Gordon Ramsay is known for his creativity and wit when dolling out insults, whether it’s on his competition series’ Hell’s Kitchen or Masterchef, on Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back, or Kitchen Nightmares.
Kitchen Nightmares, which aired for seven seasons, saw Ramsay swoop into a different restaurant across the U.S. in each episode that had written in asking for help. He tasted the food, checked out the conditions of the kitchen, conducted interviews with owners, staff, and the community, and then got to work on a turnaround plan. But before the re-launch began, he would doll out some seriously hilarious insults that sometimes even had the wait staff smirking under their breaths. Here are 10 of his funniest.
Is That Cod or Condom?
“When you take a bite of that cod, it’s almost like you’ve got a breaded condom in your mouth.”
Ramsay clearly thought the cod was severely overcooked and rubbery, which is a pretty tough thing to do with such a delicate piece of fish.
Suffice it to say, this restaurant needed to take a good hard look at its recipes and chef. Because no one wants to go out and dine on breaded cod and feel like they are chewing latex. It doesn't sound appetizing at all.
Crap Cakes
“They’ve got it on the wrong menu. It’s not crab cake. It’s crap cake. Because if I eat anymore, I’ll be busy crapping for the next hundred and five years.”
A bit corny, yes, but this insult from Ramsay was fitting for the dish, which was supposed to be crab cakes. Ramsay did not like them and felt the ingredients were not fresh, and maybe even had gone off.
And as anyone knows, eating bad seafood inevitably means an unpleasant trip (or 20) to the bathroom. Sure, he embellished a bit with the whole 105 years thing. But everyone got his point.
It’s As Hard As a Golf Ball!
“That’s the kind of s*** you’d expect Tiger Woods to tee off with.”
Tiger Woods, of course, is one of the bests, if not the best, golf players of our generation. When he tees off, it’s with hard golf balls. So when Ramsay likens the food to one of these, well, it’s obvious what he’s trying to say.
Regardless of what the dish was, nothing served to you on a plate with the intention of you actually consuming it should be that hard. That’s simply not even edible!
Gandhi's Flip Flop
“Overcooked on the bottom, crispy as f*** and it looks like Gandhi's flip-flop.”
Limp, rubbery, and probably dirty, too. Ramsay likened this dish to one of the political ethicist’s flip flops, suggesting in a roundabout way that, well, it isn’t something you’d want to actually eat.
What’s more, he was baffled as to how anyone, much less someone who calls themselves a chef or cook, could overcook something so badly on the bottom. Do you not know how to flip things over or have the pan at the proper temperature?
Fecal Food
“In terms of beauty, it’s not exactly an Indian classic. It looks like a dehydrated turd.”
The owner calls the dish an Indian classic, but Ramsay begs to differ. To him, it just looks like a piece of fecal matter that has been dehydrated and served up on a plate.
Never mind the visual, just the mere thought of a dehydrated turd on a plate staring back at you is unappetizing enough to make anyone decide that maybe they’ll skip dinner tonight. Hopefully, it didn’t smell like one, too!
Yes, He’s Pretty Sure
“And for as long as I’ve got a hole in my butt, big boy, those f***ing potatoes have been in the deep fat fryer.”
This was Ramsay’s typically crass way of saying look, don’t question his assessment or try to pull one over on him. He knows when something has been cooked in a deep fat fryer. And the potatoes he was just served, regardless of what the chef, owner, or others want to tell him, were put in there.
We all know, of course, that the hole in the butt is sort of essential, so chances are that Ramsay will keep his for life. So it’s about time the cook fesses up.
It’s Raw!
“The chicken is raw. Now, um, unfortunately, I, ah, can’t afford to f*** off and die right now, and I don’t want to catch salmonella in f***ing Derby. Um, put that straight in the bin.”
One of Ramsay’s most famous and frequently used lines is “it’s raw!” Yes, in all of his cooking shows, inevitably someone, at some point, usually multiple people and at multiple times, serves something that’s raw.
Eating raw chicken can be especially dangerous, as Ramsay points out. So no thanks, he’ll pass on that so he can get safely back home without having to make multiple trips to the bathroom and take a pit stop to the hospital.
Real Vegetables
“This could be the first time in years Nick’s faced a full-sized vegetable.”
Implying that the chef often cooked pre-cut veggies, or worse, frozen, Ramsay joked that in bringing in fresh ones, it’s probably the first time he’d ever seen it.
This wasn’t a particularly biting insult, but it was hilarious nonetheless. How can someone call themselves a chef yet never really chop fresh vegetables and use fresh ingredients?
At Attention
“Look at your mushrooms – they look like f***ing tadpoles on Viagra.”
Only Ramsay could come up with such a clever comparison on-the-fly. After serving up a dish with mushrooms on the side, Chef Ramsay looked at them and immediately thought tadpoles that were, er, standing erect.
Needless to say, this restaurant and chef needed to work on its presentation skills. No one wants to be thinking of tadpoles or Viagra while they’re eating.
Poop Sack
“You’d think for 55 quid, they’d take the s***-sack out of the lobster, wouldn’t you?”
In order to enjoy some of the best parts of a lobster, you need to first clean out the digestive tract, which is located in the tail area. Knowledgeable chefs, of course, remove this part before serving the delicious dish to you. In this case, clearly this restaurant did not.
Ramsay’s term for the digestive tract, however, is typical of his vernacular. And it’s what totally makes this insult really funny.