Kitchen Nightmares, Episode 9: Campania

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

This week finds us at Campania, a nice little restaurant in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. The restaurant had been very successful for many years, until about eighteen months ago, when Joe bought the restaurant and started running it. It has been in steady decline ever since. The announcer tells us that the restaurant is only a few months away from being forced to shut down for good.

Joe tells us that his restaurant is a fun place. He is also one of the chefs and he tells us that he never went to culinary school and there are no recipes in the kitchen. In fact, no one even uses measuring cups and they just estimate whatever ingredients are needed to make the food. We get a nice montage of the cooks dumping food right from their boxes into mixing bowls and generally “cooking with flair.”

Two of the waitresses, Josette and Jessica, tell us that they have a lot of fun working there. The staff are always playing practical jokes on each other and laughing all the time. We see another montage of the staff laughing and acting up. They even lock Joe in the walk-in cooler. Josette says that it is like a big romper room in the kitchen.

Gene, the head chef, tells us that he is just a little kid and has a tongue ring and tattoos. He says that he will not be changing any time soon. And the kitchen has more than just attitude problems. Two of the ovens are broken and are used for storage space and the handles are broken off the walk-in coolers. That’s how they can lock people inside as a joke. Normally walk-in coolers have “panic” handles that will always allow you to get out. I mean, consider what a nightmare it would be if someone working alone accidentally locked themself in the cooler. Unfortunately, that looks like it could happen at Campania because the handles are broken.

All these problems seem to add up to very slow service and inconsistent dishes. Pat, Joe’s mother, is very worried that all the stress on him will hurt his whole family. Melissa, his wife, agrees. The restaurant has an enormous debt (Joe says that he owes over $80,000) and they just don’t see any way out of this mess. Oh, who will ever come and rescue them? Is it a hopeless situation?

Fear not, good people; help is on the way. Yes, it is our knight in gleaming apron, Chef Gordon Ramsay, to the rescue. He rushes to the scene in a bright yellow taxi. He steps out in front of the restaurant and first notices that it is in a less-than-desirable location. It is an anchor store at a strip mall. But there is no changing that, so Ramsay concludes that if the food is good, the location isn’t too big of a problem.

Gordon steps inside and sits down to order. Joe comes out to greet his customer and Ramsay is uncharacteristically gruff with the man. He mostly just stares at Joe until he goes away. Normally, Ramsay is nice and friendly with the staff until he figures out who the problem people are. Ramsay looks over the menu and starts with the brodo tortellini soup, the ravioli, and then finishes it with the cranberry-encrusted chicken. The chefs hop to it. Well they actually start laughing and joking around, really.

Twenty-one minutes later the food gets served somehow. I say “somehow” rather sarcastically because there is one customer in the place (Ramsay) and about five chefs. Ramsay tries the soup and declares it to be bland and tasteless. Ramsay asks if the tortellini is homemade. Josette fumbles on her answer and says, “yes. They are homemade. They are brought in from a place that makes them home-made.” He asks if this is a popular soup and Josette, after more hemming and hawing, finally admits that it is not.

The spicy sausage ravioli arrives next. Ramsay tastes it and notes that it has way too much garlic in it. He even finds large chunks of garlic in the food. He sarcastically requests a toothbrush for dessert. Last up is the chicken pistachio. I do recall that he ordered cranberry chicken, but oh well. He asks what that stuff is on top of the chicken and Josette says that it is fried zucchini. He tries it and says that it is too dry and the sauce is too sweet. All in all, that’s not really a bad review for the meal from Ramsay. Basically, the food just wasn’t seasoned right. He never complained that the food tasted bad, just “off.” He summed it up as “boring.”

Joe is not happy. He says that his food is pure and honest and good. He is now having second thoughts about bringing Ramsay in to help out. Gosh what a crybaby.

The next morning, Ramsay goes on his regular inspection of the place. He is looking to find ways to cut costs. He wants to find and eliminate waste. He finds it right away in the coolers. It seems that Joe has pre-prepared enormous amounts of food for what turns out to be too few customers. Most of it just sits around and slowly goes bad. He notes that the “fresh” mussels are all dead (you can’t serve shellfish unless they are cooked alive). He also finds a bucket with two months worth of mashed garlic. He calls it crazy to make this much food ahead of time and notes that this is where Joe is losing all of his money. Ramsay tells Joe and Gene that they need to go on a budget and be careful about how much they buy. Joe says that he has seen the light and now looks at all that food as wasted money. Hopefully that lesson will sink in.

Ramsay comes back in the afternoon to watch the staff go through a dinner service. Right away, the staff starts laughing and joking. Ramsay tells Joe that they need to shape up; this is not party time. But old habits die hard and Joe starts laughing it up almost right away. Arianna, another waitress, tells us that working here is just like being back in high school. We see another montage of people laughing and hugging and swatting each other with towels.

Ramsay is not impressed and tries to get Joe to take his business seriously. He notes that there are eleven staff members and only a dozen or so customers. He says that staff costs are too high and continues, “Right, who is going home?” The staff looks hurt and insulted. Joe sends home “Trucks” and Katie and maybe a couple of others. Katie is not pleased at all and says that she canceled dinner plans to come in to work tonight.