Did Gordon Ramsay really find ‘Florida’s Worst Dish’ on Kitchen Nightmares?

While Florida remains infamous both on- and off-screen, Gordon Ramsay has only visited the state a few times on Kitchen Nightmares.

What do you get when the state of Florida, with its outrageous news stories, sprawling swamplands and gators-galore collide with the equally-notorious sharp-tongued Chef Gordon Ramsay?

Well, only some of the most entertaining episodes in the Kitchen Nightmares history, of course.

Gordon Ramsay’s limited Floridian Kitchen Nightmares interventions

It is unlikely that any longtime Kitchen Nightmares fans will forget Cece’s mid-service meltdown, the staff at Fleming reading obituaries to see if they lost any loyal customers, or the moment that Ramsay nearly chipped his tooth on a dish, anytime soon.

But as it turns, that Ramsay has only made a total of three trips to Florida throughout Kitchen Nightmares’ first seven seasons.

So while there is no denying that Anna Vincenzo’s Salmon DiVino left much to be desired, Ramsay’s claims that it was “Florida’s Worst Dish Ever” holds considerably less weight when you consider that he probably only sampled about a dozen dishes from the state.

So it seems like this celebrity chef will have to pack his tank tops and head back to Florida if he truly wants to find this state’s worst dish.

All of the Kitchen Nightmares episodes that featured Florida restaurants

While Ramsay may have only made the trip to Florida less than a handful of times during his years filming for Kitchen Nightmares, these episodes, which are outlined below, are certainly worth a watch (or a re-watch):

Ramsay did return to Florida for a Kitchen Nightmares “Revisited” episode

As far as the success rate of Kitchen Nightmares’ restaurants go, season three actually did not do badly. As a result, Ramsay was able to return to the sunshine state for the season three “Revisited No. 5” episode, which aired on March 18, 2011.

In this episode, Ramsay stops by Lido di Manhattan (another one of Kitchen Nightmares’ success stories ). He then ventured back into Florida to make his return to Le Bistro and Anna Vincenzo’s – well sort of.

When Ramsay returned to Anna Vincenzo’s during this episode, he was surprised to find that Cece had sold the restaurant and had undergone a dramatic weight loss, after deciding that she needed to focus on her family.

Things at Le Bistro, on the other hand, had improved considerably and Elin told the celebrity chef that their business had improved by about 20 percent.

Which of the Florida Kitchen Nightmares interventions was the most successful?

As of the beginning of 2023, Kitchen Nightmares’ overall success rate was hovering around 21 percent.

And, while there has been numerous debates about why this number is so low, native Floridians should be happy to hear that one Florida-based restaurant has managed to stick it out on the show’s ever-dwindling ”Still Open” list.

The one Florida Kitchen Nightmares intervention which was a rousing success is Le Bistro’s.

Not only has this restaurant managed to stay open for more than a decade after its episode aired, but it is still getting very positive reviews to this day, with a 4.5 out of 5-star rating on both TripAdvisor and OpenTable.

Unfortunately though, Florida’s other Kitchen Nightmares restaurants did not fair quite as well and Anna Vincenzo’s and Fleming both closed just a few months after their episodes aired in 2010.

The state that Gordon Ramsay visits the most in Kitchen Nightmares

While Florida’s appearance on the Kitchen Nightmares roundup may be limited to only three restaurants across all the current eight seasons (yes, Kitchen Nightmares has officially started airing its rebooted eighth season), there are two main states that this accomplished chef and restaurateur seems to return to time and time again.

Throughout the course of Kitchen Nightmares’ first seven seasons, Ramsay re-made restaurants from New Jersey and New York, a total of 9 and 15 times, respectively.

And it seems like these states have now become such Kitchen Nightmares staples that the production team has decided to only stick to these two states for the show’s newly-revived eighth season.

David DeAngelis, Kitchen Nightmares’ executive producer, revealed the secret about the show’s penchant towards these states in an interview with Parade.

According to DeAngelis, staying within the confines of New York and New Jersey allowed them to “get some of the better personalities and also a variety of restaurants” for this new season.