Chef Ramsay is back for season 5 with a new cast of cooks vying for the top prize. The 16 Hell’s Kitchen 5 contestants are:
Andrea
30
Line cook
Reading, PA
Ben Walanka
26
Executive sous chef
Chicago, IL
Carol Scott
30
Sous chef
Knoxville, TN
Charlie McCain
24
Prep chef
Las Vegas, NV
Coi
22
Caf cook
Austin, TX
Colleen Cleek
41
Cooking school instructor
Papillion, NE
Danny Veltri
23
Executive chef
Edgewater, FL
Giovanni
37
Executive chef
Destin, FL
J Maxwell
32
Food court chef
Clifton Park, NY
Ji-Hyun Cha
33
Private caterer
Palisades Park, NJ
LA
23
Line cook
Las Vegas, NV
Lacey D’Angelo
24
Corporate buffet cook
Charlotte, NC
Paula Dasilva
28
Executive sous chef
Coconut Creek, FL
Robert
29
Sous chef
Quogue, NY
Seth Levine
27
Private party chef
New York, NY
Wil Kocol
27
Quality-control chef
Elgin, IL
Immediately after being selected, the teams get right to work preparing their signature dishes.
Carol
Dish: Caramelized onions.
Discussion with Chef Ramsay: she began cooking professionally at age 25.
Critique: Flavor is spot on.
Wil
Dish: Rabbit cooked two ways.
Discussion with Chef Ramsay: His pride pin.
Critique: Great flavor, 0 for presentation.
Ji
Dish: Miso sake Chilean seabass
Discussion with Chef Ramsay: Has been cooking about 4 years.
Critique: Looks like she’s been cooking for 15 years.
Robert
Dish: Potato and white truffle wrapped Chilean seabass.
Discussion with Chef Ramsay: Doesn’t do small portions.
Critique: Bass cooked nicely, but sauce is disgusting. The dish is clumsy, like him.
Lacey
Dish: Chicken and blackberries
Critique: You serve, they eat, then they vomit.
Danny
Dish: mahi gone bananas
Critique: Looks like you’ve gone slightly bananas. Hideous.
Giovanni is called the only executive chef in America who can’t cook rice. Charlie is told his meal is a joke. L.A. is told her dish is terrible, and J gets an F.
Colleen
Dish: Smoked chicken enchiladas
Discussion with Chef Ramsay: After pronouncing her name repeatedly because Chef Ramsay is too slow to get it, she says she’s not a trained chef but teaches chefs to cook.
Critique: Spits it out.
Oh, and Colleen wants Chef Ramsay to know she teaches manners, too.
Andrea is told the flavor is spot on. Coi is told her dish is delicious and perfectly cooked. Paula cooked beautifully.
Seth
Dish: Lamb chops on a bed of ratatouille
Critique: Spits it out. Worst dish he’s ever tasted.
Ben
Dish: peking duck breast
Critique: Nice, attractive, tastes good, by far the best on the men’s team (which isn’t saying a lot).
Based on the signature dishes, Chef Ramsay calls this the best group they’ve ever had, although the women clearly dominated the men.
The chefs are prepping for the grand reopening. They have 10 hours from 8am to get ready.
Lacey says she wants to watch the others before doing anything because she doesn’t have line experience. It’s not long before she’s whining and saying she quits. This is before the first dinner service even begins. The women are over her already.
The guys think Seth is useless.
After having a smoke and pouting for a while, Lacey returns to her team and remains as useless as she had been previously.
The women are team Saffron. Not all of them are happy with this choice. The men are the Blues Brothers.
Chef Ramsay asks for two volunteers. Carol and Giovanni volunteer… and are made waiters. Charlie is made to shave his freaky beard.
Coi begins yelling a bunch of words that aren’t entirely clear since they’re mostly bleeped out. She’s not happy with Lacey.
Both teams give off their first impression with their waiters. Giovanni’s first trick is to figure out what’s actually on the menu. Carol seems to be doing okay, though.
Lacey continues to struggle in the red kitchen, apparently not knowing how to turn the gas on in her oven. Colleen has decided to change Chef Ramsay’s recipe for one of the dishes.
Then the power goes out. No food is coming out of either kitchen, so Carol starts handing out wine. It takes about 20 minutes for the power to be restored.
Danny’s got a big mouth and realizes it.
Giovanni’s still clueless as a waiter. He doesn’t remember what the customers ordered.
Colleen says she’s okay with taking criticism because she’s a lot older than most of the people there. This is a good thing because she’s screwing up everything.
Ramsay has a nickname for Seth: Forest (as in Forest Gump).
Wil’s struggling to keep up and needs assistance from everybody on the garnish.
As if they weren’t having enough trouble already, all of the customers walk out. Having to make a decision about who won, Chef Ramsay must base it on the service in the dining room. 88% of the people rated Carol above average. Giovanni, on the other hand, was rated below average by 90%. So the men have lost and need to nominate two team members.
Danny nominates Wil, who is okay with that and nominates himself. Seth and Giovanni are the other two names that are mentioned.
Wil has been nominated for his performance on the garnish. Seth has been nominated for not caring about being there. They believe Wil has the heart to be there. Robert claims he’s willing to go up there in place of Wil, if only Wil didn’t nominate himself.
Chef Ramsay has chosen to eliminate Wil. He doesn’t think Wil has the will to succeed.
Stay tuned to dingoRUE for another live recap of Hell’s Kitchen Season 5 Episode 2, which airs Thursday at 9/8c on Fox.