Location: Boston, Massachusetts
In the first half of a two-part special, Gordon must rescue an Italian restaurant owned by two heavily drinking and smoking sisters in competition with their fellow restauranteur mother (who owns the restaurant across the street and has succeeded where they failed) and blaming the failure of their own restaurant on literally anything that comes to mind.
Tropes
- Berserk Button: Gordon becomes absolutely furious when he sees Doug cooking chicken he previously dropped on the floor and not giving a care about the complaints.
- Brutal Honesty: Sara tells Ramsay just what is wrong with the place without hiding any uncomfortable moments.
- The Cobbler's Children Have No Shoes: The head chef Doug, despite working in an Italian restaurant, doesn't eat any Italian food, instead going for Chinese.
- Dysfunction Junction: Holy Hell yes. The amount of melodrama on display would give an average soap opera a run for their money. Rita and Lisa are insanely stressed by their work and have no ability to control their staff and turned to smoking and drinking to help, head chef Doug is Rita's ex and almost goes out of his way to cook badly (including cooking a piece of chicken from the floor in front of Gordon Ramsay), Pat the busboy is insistent that he is the real manager...it just goes on and on. Even the waitress Sara, the seeming Only Sane Man of La Galleria 33, is going out of her way to humiliate her bosses, and as it turned out was also skimming from other workers tips.
- George Jetson Job Security: Pat, the busboy, was once fired by Rita for claiming he's more important than he is, but she was forced to rehire him after he's spent a lot of time outside the restaurant during heavy rain looking at her with Puppy-Dog Eyes, and she's allowed him to call himself a general manager.
- Head-in-the-Sand Management: Nobody knows what exactly is going on in the whole restaurant, and even the owner and the head chef had no idea they ran out of tiramisu, and Doug didn't seem to care much, not to say about Rita and Lisa being unaware of Doug's unhygienic cooking standards.
- Head Desk: Ramsay after finding out how old some of the food is.
- Jaded Professional: Doug is perfectly capable of making good dishes, but he's got to the point he no longer cares, not even bothering to make some tiramisu for Ramsay's return and continuing to cook the food he dropped on the floor before..
- Lady Drunk: Lisa, the younger sister, is almost constantly seen with a glass of wine.
- Must Have Nicotine: Rita, the older sister, is chain smoking all the time due to the stress of the job.
- Nervous Wreck: Over the course of the episode Rita's turned into a quivering mess due to the combination of Sara and Pat's trolling, the unfortunate events and the fear of Ramsay.
- Never My Fault: Rita, Lisa and Doug are quick to blame others for their own failures, but never themselves.
- Poor Communication Kills: Gordon notices that Doug and others cooks don't talk to each other while cooking and becomes flabbergasted over the lack of communication.
- Practically Different Generations: Rita and Lisa have a large age gap which contributes to the friction between them.
- Refuge in Audacity: Seemingly attempted by chef Doug. He not only drops a raw cutlet of chicken on the floor and puts it back in a pan to cook... but after picking it up he looks at Gordon Ramsay for a few seconds and openly tells him it fell, before dropping it in the pan.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Lisa leaves the restaurant in the middle of the evening service after being scolded by Ramsay along with Rita.
- Stepford Smiler: Sara, the waitress serving Gordon, has a large smile on her face even when telling him about the problems with the restaurant.
- Supreme Chef: Lia, the mother of the sisters, who brings in a delicious tiramisu for Ramsay from her own restaurant.
- This Is Gonna Suck: Rita and Lisa start panicking when Sara suggested that Gordon should order a seafood ravioli, the one dish the customers had been complaining about before he came.
- Troll: Sara's actions, though well-intentioned at the core, are made to piss off the sisters with some spite.
- Working with the Ex: Doug, the head chef, had been married to Rita before the episode.
