Why can't we just all love each other for f***s sake...

It seems that Gordon Ramsay could quite easily swap his career as a chef and become a psychotherapist judging by last night’s RKN at failing – and feuding – restaurant Giuseppi’s.

And there was a distinct lack of swearing and ‘cussing’ which came as a bit of a surprise to me and actually, it just didn’t feel right. It’s just not a Gordon Ramsay show without most of the audio being overlaid with bleeps is it? In its place was hugging, crying and general outpourings of emotion… and instead of saying ‘F***ing hell, pack it in!” Gordon opted more for a soothing word and a tragic/sympathetic look… In fact, the family swore infinitely more times more than Gordon did!

a family pasta caring...

Anyway, the restaurant he was there to put to rights is in Detroit, Michigan and Joe Borga along with wife Kathy had intended to pass on their restaurant to their son Sam to run while they enjoyed an early retirement in Florida, but that was easier said than done for the domineering Joe.

And that’s not the only thing wrong in that kitchen either; Gordon compared a dish of octopus salad as being akin to “a mouthful of Hubba Bubba”

Mamma mia, it's hubba bubba

It wasn’t long either before Gordon found out that every night dozens of customers complained about the food and many returned it to the kitchen along with adjectives such as “disgusting.”

Now, ordinarily, Gordon tackles culinary disharmony as an aside to the actual running of the kitchen and the food prep, but this show was primarily about his attempts to smooth over the considerably troubled waters between Borga Snr and Jnr.

The crux of the issue was that Sam’s parents Joe and Kathy believed that Sam was just too lazy to run the business properly so they didn’t give him a chance to prove otherwise, and he was getting just a tad fed up of it. In fact, the daily rows between parents and sibling actually drove customers away so the added pressure of a restaurant so empty there was practically tumbleweeds drifting through meant that as well as losing their business, the family could end up losing each other.

“The house is in foreclosure and I have an additional $150,000 of debt” Kathy told Gordon, adding, “I don’t mind losing the house, I can sleep anywhere, but the business is all I have. If we lose it I don’t think we’ll still be together. I hope you brought your magic wand.”

I suspect Gordon’s wife may well have chopped off his magic wand after the scandal of his alleged affair, but anyway…

The restaurant’s waitress Dawn has sore misgivings about Sam’s abilities too. Maybe she should rub cream into them after a warm bath, but that’s by the by. Commenting on the octopus dish that so repelled Gordon, Dawn said, “I tried his octopus and thought ‘Oh my god, we serve this shi*?’”

Then as Gordon became a pseudo-patron in the restaurant, as well as sitting in décor that could well have been designed for an old folks home, he listened with a look of resignation on his face as from the kitchen the family issued forth.

“I could cook everything he ordered and he’d love every dish” shouted Joe as Sam tried to serve up food he’d secretly told Gordon he found “embarrassing.”

Despite all this, Sam was worried about his father’s health and clearly just wanted to please him. “I want to give him a hug and say ‘it’s going to be alright, you just have to trust me a little bit’” he told Gordon… but it seemed unlikely that was going to happen easily.

Enter Dr Ramsay to do his Oprah/Jeremy Kyle bit.

Gordon pointed out that to make an Italian restaurant work, they needed to cook proper Italian food.

“I’ve seen how Italian families eat and they don’t serve their children potato skins with plastic cheese” Gordon aptly pointed out.

He also wasted no time in getting to the nub of Joe’s big issue; “He talks to Sam like dirt. Unfortunately that ‘dirt’ is his son. Sad”

Our hero in a white jacket next tackled the issue of Joe’s nuking everything in a microwave with the result that often, the entire meal is ready all at once. Sam told Gordon,

“Sometimes the starter, the soup and the main entrée come out all at once. I don’t think you can make shortcuts like that.”

The customers and Gordon wholeheartedly agreed so it was time for Gordon’s famed plain speaking. First up, Gordon pointed out the hideousness of the décor and after some initial resistance, gone was the eatery for the infirm and incontinent and a new era of traditional but functional space, bedecked with photographs of the family’s history. Joe, bless him, choked back tears as he gazed at a photo of him with baby Sam.

So did the newly found harmony last? Not a cat in hell’s chance and it wasn’t long before Joe was once again practicing his Italian style of domineering in the kitchen which resulted in a launch night less successful than a pre-war American themed BBQ round at Saddam Hussain’s place.

Gordon decided the way to get to the bottom of who’s best in kitchen was to have a father-son cook-off, and the winner’s dish would become a house special with the result being that Giuseppi’s hosted a relaunch night that promoted a bowl-a-thon to support diabetes, an illness which Joe suffers from.

Some customers waited more than an hour for their meals and when they did get their food, the majority returned it as it was raw. Then the Gordon we know and love reared his tousled blonde head in his inimitable style and had a full on shouting match with sous-chef, Brian.

Then, with a little Ramsay magic in the form of a get-your-sh**-together rant, Joe and Sam both upped their game, determined to save their restaurant.

It wasn’t easy and there were many expletives and bitten tongues but together, Joe and Sam managed to pull it off.

“I’m happy to know me and my father can work side by side,” said Sam. “It’s what I always wanted.”

And in something of an epiphany moment, Sam finally got some well deserved and overdue praise from Joe.
“You did an excellent job today, Sam” said Joe.
“This place is going to work Pop” said Sam.
“I need a tissue” said me as it was all quite emotional.

So wonder chef Gordon had brought the family back together and restructured their ailing business, but can they keep it together? Hopefully we’ll find out in a follow up show in the not too distant future!

Well done Gordon… now if you could nip round here and stop my kids leaving the splatter cover off the beans when they microwave them, that’d be great….

In case you missed it, here’s a clip from the show that aired in the US last year…