“That’s just like baby food inside gunk.” – Gordon Ramsay
This is a bridge episode of sorts for Kitchen Nightmares, with Gordon Ramsay recently having wrapped up three seasons of the show in England, which is now known as Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, and now embarking on new adventures in the U.S. of A.
And as a Long Island, New York native, it’s perfect and glorious to me that Kitchen Nightmares would choose Long Island, replete as it is with bad attitudes and even worse how youze doin’ accents, as the setting for its first U.S.-set episode.
Peter’s is an Italian joint in Babylon, on the Island’s south shore. If you traveled directly north from Peter’s, you’d eventually get to East Northport (where your humble narrator grew up) and then Northport on the Island’s north shore side, if anyone cares.
Tina is the owner, with Peter Pelligrino dubbed as “co-owner/manager” by the captions. However, Tina refers to him as the “host,” so you know there’s some trouble brewing off the bat.
And meanwhile John, the sous chef, says, “I don’t know who Peter really thinks he is. Honestly, I really think he’s looking for a shot at the next Goodfellas movie.”
I’m glad John said that, not only because Goodfellas is quite clearly and obviously the greatest movie of all time, but because Peter really does look and dress in a way where you feel like he’s going to say I took care of that thing any moment.
Also: “I believe Peter is the core problem of the restaurant.” We then get a montage that shows us Peter being at turns lazy and then way more focused on people noticing how fabulous he looks and is dressed as opposed to actually doing the job of helping to run a restaurant.
“He takes advantage of this place,” Tina says.
Meanwhile, the kitchen is in poor condition, with the stoves not working correctly, leaving Robert O’Sera, the chef, in a constant crisis. And overall, Peter’s the Italian restaurant is going down the tubes.
With this all going on, into the fray we get our favorite tough love maniac from Britain, Chef Gordon Ramsay, to help save the day. Well… it takes a while, as Peter himself is a solid hour late in picking up Ramsay from the train station (the famous/infamous Long Island Railroad).
Yogi, father of Tina and Peter, is hilarious when relaying his first impression of Ramsay: “With his hair, I thought he was one of these crazy foreigners.”
Likewise, Ramsay’s impression on meeting the family: “I feel like I’ve been introduced to the mob.”
The problems pop up immediately upon the arrival of Ramsay’s first ordered dish. The salad that accompanies it is “rotten” in Ramsay’s view (sidenote that Long Island is not a traditionally a hotbed of great salads and produce), while the crab meat “is stone cold in the middle,” “not fresh,” and “gross.”
Back in the kitchen, Angelo the server complains to the staff that, “You make me look like a moron.”
Then, on the ravioli: “That’s just like baby food inside gunk.”
Shortly thereafter, a huge screaming match goes on behind the scenes over the amount of parsley placed on Ramsay’s dish, and you can tell that it doesn’t take much to throw the Peter’s operation off the rails.
Ramsay convenes a staff meeting later, and it immediately descends into chaos as everyone yells at each other at the same time. It’s so bad that the segment simply ends while everyone is talking loudly at the same time.
The next day, Ramsay uncovers rotting food all over the storage area (which is not capable of keeping food at a proper cold temperature anyway). He refers to some food object as “camel turds” at one point.
Ramsay then plays the game of “go ahead, smell that” with what I believe is tripe that’s been rotting back there for weeks.
Rotting tripe.
Soon after, Peter blows up at Ramsay for reasons that I’m not quite clear about.
The editing on the show glosses over an overnight cleanup of the joint, which allows Ramsay to focus on the fact that Robert cooks in a kitchen that is barely functional in terms of the stove tops. You know, the stuff they use to cook the food with.
Soon after, Peter steps outside with a “creditor” looking for his money, and then it is almost like a mob movie as we overhear them yelling at each other with things like “telephone tough guy” and “you’ve always been a scumbag” and “go ahead, you put your hands on me first” and “you’ll get f—ing hurt” being hurled around.
If you thought what I wrote above about Long Island above was too harsh, you might want to go ahead and revisit that opinion right now. I’ll give you a minute.
Later that night, Tina tells Ramsay that she’s barely holding it together, but often Peter is driving her to “commit bloody murder.” Beyond Peter’s other issues, we’ve also seen him “comp” his doctor a full dinner because “he takes care of me,” and now here we learn that he’ll just grab money out of the till whenever he feels like it.
“How long can you continue to function like this?” Ramsay asks her.
“Not much longer,” she replies, and tells him she’s at the point of needing to sell the business.
Also: she’s on the verge financially of losing her house.
The next day, Ramsay shakes things up: Peter and poppa Yogi are sent to the kitchen to help cook. The stunned, horrified look on Peter’s face when he hears this points to how great Kitchen Nightmares can be at its best. And then Tina and her mom are assigned to help the front of the house.
Service has hardly begun when Peter flips out because he can’t get someone to get him an espresso… on top of his clearly not knowing what he’s doing. “I’m having a meltdown here,” he yells. And: “Can I have a f—ing working oven?”
Things get even more heated when Peter starts whining about needing orange juice and Ramsay tosses back, “Go f— yourself.”
“Take it easy, killer,” Peter barks back.
The next morning, the kitchen has been renovated, including working stoves and a brand-new food storage area, and of course the team is thrilled – particularly Chef Robert and Tina.
The menu overhaul involves family-style Italian dining, with entrees such as lasagna, grilled flank steak, capellini, and gnocchi. A “true family restaurant” is the concept to help Peter’s standout among the many Italian restaurants in the area (and I can corroborate that on much of Long Island, if you throw a rock, you’re likely to hit an Italian restaurant or pizza place).
As Ramsay rallies the team for relaunch night, Peter has to step out yet again to deal with another “debt collector.” And predictably another screaming and shoving match breaks out. And in fact, this one gets legitimately heated, with Peter getting held back as he screams, “Come on, you fake tough guy,” and “I’ll put you in the hospital,” and… “you fake f—-ing blowjob.”
It’s a complete and total meltdown to the point where Peter is bright red in the face, sweaty, and looks like he could literally kill someone, have a coronary, or both.
Yogi’s take: “These guys fight a lot. Things happen.”
As dinner service starts on relaunch night, the place is packed. The kitchen staff scurries around figuring out their new set up, while Peter meanwhile muses about what beverage might be best for his blood sugar (he lands on pineapple juice with a splash of cranberry juice). And soon he sneaks into the back to eat while hoping that Ramsay won’t “catch” him.
And those are just some of the Peter-related anecdotes going on that night – there are a bunch more. However, the relaunch night was successful overall, “despite Peter,” as the Narrator Guy notes.
Later that night, Ramsay calls out Peter in front of the staff: “I don’t think you’ve seen a day’s work in f—ing 20 years.” Peter then lamely talks about the “personal problems” that he’s had in the last year.
“He’s f—ing nuts, this guy,” Peter says.
“You sound like you’re out of the f—ing Godfather,” Ramsay snaps back.
The dialog throughout this episode is incredible people, I’m telling you.
Ramsay finally cuts to the chase and something everyone can easily agree with: “I think this place would f—ing run better without you.”
Eventually, Peter vows to recommit to the business as he realizes that Ramsay told him the things that everyone was thinking. And meanwhile, the next night’s service went well, the diners enjoyed the family style meals, and the restaurant turned a profit.
The episode ends with Peter taking the initiative to bring in a priest to give the restaurant a blessing, and we learn that Peter has been making a genuine effort in the weeks following Ramsay’s visit to the restaurant.
With things back on track, Peter talks about how he now loves Ramsay, and vows to name his first child Gordon Ramsay Pelligrino.
🍽 Want more? Check out Pop Thruster’s Kitchen Nightmares episode reviews (there’s a lot).
Kitchen Nightmares, “Peter’s”: is it still open?
The answer to “Is Peter’s still open” is a loud and resounding no, sadly.
In fact, the story gets really sad and even sordid in the months following the airing of this episode in 2007.
Via the Kitchen Nightmares Wiki:
Peter’s closed in 2008. Peter Pellegrino, according to FBI sources, was once a made member of the Bonanno crime family, but kicked out. Yogi died in 2009. Peter as of 2011 was disowned by his family, and unemployed.
I’m not sure how much sense this makes, based on a made guy from the mafia who then got “kicked out,” so who knows?
Some stats and info about Kitchen Nightmares, “Peter’s”
TV SHOW – Kitchen Nightmares
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 1
AIRED ON – September 19th, 2007
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – FOX
GENRE – Reality TV, Docuseries, Food Shows
CAST – Gordon Ramsay