“Yes, Chef”

You can’t be expected to do anything if you don’t take responsibility.

Cooking competition shows such as “Hell’s Kitchen’ are full of drama, arcs, and people who would do anything to win. As one could expect communication, working as a team, and not screwing up the massive amount of food that has to pass inspection and be fed to hungry customers is essential, but sometimes people do mess up. Gordon Ramsay each time calls the mistake to varying degrees of severity and a wide array of excuses. Gordon Ramsey expects one thing every time a mistake is called, a “Yes, Chef”. This shows that they heard the mistake, understood it, and promised that it wouldn’t be done again, of course, sometimes people want to make excuses.

This is best shown with Anton from season 12, He was one of the front runners, a vocal leader, had astonishing dinner services, great challenge wins, and overall showed great promise at the start of the season to not even make it to the final six, Every mistake he made he had an excuse for but the episode in question is episode 14 of season 12. In summary, during dinner service, he overcooked the wellingtons. Twenty minutes passed before food was served to the dining room. Chef Andi told him to pull it together, only for him to reply “I have it together” to which Chef Andi said, “Shut up and say ‘Yes, Chef'”.

If he was the best, then why was he messing up? The ovens were prepped for the exact time and temperature needed. The only way to overcook the wellingtons would be to ignore the timers. During the lineup, he said this and Ramsay promptly told him to shut up. During elimination, Anton was put against Scott, who had served raw chicken. Because of the danger of raw chicken Ramsay normally eliminates them but that didn’t happen here, he eliminated Anton. Ramsay decided that a chef with an ego so large that they couldn’t see their mistakes isn’t a good chef at all, no matter how much experience that chef may have. Eliminations always end with Ramsay explaining why he eliminated the person, Anton he said, “Anton let the little success he had in Hell’s Kitchen inflate his ego, it was time to let the air out of that balloon.” (Season 12 Episode 14, 41:57).

Taking responsibility is something of great value, Anton very well could have won if it weren’t for his ego and refusal to admit fault, if he had learned to just shut up and learn to move on. Anton could have done great things, but he didn’t. But who did win season 12? Scott. When he served that raw chicken he didn’t excuse his behavior or talk back, he said ‘Yes, Chef.’ and never served raw chicken again. Scott won because he allowed himself to grow.

“kitchen” by megpi is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.