Kitchen Nightmares, Episode 4: The Seascape Inn

Welcome to another episode of Kitchen Nightmares, the show where, each week, Chef Gordon Ramsay will descend upon a restaurant that has fallen on hard times and will help the owners restore the place to its former glory and beyond in less than one week. You can read my recap of last week’s episode, but it is not necessary, since each episode is its own complete story.

This week starts out at the Seascape Inn in Islip, NY. The announcer tells us that this once proud icon is now on the verge of collapse.

The owners are Irene and her son Peter. Peter remembers the good old days when his father ran the place in the 1960s. Everyone was happy and you could just feel the love in the place. Marilyn, a waitress, echoes those comments and says that it has been that way since she started working at the restaurant in 1967. Wow! That means that she has been working there for 40 years. I would think she should be eligible for some kind of retirement program by now.

But the place has turned into a dump (we see a montage of various peeling walls and rotting floorboards). Doug, the chef, tells us that people don’t come back a second time because it smells like raw sewage. Diane the waitress agrees.

Peter tells us that the restaurant hasn’t collapsed in the last two years because of the raw sewage; it is because Chef Doug doesn’t listen to him when Peter gives him orders. You know, without actually having been there, I think I am going to go out on a limb and say that it really is the sewage.

Doug does his best to confirm Peter’s point of view and tells us that he has been a chef for 38 years and he likes to run the kitchen his own way. He doesn’t care what anyone tells him.

Peter tells us that his father passed away two years ago and the restaurant has been in decline ever since. Peter tells us that he needs close to a million dollars to save the place. Or maybe a master chef to tell him what he is doing wrong.

Cue the hero music because here comes our knight in gleaming apron. Yes, it is Chef Gordon Ramsay to the rescue. He arrives at the front of the restaurant and is greeted by a couple of tacky placards that look like they’ve been stolen from the local highway crew.

Ramsay is introduced to the staff. Irene says that Ramsay is a hottie and if she were 20 years younger, she’d be all over him. Irene tries to impress Ramsay by mentioning that the Board of Health recently gave this place a “95” (I assume out of 100). Ramsay is taken aback by the fact that Marilyn has been working here since 1967.

Ramsay starts off, as he always does, with a sampling of the menu. But as he is ordering, he points out to Diane that it smells bad. She agrees and explains that it is raw sewage and she can’t believe that they get any repeat business.

Ramsay wrinkles his nose and orders something anyway. He starts with the crab cakes (as he seems to do at every restaurant in the New York area). He adds the pesto lobster ravioli and the blackened Atlantic salmon.

While the food is being prepared (in a microwave oven) Ramsay amuses himself by peeling off the wallpaper and punching holes in the rotted walls.

Soon enough, the crab cakes arrive. Even I can see that they are disgusting. Ramsay touches them with a fork and they are just all mush. Ramsay sends them back and tells Diane that they seem frozen and not fresh. In the kitchen, Doug admits that he makes a bunch and then freezes them for serving later.

The ravioli is served and that also does not taste fresh. The pesto sauce for the salmon is all curdled and is separating. And to make a clean sweep, the salmon is dry and hard. Let’s score that lunch a big fat zero.

But wait, there’s more. Irene brings Ramsay a special Greek cookie and tells him that he will declare that he’s never had better. Ramsay takes a nibble and almost chokes on the powdered sugar.

But Ramsay wants to observe a full dinner service before he passes judgment. Time passes and customers come in. We hear them complain that the clam chowder tastes fishy, the pot roast is cooked into a mush, and other food is cold and underdone.

In the kitchen, Doug disputes whether the food is cold. He says that it isn’t. Ramsay steps in and points out that if food is served on cold plates, the food will quickly become cold as well.

Meanwhile, another chef drops food on the floor and doesn’t clean it up. Ramsay watches in horror and finally summons Peter and asks how he can allow the chefs to be such slobs. Peter shrugs and says that Doug never listens. Peter himself gets a mop and swabs it up. Ramsay is beside himself. That’s not the owner’s job, it’s the job of the guy who spilled it. Peter shrugs.

Ramsay looks around and it suddenly dawns on him that the real problem is that the whole kitchen is filthy and no one ever does anything about it. The place needs a major hosing out. That’s probably what stinks, too.

The next day, Ramsay arrives early to do a closer inspection. Too much food is pre-prepared and just sitting on shelves slowly going stale. And there is grease almost an inch thick on everything. Ramsay almost gags. He finds the ravioli and the pesto that he ate the other day. Ick!

Ramsay finds Peter and Irene and brings them into the kitchen and shows them how disgusting it is. He stops Doug and asks if he knows how filthy the kitchen is. Doug, amazingly, says, “Yes.” Ramsay reads them all the riot act.