{"id":32287,"date":"2025-07-30T11:11:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T11:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/32287\/"},"modified":"2025-07-30T11:11:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T11:11:10","slug":"this-show-is-kitchen-nightmares-with-added-spy-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/32287\/","title":{"rendered":"This show is Kitchen Nightmares, with added spy gear"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gordon Ramsay\u2019s Secret Service \u2605\u2605\u2605\u00bd<\/p>\n

It\u2019s 1.07am and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is speeding through Washington DC wearing a black baseball cap. Police sirens whirr behind him as his eyes dart between the road, his rearview mirror and a camera on the dash. In this first scene of his new series, the 58-year-old multimillionaire is doing his best Jason Bourne … which is a bit more like Jason Statham in Spy.<\/p>\n

Ramsay is on his way to a Greek restaurant, he tells us, to uncover \u201cthe problems that everybody tries to hide from me\u201d. He has a man on the inside. He has a duffle bag full of spy gear. And within minutes he\u2019ll be rifling around in a dark kitchen and muttering \u201cf—ing hell\u201d while throwing bloody chicken carcasses on the ground. We\u2019re back, baby.<\/p>\n

\"Gordon<\/p>\n

Gordon Ramsay in Gordon Ramsay\u2019s Secret Service. Credit: Greg Gayne\/Fox<\/p>\n

Despite all the theatrics, Gordon Ramsay\u2019s Secret Service is essentially just Kitchen Nightmares. Each episode is centred on a struggling US restaurant, which the hard-headed Brit has been tasked to turn around. It features all the obligatory shots of dirty kitchens, festering food and Ramsay cussing out belligerent owners.<\/p>\n

The only differences? Well, an \u201cinsider\u201d on the staff has tipped him off instead of the owners nominating themselves (\u201cPlease don\u2019t fire me,\u201d one half-jokes when outed in a Traitors-style reveal). There are a lot more hidden body cams. And, importantly, our boy is undercover for the first half of each episode, monitoring the situation from inside the world\u2019s most conspicuous van parked right outside.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s beyond silly, but purposefully so. And once it gets to the meat of the thing \u2013 Ramsay giving it to people straight and turning their lives around \u2013 it\u2019s just as enjoyable as the long-running series it\u2019s so indebted to.<\/p>\n

More than 20 years ago, this foul-mouthed chef struck TV gold with the creation of Ramsay\u2019s Kitchen Nightmares. The unvarnished series tapped into the chaos of real-life restaurants, juiced it for drama and laughs, and managed to (mostly) tie things off into a happy ending so you don\u2019t feel too bad about all the genuine hardship.<\/p>\n

The show spawned a hugely successful US adaptation, Kitchen Nightmares, as well as the spin-off series, Hotel Hell \u2013 both of which have been comfort food for me while home sick over the years or in the bleary-eyed trenches of new parenthood. And I\u2019m not alone. The former proved popular enough to warrant a revival in 2023.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gordon Ramsay\u2019s Secret Service \u2605\u2605\u2605\u00bd It\u2019s 1.07am and celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay is speeding through Washington DC wearing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[64,63,134,427],"class_list":{"0":"post-32287","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}