Hell’s Kitchen



Hell’s Kitchen was a community area in downtown Manhattan in the early 1990s that had a gritty reputation in the real estate market; it was home to the New York City underworld of gangsters and bootleggers.

But the Hell’s Kitchen we are talking about here is the competitive reality show still broadcast on Fox TV since its debut in 2005. Rated only behind the other most popular competitive reality show, Survivor, the show surpassed Donald Trump’s Apprentice and gained high rating viewership that has had Fox renew it season after successful season. Hell’s Kitchen is produced by ITV Studios.

Currently in its seventh season which began early June this year, the show brings a new group of ambitious and aspiring candidates who compete against all odds to show their culinary expertise in the hope of winning the coveted prize. Contestants compete with each other week after week in a cut-throat culinary competition for the coveted black chef jacket. The grand prize is the position of Head Chef at Araxi Restaurant in Whistler, British Columbia, Canada. The icing on the cake for the season’s finalist is the chance to join Executive Chef James Walt in ushering in the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

The format of Hell’s Kitchen is akin to the UK version with two teams of eight contestants that compete against each other in cooking challenges thrown by Executive Chef Gordon Ramsay. The cooking challenges in the competition can be just about anything – recreating a period inspired menu, hosting a golden wedding celebration or rustling up a meal to feed, say, a university band. As the season progresses, contestants are eliminated and when they are down to about six in number, they form a single team and compete against other individually.

Unlike other elimination reality shows, Hell’s Kitchen is different because the show in run single handedly by Chef Gordon Ramsay without a panel of judges or vote ins. He also has the authority to amend or change the format of the competition. Winning teams or individuals may get a reward while the loser may be required to undergo “punishment” which is usually some form of manual labour consisting of cleaning the dormitories, kitchen duty or preparing the same dish that was used in the competition round for dinner service.

When the game finally comes down to a single team but with more than three contestants, the winner gets the chance to pick the other two for nomination. Each player thus picked by nomination gets the chance to plead his or her case to Ramsay. The final decision however rests with Ramsay. The challenges are enormous and grueling but the rewards are exhilarating and winners or teams are pampered by beach stays, trips to gourmet eating houses, helicopter rides and the like. Losers are punished to undergo kitchen duty like prepping dinner service, ironing linen or polishing silver.

As the contestants get whittled down, the ones who get through Ramsay’s demanding and exacting format progress to the next round. At the season’s finale, two finalists go on a one-to-one head on to get Ramsay’s favour by dishing up exotic dishes. Along with his own observations of the finalists during the whole competition, Ramsay uses feedback from patrons of the restaurant to determine the finalist. Ultimately the contestant with the right mix of skill, ability, drive and passion gets to be the winner of Hell’s Kitchen.

Eventually two finalists will compete head-to-head to impress Ramsay with five-star dishes, but only the one who possesses the right combination of passion, skill and drive will become the winner of HELL'S KITCHEN.

Hell’s Kitchen has garnered wide viewership not only for its taut and gripping format but also for Gordon Ramsay’s authoritative and unforgiving persona. Very often on TV Ramsay is caught using profanity at the contestants and even chefs. U.S. regulations for network broadcasting governing profanity require that for episodes aired in the US, these are masked by bleep censoring.

Hell’s Kitchen was nominated for three Primetime Emmy Awards and has won an award in the Art Directors Guild Awards in TV. Individually Gordon Ramsay was awarded the Astra for Favourite International Personality.

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