The Top 15 Kitchen Nightmares Episodes, Ranked

Between opening popular restaurants worldwide and hosting a variety of food competition shows like "Hell's Kitchen," globally renowned chef Gordon Ramsay hosted "Kitchen Nightmares." The show features Ramsay visiting struggling restaurants around the world to lend his professional advice. Along the way, the British cook encountered narcissistic restaurateurs and snobby chefs who had no business working in the food industry. Enormously popular, "Kitchen Nightmares" saw separate series commissioned in the United Kingdom and the United States, each retaining the core formula. With Ramsay sporting an enormous temper and working with self-centered owners and staff Ramsay berates the delusional opposition between bouts of measured guidance.

Packed with plenty of ridiculous moments fueled by delusional owners and appalling kitchen conditions, Ramsay braved it all across both shows for failing restaurants. Here are the 15 best episodes from both iterations of "Kitchen Nightmares." In each one, Ramsay lends his expertise and brings snobby individuals in line as he fills the role of an emergency restaurant consultant.

In the seventh season, Ramsey visited Old Neighborhood, a non-descript family-run restaurant in Arvada, Colorado, that specialized in American fare. For Ramsay, what's truly horrifying about the restaurant wasn't the quality of the food but the conditions in which it was stored and prepared. Inspecting the kitchen and other areas behind the scenes, Ramsay finds meat thermometers kept in holes in the wall, dirty sneakers left in the kitchen, and even a mummified mouse corpse among cleaning supplies.

Ramsay confronts the owner, Randy, over the gross issues with his restaurant's storage. He calls him a hoarder to his face, which Randy initially denies. However, what makes "Old Neighborhood" earn a spot on this list is that Randy is one of the few owners on the show to see the error in their ways and ultimately heed Ramsay's advice. The episode ends with Randy personally tossing his junk into a dump truck, showing that restaurant redemption is possible if the owners can see beyond their outsized egos and listen to reason.

People get into the restaurant business for all sorts of different reasons and Ramsay encounters one of the ultimate bizarre motivation. Visiting the Prohibition Grille in Everett, Washington, Ramsay discovers that the restaurant is owned by a belly dancer, Rishi Brown. Brown regularly belly dances for her patrons over dinner whether they want her to or not. However, as eccentric as Brown can be, Ramsay learns that the true hindrance to the grille is its head chef Tony. The employee has, unfortunately, taken full advantage of Brown's lack of experience in running a restaurant.

For all the glaring faults gleamed from the first impressions, Prohibition Grille really does turn around once Brown begins listening to Ramsay's advice. After learning Tony has been skimming from the servers' tips and lagging in the kitchen, Brown follows Ramsay's guidance and fires him. "Prohibition Grille" starts out as the oddest episodes of "Kitchen Nightmares" but proves that there is no case too strange for Ramsay to crack.

There is something both absurd and vaguely genius about a restaurant that specializes in entirely potato-based cuisine, the driving premise behind Philadelphia's Hot Potato Cafe. However, for a restaurant that revolves around potatoes, Ramsay is disgusted that it uses aged and frozen varieties. While retaining the cafe's core concept of centering its menu around the tuber, Ramsay has to find a way to reverse the restaurant's fortunes.

As ridiculous as the episode seems at first glance, there is quite a bit of heart as Ramsay gets to know the family running the café. He strikes up a close rapport with the restaurant's chef Danielle, the 21-year-old niece of the owners, noticing her natural talent hindered by poor management. Despite Ramsay's encouragement, Danielle decides that a culinary career is not for her, ending the episode on a bittersweet note amidst all the potato-themed tackiness.

Pizza is a seemingly simple premise to center a restaurant around, with plenty of pizzerias worldwide leaning into the tried-and-true core concept with varying levels of success. Sebastian's, a pizza parlor in Los Angeles, struggles with this by offering a menu that has customers mix and match ingredients into elaborate flavor combinations. The concept is so convoluted and pointlessly confusing that even the servers have a difficult time explaining how to properly order from the menu.

What makes "Sebastian's" memorable isn't just the odd way to order pizzas but its eponymous owner. Sebastian possesses a fiery temper and admits to having fired numerous employees when he loses his cool. This becomes evident when Ramsay and Sebastian have their first argument early into Ramsay's visit. Afterward, Sebastian childishly claims to his staff that he won their verbal spats, insisting he can turn the restaurant into a franchise. Unfortunately for Sebastian, Ramsay overhears this boast, culminating in one of the most intense screaming matches on "Kitchen Nightmares." By the end, Sebastian is emotionally defeated and leaves a reminder that no one can outdo Gordon in an argument.

The Boston-based Italian restaurant La Galleria 33 is run by two sisters whose differing priorities set them at odds. This led to their family business struggling from petty squabbling. The establishment serves as the 6th season's two-part premiere, with Ramsay meeting Rita and Lisa and quickly noticing the siblings' conflicting management styles and their effect on the restaurant. With Ramsay caught in the middle, he notes that the one thing the two sisters do share in common is an explosive temper further fueling the sibling rivalry.

The highlights in "La Galleria 33" range from a fired busboy who played Rita's sympathies until he was rehired and appointed himself as the manager, to Lisa drinking while on the job. More than just advising the restaurant, Ramsay serves as something of a mediator between Lisa and Rita, reminding them of their shared business interest and instructing them how to regain control of their staff. A strong showcase for the tough love that Ramsay offers, "La Galleria 33" demonstrates how effective a leader and restaurateur Ramsay is himself — if only the people bringing him on are willing to listen.

The most common business owners Ramsay confronts in the American version of "Kitchen Nightmares" are cocky restaurateurs who are inexperienced, stubborn, and cruel to their employees. This is true in the two-part, 6th season episode "Mill Street Bistro," with Ramsay visiting the titular restaurant in Norwalk, Ohio, that is run by the stuck-up owner Joe Nagy. Despite his struggling business, Nagy remains as arrogant as ever, claiming to be a talented chef himself and blaming the restaurant's performance on his staff and the unappreciative public.

While Nagy is vying for Ramsay's approval during his visit, he becomes defensive when faced with criticism, going as far as declaring himself as Ramsay's equal. Ramsay and Nagy's spats over their clashing visions for the restaurant are among the nastiest and most heated in "Kitchen Nightmares." This contentious dynamic went beyond the show, with Nagy taking the show's production company to court, which resulted in a settled compensation for him (via Mirror).

As its title suggests, Ramsay examines and exposes some truly disgusting restaurants that would make a health and safety inspector lose sleep due to the unsanitary conditions. The most grossly memorable episode of "Kitchen Nightmares" is one of the earliest of the American series, with Ramsay visiting the Indian fusion restaurant Dillon's. Based out of New York City, the closer Ramsay looks into the business and cuisine it offers, the more likely this culinary odyssey is to turn viewers' stomachs.

Beginning with Ramsay's first meal at Dillon's, there are prominent red flags, including dishes advertised as vegetarian containing meat and presumed beef dishes that use lamb instead. Examining the kitchen, Ramsay finds a horror show, complete with rotten meat and an infestation of cockroaches, flies, and rats. An episode that truly lives up to the "Kitchen Nightmares" title and premise, Ramsay's exploration of Dillon's might as well be an episode of "Fear Factor."