After over 100 episodes of Kitchen Nightmares, some restaurants still manage to surprise Gordon Ramsay.
In a new episode of the show — which follows the celebrity chef, 58, as he offers solutions to restaurants that are on the verge of closing — Ramsay stops by the Verdict Lounge & Restaurant. At the New Orleans spot, he experiences a Kitchen Nightmares first that leaves him and the head chef fuming — plus, a whole lot of patrons laughing.
In a PEOPLE-exclusive first look at the episode, airing Tuesday, Feb. 18, the star’s plastic fork breaks as he attempts to cut into a steak at the NOLA restaurant, which has “no metal forks,” per the chef. “How the f— am I supposed to get into my steak?” Ramsay asks his server, who seemingly has no response.
“I’ve never ever, ever, ever sent food back because I can’t cut into it,” the star then reveals.
After two more forks break off in his effort to slice the steak — sending the surrounding tables into hysterics — Ramsay then asks the server if he can send the dish back to the chef to cut it up for him.
“Oh, my God,” the star says before turning to the group dining next to him to express his frustration at the pricepoint of the dish ($34) given the difficulty he experienced trying to eat it.
Next, viewers go behind-the-scenes of the Verdict as Ramsay’s steak is sent back, inspiring frustration — and a bit of profanity. “I need this [steak] cut,” the server tells the kitchen staff, noting that the the Kitchen Nightmares host “said it’s not medium rare.”
“I know how to cook a steak,” the restaurant’s head chef fires back, later adding that Ramsay “don’t like nothing.”
“I I did not appreciate Chef Ramsay pointing out, ‘This is bad, this is bad, this is bad.’ I don’t need you f—— with me,” she then adds in a confessional, as the clip cuts to the Kitchen Nightmares host still joking about his tough-to-cut steak with the neighboring table.
Ramsay, turned to face the group, jokes with them that the restaurant is “B.Y.O.F. — bring your own f—ing fork.”
The new season of Kitchen Nightmares has seen the star chef come to blows with restaurant owners over practices such as sending out raw hamburgers and (in last week’s episode) appearing to give customers food poisoning.
In the Feb. 11 episode, a producer finds a patron “violently” vomiting by a fence in the back of Kings Blu Jam Café in Texas. Ramsay then finds the sick customer and asks, “Are you okay?” before confronting the kitchen staff about the meal that allegedly made her sick.
Meanwhile, in a January episode, the celebrity chef visited another NOLA spot, Iberville Cuisine & Oyster Bar, where he told a staff member: “This is f—ing embarrassing. She can’t even cook a f—ing burger. No more of this.”
Kitchen Nightmares airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on Fox and the next day on Hulu.a
