Metaphorically, so to speak.
My wife (who is British) and I love to watch Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, and it turns out that The BBC’s uber-chef was in our town (in California) trying to shape up one of our local restaurants. This would have been back in summer of 2008, and I just learned of it today.
Alas! We missed him, and we don’t know what restaurant that he did his “make-over” of (so that we might go try it). Here’s what the Times of London says about Ramsey’s visit to our part of California:
During a recent taping of the US version of Kitchen Nightmares (like the Channel 4 show, but more Jerry Springer), Ramsay arrived at the restaurant to find there had just been a drive-by shooting, and he was later threatened with a knife. It was in Lancaster, out in California’s Antelope Valley. “It was so bad we commuted in and out every day,” recalls Ramsay. “The shooting took place in the parking lot of the restaurant. Then this chef confronted me with a knife when he was trying to tell me about his medication. I didn’t know he had medication; he lied about it to pass the Kitchen Nightmares test. He put me up against the wall and he had a knife in his hand. He was shaking and sweating; it wasn’t even hot, he was just sweating. I grabbed his hand, he put the knife down, and we never saw him again after that.”
It certainly sounds like what would go on in Lancaster. Might anybody who stumbles upon this know what restaurant Gordon Ramsey tried to set in order?
Prometheus Unbound 