Gordon Ramsay mourns a 'brilliant chef'

[Jagermeister]

Gordon Ramsay is mourning the suicide death of New Jersey restaurateur Joe Cerniglia who once appeared on Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

"I was fortunate to spend time with Joe during the first season of Kitchen Nightmares," he said in a statement. "Joe was a brilliant chef, and our thoughts go out to his family, friends and staff."
The body of the 39-year-old Cerniglia was found floating in the river after jumping off the George Washington Bridge in NYC, it was reported Tuesday. Cerniglia, a married father of three, reportedly was deep in debt.

He is the second chef to commit suicide after appearing on one of Ramsay's cooking shows.

Rachel Brown, 41, shot herself in her family's Dallas home a year after appearing on 2006's Hell's Kitchen.


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[Jagermeister]

Gotta love Ramsey.

[chefcraig]

Gotta love Ramsey.

Not truly. Ramsey's show is just plain uncomfortable for me to watch from a professional standpoint. Believe me, these hot-headed, yelling chefs are no pleasure to work with, particularly in a small, cramped and hot kitchen with plenty of knives around. These jerks usually do not last long, either because their heads are so big they believe themselves to be above everything (and quit) or because they are let go for being dangerous lunatics.

Mario Batali was on John Stewart a while back, and he made a great point about these screaming jerks. Essentially, he said the reason they are barking so loud is because on the inside, they realize that they have failed to adequately prepare their staff for service, so the rage comes from embarrassment at themselves. This show apparently plucks people out of line (be they pros or housewives) with expectations of success or failure and expects them to perform under the pressure of a dinner service filmed for television. Not only is this an absurd way to create drama, it is patently unfair and cynical. (Recall the fat psychopath Matt Sigel from Season 4, who by all appearances should have been either arrested or put in a looney-bin as he seemed to be a walking time bomb, but was obviously chosen by the producers to spice things up. This was downright irresponsible and a dangerous thing to do with someone so plainly unstable.) The fact that the winner is rewarded with the prize of running one of Ramsey's restaurants should tell you that the whole thing has to be rigged from the start, as he isn't going to hire some fry cook or housewife.

I might click it on briefly while changing channels, but that is about it. For me, the show jumped the shark long ago. To hell with Hell's Kitchen.

[Jagermeister]

Not truly. Ramsey's show is just plain uncomfortable for me to watch from a professional standpoint. Believe me, these hot-headed, yelling chefs are no pleasure to work with, particularly in a small, cramped and hot kitchen with plenty of knives around. These jerks usually do not last long, either because their heads are so big they believe themselves to be above everything (and quit) or because they are let go for being dangerous lunatics.

Mario Batali was on John Stewart a while back, and he made a great point about these screaming jerks. Essentially, he said the reason they are barking so loud is because on the inside, they realize that they have failed to adequately prepare their staff for service, so the rage comes from embarrassment at themselves. This show apparently plucks people out of line (be they pros or housewives) with expectations of success or failure and expects them to perform under the pressure of a dinner service filmed for television. Not only is this an absurd way to create drama, it is patently unfair and cynical. (Recall the fat psychopath Matt Sigel from Season 4, who by all appearances should have been either arrested or put in a looney-bin as he seemed to be a walking time bomb, but was obviously chosen by the producers to spice things up. This was downright irresponsible and a dangerous thing to do with someone so plainly unstable.) The fact that the winner is rewarded with the prize of running one of Ramsey's restaurants should tell you that the whole thing has to be rigged from the start, as he isn't going to hire some fry cook or housewife.

I might click it on briefly while changing channels, but that is about it. For me, the show jumped the shark long ago. To hell with Hell's Kitchen.

I like watching him. He fuckin cracks me up. Like they say. If ya can't stand the heat get out of the kitchen.

[binnie]

The US version is like a Disney film compared to ones he makes in the UK....

[Little Texan]

I guess this fella never watched "It's A Wonderful Life".

I'll never understand why people kill themselves over financial matters. Three children and a wife are now without a father and husband because this selfish minded prick felt the only way out of debt was to off himself, and now the wife is stuck with the tab.

Too bad he never heard of filing for bankruptcy. That would have seemed a much better solution to his debt problems than the one he chose.

[sadaist]

Gotta love Ramsey.

I really dig watching his shows. Always makes me hungry. Drives me crazy though when lamb or filet mignon is cooked a little wrong and he throws it away. While I'm sitting here with my Cup O Noodles thinking "WTF? I'll eat it! Don't toss it out!".

He throws away better food than I have had in 6 months. That sucks.

But in the new MasterChef show he wasn't the biggest Asshole. It was the little bald fucker that gives every chef the stink eye. That guy is a cock-sucker.

[Jagermeister]

I really dig watching his shows. Always makes me hungry. Drives me crazy though when lamb or filet mignon is cooked a little wrong and he throws it away. While I'm sitting here with my Cup O Noodles thinking "WTF? I'll eat it! Don't toss it out!".

He throws away better food than I have had in 6 months. That sucks.

But in the new MasterChef show he wasn't the biggest Asshole. It was the little bald fucker that gives every chef the stink eye. That guy is a cock-sucker.

lol! Yeah he was. Kinda reminds me of jhale only bald.

[Seshmeister]

The US version is like a Disney film compared to ones he makes in the UK....

Yeah the US one was incredibly manufactured with the exact same narrative put together every show. He goes along, orders crab cake goes crazy since it isn't fresh, gets 100 people to turn up at the restaurant and it falls to bits. Makes staff cry, makes the menu smaller, they do a makeover of the decor, people cry again, invites a bunch of people to a relaunch and everyone says it's great. Also strip out the ads and the previews of what is about to happen and the recaps of what has just happened and I think the show is only about 10 minutes long - maybe that's just a US thing...

At the end is says 'events may not have happened in the order shown' plus a bunch of other disclaimers. If you watch a bit more carefully you start to notice things like the decor changing out sequence to the point that there was even one where the end scene was in the restaurant pre makeover which had happened earlier in the program before the relaunch of the restaurant.

It's fun googling to see how many of them are closed.

[Terry]

The UK Kitchen Nightmares ARE quite a bit different in tone and attitude. I remember in particular a UK Nightmare episode concerning a Michelin star restaurant in Wales called The Walnut Tree, where the food and talent were pretty close to top notch before he arrived, and it was almost surreal watching him just working with the staff without the histrionics of the Hell's Kitchen persona.

Some of it is just theater on his part, but he clearly doesn't suffer fools gladly and had the talent, success and reputation for excellence in the culinary world before he did any television.

The American-based shows he's done are a bit over-the-top agreed...am glad I'm not the only to notice he orders crab cakes in virtually every stateside restaurant he enters ; )

[sadaist]

am glad I'm not the only to notice he orders crab cakes in virtually every stateside restaurant he enters ; )

Maybe it's a basic test. Like, if they can't make these fucking right, they ain't gonna make anything right?

I don't know. But until I started watching his shows, I had no idea risotto was so fucking popular. Dude has it made for every service.

[Terry]

Maybe it's a basic test. Like, if they can't make these fucking right, they ain't gonna make anything right?

I don't know. But until I started watching his shows, I had no idea risotto was so fucking popular. Dude has it made for every service.

The thing with Ramsay is that he doesn't necessarily favor intricate, high-cost recipes. At the core of what he believes is the notion that whatever you're making, that you take pride in it and make it well. A philosophy that is sadly missing in many of the franchise US restaurants these days.

[Golden AWe]