Did Gordon Ramsay Plant Fake Meat?
British contrarian, chef and Indian giver Gordon Ramsay has been having a rough go of it lately. His New York restaurant the London has been called stultifying. The realitiness of his reality TV show has been called into question, and he was recently named as a defendant in a suit brought against him by a very angry participant in his newest show ,Kitchen Nightmares. This fella claims Ramsay cost him his job and his dignity. The man is Martin Hyde of once-and-future failing restaurant Dillon's. His story, which he's finally talked about, is sad and possibly even true.
As Canada's Globe and Mail reports:
The lawsuit alleges Ramsay and the producers manipulated key elements of the show: planting bad hamburger meat in the restaurant's fridge, staging a slapstick scene of Ramsay falling off a weak chair that had been brought in by the crew; and faking its new success...
On the night the transformed restaurant made its debut, only three days after Ramsay had first walked through the doors, about 100 people flooded into the place for dinner. But the suit alleges about 90 per cent of the diners that night were either friends of Ramsay or paid extras. (And there are reasons to be skeptical about the turnout: It was a Monday, always the slowest night of the week at Dillon's because their biggest draws, the Broadway theatres, are usually dark.)
These days, the article notes, Dillon's is nearly empty. In Ramsay's defense, he never said how he would make the restaurant successful or for how long. One night, 100 people: Works for us! Maybe you should have read the small type, buddy.
