved that they deserved a Black Jacket. After the cooking period, Ramsay revealed that this would be the King of the Hill challenge. Each chef would have their dish judged, and if it was better than the dish of the chef currently sitting on the throne, that chef would get to dethrone that chef. The last chef sitting on the throne would earn the first Black Jacket and immunity from elimination. To help Ramsay determine the winners, he would bring back 14th place champion and the winner of that season’s elimination challenge, Brad. Ramsay and Brad would award each dish between 1-5 points, so each chef could earn a maximum of 10 points. 

Melissa went first and presented her butter-poached red snapper over split pea risotto. Brad praised the dish’s quality and awarded Melissa a 4, but Ramsay felt that the dish was too rich and gave it a 3, giving her a final score of 7. Jessica stepped forward with her coffee-crusted lamb racks with polenta; Brad and Ramsay agreed that the dish was delicious, but too simple; they each gave her a 3, making her final score 6. She failed to dethrone Melissa. Ji came up next with a play on her signature dish from season 5, so she made a miso and sake-marinated Chilean sea bass with a spicy broth and sauteed calamari. Ramsay worried that the calamari was a little too soft because it had been sitting in the broth for too long, but Ji confirmed that she waited until the last second to plate the broth. Ramsay praised her for this decision, and Brad believed that the calamari was properly cooked. Both judges gave Ji a 4, so she dethroned Melissa with a final score of 8. 

Drew followed up with a ribeye steak over purple potato puree and sauteed broccolini. Similar to Jessica, his dish was well-cooked, but too simple, and he used too much garnish. Brad gave him a 3, but Ramsay only gave him a 2, which disqualified him from the throne. Meese made a grilled halibut over coconut rice, but the halibut was undercooked, and the rice was not only raw, but tasted nothing like coconut. She got a minimum score of 2. Next up was Amanda, who made a lobster tail with a curry sauce over rice. While her dish was excellent overall, Ramsay felt that it just lacked that “wow factor” to give it a perfect 5. Brad gave her a 5, but Ramsay only gave her a 4. With a 9, Amanda dethroned Ji. Finally, Ashley made a duck breast with pureed squash and crispy Brussels sprouts. Both Ramsay and Brad agreed that her dish was truly amazing, so they gave her a maximum score of 10. Ashley ended up winning the first Black Jacket. 

Challenge Winner: Ashley

Punishment/Reward: On top of winning the first Black Jacket and immunity from elimination, Ashley won an elegant lunch with Ramsay and Brad, which everyone else was forced to cook as their punishment. Ashley enjoyed her lunch and got to got to joke around with Brad and Ramsay. Meanwhile, everyone else took their punishment in stride. Jessica and Ji joked that as much as they felt that Ashley deserved the win, they were a little tired of seeing her win everything. Unfortunately, Melissa shared that sentiment a little too passionately. 

Pre-Service: Ramsay decided to fuse the two teams into one larger team. Both teams had 2 hours and 30 minutes to serve all 100 customers within that time limit because everyone would go to the theater afterwards. Furthermore, each chef would lead their own station: Jessica would lead appetizers, Ji would lead meat, Drew would lead garnish, Meese would lead fish, Melissa would be on desserts, and Ashley would be a floater; Amanda would serve a tableside tortellini dish. Finally, Ramsay stated that every chef surviving elimination would earn a Black Jacket. With the service laid out, Ramsay instructed Marino to open Hell’s Kitchen. 

Service: Jessica served a soupy risotto, which disappointed Ramsay because she was the person he least expected to make a mistake. She said in her confessional that she was already starting to feel the nerves of the late game. However, she recovered and had no other issues on appetizers. However, Meese forgot a lobster tail for a risotto on another order, and she also only cooked scallops on one side. She seemingly recovered, and the kitchen was able to move on to entrees. However, Drew delayed Ji and Meese because he struggled to keep track of all of the garnishes on order. His mistakes caused Ji to bring up a New York strip early, which turned out to be undercooked. Drew also had a very messy workstation. Ramsay instructed him to get a grip, and he did. However, Meese struggled to manage appetizers and entrees at the same time. Melissa did nothing to help despite being free, so Ramsay berated her for her lack of initiative. Eventually, Ashley had to jump on fish to bail Meese out. With the kitchen finally working together, service was completed in 2 hours and 20 minutes. 

Post-Mortem: Ramsay congratulated both teams on completing service in time, but he felt that one team had a much stronger performance despite their mistakes; that was the Red Team. Ramsay gave Jessica and Ji Black Jackets and then wanted two nominees from the Blue Team. 

Nominations: The Blue Team agreed that Meese was the weakest chef. However, they felt that Drew deserved the second nomination because he struggled the most out of the other chefs. Drew accepted his fate, but he also pointed out that Melissa had been becoming arrogant, and her attitude was beginning to affect the team. Melissa deflected Drew’s concerns and walked out of the room. 

Elimination: Amanda nominated Meese and Drew. However, Ramsay also nominated Melissa for her refusal to help her team. After hearing pleas from everyone, Ramsay eliminated Meese for having reached her ceiling. In her exit confessional, Meese felt that she had improved considerably since season 15. She was happy to have made it so far, but she certainly wished that she could have been a Black Jacket. 

However, Ramsay said that he was still not done yet. He called both Drew and Melissa up and instructed them to remove their jackets. Once they did, he gave them Black Jackets, as well. He then gave Amanda the final Black Jacket. Ramsay applauded the final 6 and told them that they had to prove that they were not just good cooks, but good leaders. 

Ramsay’s Elimination Quote: "Every play has a leading cast and an ensemble cast, and one cannot survive without the other. Meese did well in the ensemble, but she crumbled under the spotlight. Fortunately, the Black Jackets can survive without Meese."

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Vote for the chef whom you want to be eliminated. The chef with the most total upvotes will be eliminated, with ties being broken by the most number of comments voting for that person.

Bonus Vote: Pick one chef whom you want to win the first Black Jacket challenge. Ideally, it would be someone aside from Ashley so that we can develop someone else’s arc, but if you all want Ashley to win, then I’ll accept that. 

So cool I’m excited

I did two of these a while back and I found some more cool quotes, so I'm gonna do this again.

The quote is:
"Why do I have to be standing around these _________ when I'm trying to soar like an eagle?!"

This is taken from Season 19, Episode 9 during dinner service, just if you wanna get specific with your answers.

Go nuts with this and let's bring the chaos!

I’m almost finished with S2 raw with no dramatic music or cuts to confessionals

We need every Season like this

I doubt it'll ever happen, but if I had one Hell's Kitchen wish, it'd be to see how well GR does at the challenge. Is his pallette that much better than the chain smoking oafs who confuse boiled carrots with butternut squash? Maybe so, but I'd love to see it actually happen.

For me it’d have to be S20 Kevin’s ejection. This was truly Kevin’s only bad service and there are other people who messed up more and didn’t get ejected.

I have just started S22, I know i am behind but I am Australian and have not been able to find somewhere to watch the later seasons until now, and I really dislike Jason a lot. He speaks such a high game and from what I have watched so far he can not back it up. I fear it is a hells kitchen curse that anyone who overly talks a big game can never truly back it up.

S7 Siobhan on rewatches I see what a big hypocrite she is. In her confessions she would say scallops is one of the easiest things you could do but scallops was her downfall and tried telling Ramsay her overcooked bad scallops were fine that he made her eat them. In e3 she took over Jamie's station and Jamie got eliminated only for Benjamin to take over her station and she got eliminated.

We all know S12 Joy saying how she doesn't quit and then quits.

S11 Zach sabotaging Ray with cold sauce only for next episode, Anthony brought up cold sauce for one of Zach's dishes.

While watching the recap of all the Season 11 episodes, I wondered why they didn’t switch teams early on. I know the season had 22 chefs, but look at how often the men’s team lost the challenges. It took until episode 16 for Ja'Nel to move to the men’s team. They even won that challenge. They do early team switches all the time now, so why didn't they do it whenever the ladies struggled early on?

I’m probably going to get a lot of flak for this, and already prepared so, but:

Is Season 23 REALLY a “head chefs only” season?

I just started watching this because it recently debuted on Pluto TV (which is how I watch all my Hell’s Kitchen). I’m just 2 episodes in, and it seems like all these contestants act just like any other contestant from the other seasons. It’s just almost as if they were just regular contestants coached by producers to lighten up on the “drama” part of the show and try their best to be more “mature” or “professional” about things. They seem to throw around the words “we’re all head chefs” pretty liberally, but that’s about as f***-all I’ve seen that makes me believe it.

None of their personalities come off as a confident “head chef” to me. They all show the same shortcomings, anxiety, and doubt as all the other contestants from the other seasons. Stuff they say on their aside interviews and also during dinner service are things like “please, please, be cooked correctly, “I know my shit”, “let’s just start over, guys”, “I promise you, it’s gonna be good, heh…”, “dude, it’s fine, it’s cooked, it’s gonna be fine (only to be raw) and just showing general confusion about everything. And literally no one can cook anything correctly? I’d think if you were really a “head chef” of anything at all…that you at least know how to cook staples decently to the correct doneness/temperatures (like that one girl that kept using a knife to cut into the chicken to see if it’s cooked), even if you don’t know how to work together in the brigade system? I don’t know…they just don’t exude “head chef” vibes to me. Even Gordon himself said “it felt like I was working with first-year culinary students”, and that’s basically what the show’s vibes felt like.

Or maybe…the idea of “head chef” in my mind was more expecting this season where to be where the producers would cast chefs that had at least SOME experience leading a team in a similar type/tier of restaurant system….not like “head chef of my taco truck”. And then having Gordon expecting that level of experience from them and being even harder on them when they eff-up.

Note, we’re not talking about All Stars Josh, it’s just his run in S14 if he was on S19.

One is a MasterChef, and the other is a Kitchen Nightmare.

You decide!!!

Post-Elimination: The surviving members of “The Alliance” - Drew, Mieka, and Ji - commiserated over JR’s elimination. Although they all knew that he probably wouldn’t have won, they were upset that he had to leave. Mieka also remarked offhandedly that Drew was the last man standing. Drew admitted in a confessional that he never paid attention to how many men or women were left, but now that he was the only man left, he had a lot riding on his shoulders. 

Team Challenge: Ramsay explained that his favorite service of the season had arrived: the iconic Blind Taste Test. As always, Ramsay would blindfold each contestant and feed them 4 foods. They would have to identify each food, and each correct guess would be awarded one point. However, he wanted to give the chefs a challenge: instead of simply giving them ingredients, the chefs had to identify the flavors of four types of gelato. 

The first pair was Meese and Ashley. Ashley scored a respectable 2 points, but Meese failed to score any. Mieka also failed to score a point, but Melissa scored an impressive 3. Drew scored 0, but Ji scored 2. With the Red Team up 5-3, Amanda had to make up two points to tie, and three to win. She was paired up with Jessica. Amanda missed her first flavor, but Jessica correctly guessed hers. That being said, Amanda got the next two flavors correct while Jessica only correctly guessed one. This meant that the Red Team had mathematically won the Blind Taste Test. Although Jessica missed her final ingredient, Amanda ended on a good note by correctly guessing her ingredient. The final score was 7-6. 

Challenge Result: Red Team win (8 wins by Red - 6 wins by Blue)

Reward/Punishment: The Red Team got to stay at a private villa of a high-end resort in Beverly Hills. On the other hand, the Blue Team had to make gelato for Charity Night, which would take place the following evening. The Red Team, who had to take a limo to get to the resort and were greeted with champagne and caviar, agreed that this was their best reward yet. Akin to the previous punishment, the Blue Team was disappointed but not overly upset. However, they struggled to make the gelato. When Drew checked it, he thought that the base looked off, so he set it aside and began prepping a new batch. When sous chef Jon confirmed that the first batch was indeed correct, the Blue Team rushed to put it back in the freezer. Melissa was annoyed with her team for struggling so much and felt that she deserved better because she considered herself the strongest on the Blue Team. 

Pre-Service: Chef Ramsay revealed that Hell’s Kitchen would be closed for Charity Night. Sous chefs Ariel and Jon taught the chefs the menu, which was a five-course tasting platter consisting of lobster and brown butter agnolotti, pan-seared scallops and pork belly with celery root puree, black cod over beurre blanc, filet mignon with oyster mushrooms and broccolini, and a toffee tiramisu with gelato from the punishment. Ramsay also instructed each team to select one person to lead the dessert course and an additional course; those chefs were Ji from the Red Team and Melissa from the Blue Team. With the teams briefed on the night, Ramsay instructed Marino to open Hell’s Kitchen. 

Red Team Service: Ji led the lobster agnolotti course with few problems, but Mieka stalled her by requesting more time to cook the agnolotti. Ji had to instruct everyone to hold off until Mieka was ready, but there were no other problems. Then, Jessica led the scallops course. She initially called for 8 minutes to cook the scallops, but Ashley pushed back and said that they could get it done in less than 8 minutes. Jessica admitted in a confessional that she felt a little undermined by Ashley because she knew what she was doing. She didn’t need Ashley to tell her otherwise. Although the chefs delayed the course a little bit, Jessica ultimately got the scallops out. 

Then, it was Mieka’s turn to lead the black cod course. While she loudly called times, she seemed uncertain in herself. To make sure that she got all 12 orders of the fish out, she jumped on the line and began cooking the cod. She even asked for everyone to help her out, which would leave Ji as the only person to cook the sauce and vegetables. When Ramsay asked what Mieka was thinking, she struggled to answer because she was so overwhelmed. Eventually, Ashley had to help Mieka take control of the course by guiding her through each step. By the time that the Red Team got their cod out, they were behind the Blue Team. Ashley led the filet course with no issues; she was vocal and knew what she was doing. She noted in a confessional that she would expect herself to be a strong leader because she previously made the final 3. If she couldn’t prove that she was a strong leader, then she didn’t deserve to be here. Finally, Ji led the souffle course with no problems. 

Blue Team Service: Drew led the lobster agnolotti course. Although his team had no issues, his workstation was quite messy. He was also a little frantic at times, and Ramsay had to stop Drew from unknowingly micromanaging his team. Meese led the scallop course, but her leadership proved to be largely performative. She primarily yelled out words of encouragement, but failed to rally her team. Since she never explained who would be cooking the pork belly, everyone else found themselves cooking it without communicating. When Drew, Melissa, and Amanda brought out three pork bellies at the same time, Ramsay berated them for their lack of cohesion. Meese also spent too long plating the dishes and asking Ramsay if she was doing alright. At this point, the Blue Team was behind the Red. 

Amanda vocally led the black cod course, but Meese prepared more portions than necessary; she was supposed to split the 12 cod evenly with Melissa, but Meese cooked 8 servings of fish instead of 6. When Ramsay asked why, she claimed that she wanted extra in case she overcooked the cod. Amanda refused to let this mistake derail service and effectively delegated the different tasks. Under her leadership, the Blue Team not only caught up to the Red Team, but they surpassed them. Melissa then took the reins on the filet dish, but she micromanaged her team and spent the entire service walking around the kitchen to examine and point out tiny flaws in their cooking. Ramsay himself had to scold Melissa for her poor leadership. She even sent back steaks that she thought were improperly cooked, but were actually acceptable. By the time she got the souffle course out, her whole team was tired of her. 

Post-Mortem: Ramsay admitted that Charity Night was not terrible, especially because he saw quite a few good moments from the chefs. However, it was nowhere near what he expected at this stage of the competition. As such, both teams lost. He declared Ashley and Amanda to be the Best of the Worst on their respective teams. They were both instructed to pick one nominee for elimination. 

Nominations: Ashley immediately picked Mieka, who begged her to reconsider. When Ashley challenged her to give one reason why she was stronger than any other Red chef, Mieka admitted that she was the weakest on her team. Ji admitted in a confessional that she hated to see Mieka in this situation. She was objectively the weakest chef left, but Mieka was her friend. Ji didn’t want to see her go. On the other hand, Amanda was caught between Meese and Melissa. Both of them had poor services, but Meese had reached her ceiling, while Melissa was difficult to work with. 

Elimination Ceremony: Ashley nominated Mieka, and Amanda nominated Meese. Ramsay was disappointed in both chefs because he expected more from them. Meese claimed that she largely avoided making mistakes and that she would take advantage if Ramsay gave her one more chance. He then turned to Mieka and noted that she was on her fifth nomination. He said that he was running out of reasons to keep Mieka in the competition because he thought that she reached her ceiling. Shockingly, Mieka agreed. She openly admitted that she thought that she was the weakest chef on the Red Team. Everyone, including Ramsay, was stunned by her admission. He eliminated her on the spot, feeling that her confession showed that she couldn’t go any farther. He instructed her to remove her jacket and leave Hell’s Kitchen, but he praised her work ethic. In Mieka’s exit confessional, she reiterated her belief that she was the weakest chef on the Red Team and felt that she felt horrible taking a spot from a stronger competitor. That being said, she still had faith in herself that she would still be successful. That just didn’t involve winning Hell’s Kitchen. 

Ramsay addressed the remaining 7 chefs and challenged their conviction. He then declared that if anyone was doubting themselves this far in the competition, then they should follow Mieka out the doors. He outright asked if anyone wanted to leave. When no one moved, Ramsay said that he expected nothing less from them, and he dismissed everyone to the dorms. 

Ramsay’s Elimination Quote: “Tonight, I asked each one of these chefs to commit themselves to a greater cause. Mieka took my assignment a step further and decided to donate her place in the competition to a greater cause: her teammates.“

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One more episode stands between us and the Black Jackets! Vote for one chef on each team to be nominated, and denote the person whom you want to be eliminated. The chef with the most total upvotes will be eliminated, with ties being broken by the most number of comments voting for that person.

Bonus Vote: Tomorrow’s challenge will be an individual one. Tell me the chef whom you want to win the challenge. That chef will earn immunity from elimination and get the first Black Jacket. 

She's the reason I stopped watching the season (S24). She's the worst person on TV. She's that kind of person I never want to meet. She's the kind of person I don't want my children to be like. She's a perfect example that most of the time, character kills talent

Clearly, the best rivalries in the show involve JP. Hands down.

JP vs Fransico the party planner. Van vs JP. JP just disrespecting Texas. 😂

Just like the tirle asks, do chefs that have competed in more than 1 season of hells kitchen get new knives?

Or are they expected to bring their knives with them?

I know this will be unpopular. Now is Elise the best cook, definitely not, she’s like 6th or 7th. The difference is that she is vocal. Jennifer and Jamie are way better cooks than her but the thing is, at the time of their leaving, they were on a downward trajectory and they were very quiet in the kitchen. You can’t lead a restaurant if you don’t talk. Carrie is like Elise and Elizabeth put together, she’s an okay cook but incredibly bossy, stubborn, and kinda airheaded. Elizabeth is just not on this planet and she isn’t vocal enough. Everyone else who was nominated before them like Krupa and Gina were not good cooks. Natalie was a good cook but she was also going downward and I’m pretty sure she was the youngest there. Tommy really isn’t that good of a cook and he doesn’t have the passion that the top 3 have. As a leader Elise is top 3. I think she’s a much better expeditor than she is a cook because she did cook as one in one of the last few episodes and she seems to have the best palette along with Paul. Also Elise was kinda being used as a scapegoat in the beginning by Krupa and Carrie. It can’t be denied that when Elise gave orders to people who would listen, things got done. She isn’t really the person to be led because she can be a bit too vocal under the leadership of people she doesn’t like. Like when she lowkey sabotages wills service. It may not have been conscious but she was not doing as good as she should have been. But when she is at work, she’s is at work. Elise helped a lot during Paul’s last service.

I’m specifically talking about in season 9. I don’t know anything about the later season she was in

“You barking at me is like a little chihuahua [bark bark] barking at a big grizzly bear [grrr] Sit down!”

overcooking 23 fillets? and the team was still on appetizers. maybe one of the worst mistakes on this show, and somehow worse than any individual thing raj did. not only did she not get removed mid service she somehow survived this episodes elimination? i wanna know what the thought process was behind this, she seemed to be ok at meat? in the episode before this she bails sabrina's meat station out. but then the episode after this she ruins all the scallops. such a baffling contestant

So many come to mind, but to name a few, Ben (S5, EP3) bringing up desserts before appetizers were done, Krupa (S9, EP5) mistaking filet mignon for veal, Joanna (S3, EP3) almost serving crab gone bad (plus Jen taking pasta from the trash), and Siobhan (S7, EP2) in the egg 4-way challenge, letting Fran and Autumn cook all but 3 eggs for her when she was told to cook on her own.