Recap: Hell's Kitchen Season Six, Episode One
The First Hour of This Summer's Season Premiere is More of the Same
It seems like only yesterday (or more accurately, two months ago) that season five of the Gordon Ramsay scream-a-thon Hell’s Kitchen wrapped up by crowning a new head chef in Danny Veltri. Now, faster than Chef Ramsay can shout, “You donkey!” from the pass, a new season arrives to heat up the summer.
Season six’s contestants enter Hell’s Kitchen and are greeted by some familiar faces (including season three breakdown-in-the-making, Aaron) via video monitors in the hallway. The former contestants offer helpful hints for surviving, such as “Always taste your food before you serve it.”
Signature Dishes Prepared for Signature Competition
Chef Ramsay appears from behind the fourth screen and orders the contestants into the kitchen to prepare their signature dishes. Before tasting the dishes, he reveals that the winner this season will become head chef at the Araxi restaurant in British Columbia.
After splitting the group into the usual men (blue) versus ladies (red) teams, Chef Ramsay announces that “for the first time ever!” the signature dishes from each team will be compared with those of the opposing team. After kicking off with a “chalky” risotto that promptly winds up in the trash, the competition finds the red team in the lead 1-0 thanks to Tek’s chipotle honey grilled shrimp.
After going up 2-0, the red team suffers a setback when 27-year old Amanda reveals her dish to be French toast and a glass of tequila. Chef Ramsay’s response: “What the [expletive] were you doing for forty-two minutes?”
The blue team battles back to tie the score, and the deciding point is awarded to the men after beer-drinking Texan Van’s foie gras beats out Sabrina’s pork tenderloin.
As punishment for losing, the red team must clean the kitchen while the blue team heads off to a three-course meal from the London West Hollywood restaurant. Before they head off to dinner, however, Chef Ramsay reveals that season two winner Heather will serve as sous chef this go round.
After celebrating a little too long, the blue team is sluggish in the kitchen while preparing for the grand re-opening. But red team member Lovely is the first to incur the wrath of Ramsay when she bakes the desserts before service even begins. Chef Ramsay dumps one of the cakes onto the floor, calling it hard as a hockey puck before telling Lovely, “We’re not even open yet and you’ve already screwed up.”
When service begins, the blue team’s failure to study the recipes the night before catches up to them; meanwhile the red team consistently produces under- or over-cooked appetizers.
The blue team begins cooking entrees while the red team continues to re-cook their first appetizers. Chef Ramsay comes into the red kitchen and removes a pile of pasta larger than a baby goat from the garbage bin.
Surprise Roster Move, Elimination
Having accomplished nothing yet, Lovely feels she deserves a half-hour break and disappears from the kitchen, returning in time to see Chef Ramsay spew venom yet again as he effectively ends Louie’s tenure in Hell’s Kitchen 45 minutes into the first episode. Louie’s inability to properly cook lamb forces the kitchen to shut down and also gives Chef Ramsay the opportunity to pull off another Hell’s Kitchen first – replace the ousted diner cook with lovable season five heavyweight Robert, who had to leave the show early because of health problems.
After one roster switch on the blue team, the red team is declared the loser and will lose one of their members after a horrible dinner service in which they served zero entrees. The nominees for elimination are Melinda and Amanda, whose frozen salmon was compared to a “bison’s penis” by Chef Ramsay during service. In the end, Melinda is asked to remove her jacket and leave Hell’s Kitchen.
After Melinda’s departure, Chef Ramsay orders Robert to leave the blue team and join the ladies on the red team as hour one of the season premiere comes to a close.
Chef Ramsay calls out an order in Hell's Kitchen
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