Last night’s “Kitchen Nightmares” featured a quasi-Indian restaurant in New York City called Dillon’s. It appeared to be in the theater district in New York but it was kind of hard to tell. You could already tell when Gordon Ramsey first appeared at the restaurant, that the problem was that there were literally too many cooks in the kitchen. Well, make that managers on the floor. Along with Mohammod, the owner, there was Andrew the operations manager, Martin the general manager, and Khan the floor manager. And the menu was not just Indian, but also had American food items.
Ramsey ordered a few things from the menu to sample what they had, and was extremely disappointed. Not only were there flies buzzing around everywhere, but the food did not come out as he had asked….vegetarian fritters had meat in the them and lamb was served in place of beef in another. Then the salmon came out and Ramsey said it looked like a “doormat.” When Andrew emerged from the kitchen and Ramsey found out he had cooked the salmon, he asked Andrew to eat it.
At the dinner service, things went horribly wrong because the kitchen was in complete chaos. Martin showed that he had no business being the GM of a restaurant like this, because he was busy on his phone, having waitresses stroke his hair and ego, and just was plain old useless. Orders were taking way too long to be filled, and customers started leaving.
So Ramsey’s first order of business was to go into the kitchen and see how sanitary or unsanitary everything was. And his nightmares were realized….not only was there moldy food everywhere, but there were flies, cockroaches and rats in the kitchen. So he had steam cleaners come in and disinfect the whole restaurant. He even took the staff to his own restaurant a few blocks away to show them how a real kitchen should look.
After this, Ramsey brought in Vikas, a chef consultant, who revamped the menu to be “contemporary Indian cuisine.” They also changed the name to “Purnina” and got rid of the electronic billboard outside the restaurant. Ramsey also brought in a design team to revamp the interior and exterior of the restaurant, and then asked for everyone’s complete support and approval. He got it from everyone but Martin, who seemed to think his shit didn’t stink. Not only that, but waitress Jenna came to his defense as well. Finally, Martin also relented that he would do his part to make the restaurant successful.
So at the dinner service, everything started off well, but it was clear that Martin was in over his head. Food was getting cold before it made it to tables, and Martin was his usual lazy self. Ramsey put Khan in charge, and afterward had a heart to heart with Mohammod, suggesting he fire Martin and replace him with Vikas in the kitchen. Before Mohammod could do this, though, Martin had overheard Ramsey’s suggestions and got into a shouting match with him. He wasn’t fired in the end, because he decided to quit, saying bad things about Ramsey as he exited.
Months later, they showed that the changes stuck, and that Purnina had become very successful, even generating a buzz in Manhattan’s restaurant community. Once again, Gordon Ramsey had swooped in and turned a restaurant around, giving life where it once was floundering. Ah, a feel good story if there ever was one.
I only wonder what became of Martin…..
