Gordon Ramsay may have just met his Kitchen Nightmares match when it comes to Booby Fortunato, the executive “gangster” chef at Bask46.
After more than a decade away, Kitchen Nightmares and everyone’s favorite sharp-tongued Scottish chef, Gordon Ramsay, has finally returned to the small screen for the season eight reboot of the show.
But episode 2’s Bask46 and its owner, Steve Baskinger and executive chef, Bobby Fortunato, may have been bad enough to make Ramsay consider throwing in the Kitchen Nightmares towel again, for another extended hiatus.
In this episode, Ramsay travelled to Woodland Park in New Jersey, to investigate what exactly was causing Bask46, Baskinger’s second major restaurant venture, to fail within its first six months.
It did not take long for the celebrity chef to realize that he may have met his foul-mouthed match in the form of Fortunato, the self-proclaimed “Culinary Gangster”.
Kitchen Nightmares’ “gangster” Chef
For a start, Ramsay was left flabbergasted right at the beginning of the episode when Baskinger revealed that this “gangster” chef was apparently rolling in money.
He was earning about $100,000 a year. But the surprise revelations did not end there.
Not only did Fortunato threaten Ramsay at multiple points during this episode, even going as far as to warning the chef about his tone in a line that sounded like it came straight out of a cop movie from the ‘80s:
“You’re ******* with the culinary gangster … Be careful how you talk to me” (delivered entirely un-ironically), but he had also been telling white lies about the food being homemade and was working out of a truly filthy kitchen, delivering huge portions to all of the patrons who entered Bask46.
Examining Bask46’s timeline leading up to Kitchen Nightmares
Bask46 stands in stark contrast to Bel Aire, the over 50-year-old diner which was featured in the first episode of Kitchen Nightmares season eight, as it had only opened a few months prior to Ramsay’s arrival.
The entire Bask46 timeline, thus far, can be summarized as follows:
| Date | Event |
| February 2023 | Steve Baskinger opens Bask46 |
| May 20 to 24, 2023 | Bask46 announces that it will be closing for “improvements” (we now know that this was when the Kitchen Nightmares filming took place) |
| October 2, 2023 | The “Bask 46” episode of Kitchen Nightmares premieres and the restaurant debuts its new menu |
The now-unemployed “Culinary Gangster”
Watching Fortunato live out his “gangster” fantasy on this episode of Kitchen Nightmares was certainly highly entertaining, but it seems like he may have taken it a bit too far.
Baskinger revealed in a recent interview with the Daily Voice, that he already felt like Fortunato, “wasn’t going to last much longer,” before Ramsay arrived.
But once his former executive chef started picking fights with Baskinger’s wife and walked out mid-shift after Ramsay left, he was let go from the restaurant permanently.
In true “Culinary Gangster” fashion, Fortunato took to social media to claim that Baskinger apparently has “no clue” about how to run a restaurant and only fired him because he had been looking for someone to blame for his failure (complete with The Godfather-themed background music, of course).
Steve Baskinger and the Kitchen Nightmares aftermath
Although Fortunato’s television-feud with Ramsay has stirred up quite the buzz amongst Kitchen Nightmares fans since the episode aired, Baskinger seemingly may have his own issues with the show.
The owner commented “Gordon will not be there ! Thank god ! His food does not compare … and he is a complete a******” on May 25, 2023, underneath the Bask46 grand re-opening announcement, implying that he may not have been so happy with Ramsay’s improvements.
But Baskinger may have to learn to run his new restaurant, as his other restaurant ‘BASK Bar and Grill’, may be knocked down soon to make room for a new Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through spot.
What to expect for the next episode of Kitchen Nightmares
The news that Ramsay would be returning to Fox for an eighth season of Kitchen Nightmares has spread all around the globe like wildfire.
But Ramsay and his team have kept most of the details for the upcoming episodes tightly under wraps.
The good news is that Bask46, with all of its screaming matches and hilariously funny moments, was only the second episode of the season, which bodes well for something even more entertaining potentially happening somewhere down the line.
David DeAngelis, the showrunner of Kitchen Nightmares, shared with Parade earlier this year that although Kitchen Nightmares will stick to restaurants located in the East Coast for this season, fans can look forward to seeing some more big personalities throughout the ten episodes.
