Hell’s Kitchen Season 14 Premiere Recap: A Promising Start

“Hell’s Kitchen” has opened its doors for a fourteenth season and it is off to a great start. Its was even good enough for an appearance by a famous “Star Fleet” captain.

The season premiere started off with the chefs arriving at “Hell’s Kitchen” only to find the doors locked. Chef Ramsay was standing on the roof of “Hell’s Kitchen” where he explained to the chefs what they had to do to gain entry. They had to jump from the roof onto a giant safety pillow in order to prove their commitment to the competition. The first volunteers were Enrique and Ruth.

Turns out that these two were actually paid stuntmen. They chefs did have to cook their signature dishes and, for the first the first time ever, they had to cook in front of an audience. We also got to see this season’s opening. It’s a very underwhelming opening made worse by the less than stellar CGI.

The tasting part was one of the best tastings in “Hell’s Kitchen” history with average scores from 3 to 5. The only disasters were Mieka, Chrissa and Monique each receiving one point. The worst was Monique who broke one of Ramsay’s rules: she used tomato sauce from a jar. She also didn’t see anything wrong with it. After 14 seasons she should show that canned or frozen anything are Ramsay’s pet peeves.

In the end, the Blue won 31 to 28. Their reward was meeting a surprise celebrity at “Saint Rocke” in Hermosa Beach. That celebrity was Captain Kirk himself William Shatner. Brendan was geeking out during that entire time. Also, Michael’s Kirk impression was not very good. He. Needed. To add more. Stops. To his speech.

Meanwhile, the Red spent the day setting up the dining room, putting invitations inside envelopes and closing those envelopes. Alison decided that she would be the Red’s leader. There’s plenty that can go wrong here.

Dinner service was a lot better than was normal for a first episode. That doesn’t mean that there were plenty of mistakes to be had. Chrissa started during prep where she had no idea how to do anything. Not a promising start for her.

In the Blue Cameron started with bringing up an under seasoned risotto that also needed more butter. Later, Michael brought up undercooked scallops. Basically, the usual poor scallop dish. At entrees, Milly made an undercooked lamb. Besides that, they finished service

The Red on the other hand was a disaster. Chrissa was still clueless. She first wanted to make a pizza that was not ordered, pork before apps were done and worse dessert. Is this woman for real? Ramsay even threw her out to help T at table side. Things went downhill when it came to Dean McDermott’s table. The pork was fine, but Monique’s lamb was underdone. What made matters worse was she also made another raw lamb and her oven was off. Yes, a meat station’s oven was off. Try and process that. The lamb was still raw. It got worse when there were SIX chefs at the meat station. It’s enough to make you bang your head up against a wall. Ramsay had enough and threw the entire Red Team out after another raw pork came up. Ramsay had to finish Dean McDermott’s table himself.

At elimination the Red nominated Monique and Chrissa. Ramsay also wanted to hear from Christine. Chrissa got the axe.

This episode was one of the best “Hell’s Kitchen” season premieres in a long while. The chefs look tolerable, the signature dishes were mostly excellent the drama is kept to a minimum. Chrissa had no chance to get past the first episode and this show is better off without her. In all, a promising start.