• Published 21st Dec 2018
  • 14,965 Views, 1,114 Comments

Kitchen Nightmares: Equestrian Misadventures - Spettro138



Everyone's favorite raging Scotsman comes to Equestria at the request of Twilight Sparkle to sort out the country's bad restaurants and bad hotels.

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The First Nightmare part 1

Author's Note:

Here in this chapter, I am going to experiment with the mini "interview" segments of the Kitchen Nightmares episodes where the film crew cuts to individual segments of the chef and his/her staff talking about what is happening in a given situation. Tell me if it works or if there is a better way I can incorporate it.

Give me any suggestions to better each "episode" in the fic if you want to. I always appreciate the help.

This is still an extremely experimental fic, so I'm still trying out what works and what doesnt work so be a little gentle with me.

Meanwhile, back at the Sparkle house, Gordon was becoming quite the popular one as he gave them another demonstration of his skills as a chef by making lunch. It seemed that Night Light was quite impressed with Gordon as he began to mimic Twilight by pulling out a notepad and furiously scribbled down everything that he saw Gordon doing. Applejack and Rainbow Dash were thoroughly amused by how similar the unicorn and former unicorn acted. Spike on the other hand was indisposed as Velvet insisted on bathing the little drake and dressing him in a tiny tuxedo after she heard they were all going to Restaurant Row; Much to Spike's dismay and Twilight's amusement.

After their social visit to her parents, Twilight and the rest of their little group went around to a few of the more upscale sights of Canterlot to get Gordon a bit more acquainted with the place. At Gordon's request, Twilight helped him speak to some of the local ponies to get the local scoop on Zesty Gourmand's restaurant. Twilight set up a small booth in the Plains District on the outer section of the city. They found from many of Canterlot's more sociable residents that Zesty Gourmand's style of mostly tasteless food with poor portions drove away most of the normal tourists and residents who weren't in the upper class. Lately, however, even she had trouble keeping her own customers in the nobility coming to her restaurant, though nopony was entirely sure why.

After a few hours of investigating, the group decided to head back to the castle for the night. They made their way back into the Royal District and entered once again into the Royal Palace. Inside, Twilight then guided the group into the dining room where they found the Royal Sisters and the rest of their human and pony friends occupying seats at the very large table going up and down the center of the room, and joined them.

"Everything goes smoothly Jay? Luna?" he asked.

"Oh yeah, we did alright all things considered," Jay replied.

"Verily. Other than a fool that temporarily needed my wrath to see reason--" Luna started.

"Luna, don't tell me you paralyzed another pony," Celestia asked humorously.

"Not...this time sister. We simply stamped our authority on the fool verbally with our Canterlot Voice. It seems that their fear of it has brought me more than one benefit in this modern age. Zesty Gourmand was just as difficult as Lady Rarity described her to be and I fear you may be facing great peril, Sir Gordon. We do not wish harm to befall thee this soon into thou's exploits around Equestria."

Gordon simply smiled at her for her thoughtfulness. It was vaguely strange for him to relax so casually with and talk with what was essentially royalty in this manner. It was rather refreshing to him to talk so casually with a member of royalty in this way. He remembers the times when he has cooked for the Kremlin, The White House, and Buckingham Palace, but he never got the chance to actually sit down with the President of the Queen and just talk with them like this.

"You just let me worry about that your Majesty," Gordon said. "Though, I will admit that this does put a bit of a twist on how I usually do my show."

The next morning, Princess Celestia had arranged for a few of the castle servants to wash Gordon's clothes along with all of his team so that they could look presentable for the public. While they were doing this, they each had the opportunity to wash off in one of the castle's thousand shower rooms which they greatly appreciated. After two days of running around, and falling into the dirt after their haphazard teleportation into Equestria, they were glad to get the chance to clean themselves.

After a quick breakfast with Celestia and the other girls, Gordon finally set off with his team, accompanied by Rarity and Twilight to Zesty Gourmand's main restaurant to begin his three-day process of changing it into something people and ponies alike can enjoy dining at. The other girls stayed behind, as requested by the Princess so that they can attend a friendship summit to meet Prince Blackthorn of the Woodland White Tails.

They had made it halfway to Zesty's Subtilité Du Goût when Gordon started thinking of a few more things that he wanted to inquire the girls about before they get started.

"I don't think I've asked yet Miss Rarity. Since you know her a bit better than I do, didn't you say that Zesty was just a food critic initially?"

"Yes, that's right. Before, she was primarily Canterlot's top food critic." Rarity explained. "Those hoof prints on those hanging signs you saw the other day were proof of that. The fate of every restaurant in this town used to depend on Zesty's evaluation of it. I used to think that system separated the rabble from the quality eateries, but dear Saffron proved me wrong."

"What happened?" Gordon asked with an eyebrow raised.

"Ms. Gourmand made the critiquing business into too much of a monopoly." she continued. "When ponies took the time to try out the restaurants she critiqued and forced into changing, every restaurant on the row began to be shut down, and her reputation was ruined. It serves her right. We used to be somewhat close acquaintances, but after she insulted me and my friends, she lost that privilege."

"From what I understand, the Princess had to call in somepony named Chef Wolfgang Buck from Manehatten to fix everything and assign new restaurants to the Row," Twilight finished for her. "Now Chef Buck is the premier chef here in Canterlot."

"I still can't get over the fact my colleagues have doppelgangers with fuckin ridiculous names here," he muttered. "I can only imagine what kind of name my doppelganger has or what he looks like."

Twilight and Rarity looked at each other and giggled sheepishly.

"Don't tell him yet," Twilight whispered to Rarity who nodded violently.

Without Celestia and Luna dissuading them from approaching, reporters and various upper-class citizens tried to swarm them, asking various questions and giving Twilight petty requests. They decided to take a less conspicuous route to their destination. Dodging and ducking through the side roads of Canterlot, the group eventually made it back to the bustling Restaurant Row. At the end of the street, Gordon came face to face with Zesty Gourmand's premier eatery.

"Well, let's see what I am getting myself into," he said to himself as he went through the front door.

At the front counter was a unicorn mare that didn't appear to be that much older than Twilight. She had a lemon yellow coat of fur and a cyan mane with white high lights. As soon as she saw Twilight and Rarity alongside Gordon coming through the front door, she jumped in surprise before calming herself down.

"Princess Twilight! Lady Rarity!" the mare exclaimed. "How may I help you? May I get you a table here?"

"No thank you, we are simply here to help our friend here with whatever he needs." Twilight respectfully declined.

Gordon stepped forward and outstretched one of his hands in a friendly gesture.

"Hello there miss, I'm the chef that was called by your princesses. Gordon Ramsay."

For a moment, he expected the mare to shrink away and cower in a corner, but she then immediately stuck her hoof in his hand and shook it vigorously. A bright smile adorned her face while she was doing it which Gordon reciprocated.

"Thank you very much for coming Chef Ramsay! I'm Lemon Drop. I am the manager and hostess of the restaurant," she explained.

"Very lovely to meet you miss Lemon Drop," Gordon replied. "I can tell you that the appearance of your restaurant makes for a good first impression. It's very....clean at least.

"We very much appreciate it," Lemon Drop said happily. "We take pride in the appearance of our eatery."

"If it's not too much trouble, may I meet the famous Miss Gourmand I have been hearing about?" Gordon asked kindly.

"Absolutely! Please give me a moment and I shall have her here momentarily."

The mare gave Twilight a quick bow and then moved off somewhere else for a moment to bring in Zesty.

Meanwhile, Gordon took another look at the surrounding restaurant and scanned its overall decor and appearance.

Twilight was watching him and scribbling down everything that Gordon did in one of her notebooks for future reference.

"So what are you doing now Gordon?" Twilight asked quizzically.

"I'm observing the overall look and decor of the restaurant," he replied. "The look of a restaurant is very important to draw the attention of potential customers."

"I didn't know it was that important." she thought out loud.

"Of course. Much like the dresses Ms. Rarity makes, the design of a restaurant has a subconscious impact on potential customers." Gordon explained. "The color of the restaurant has to not only appeal to the customer, but it also has to coincide with the genre of the food they are serving. For example, a lot of fast-food restaurants where I come from using the color red. For whatever reason, red increases people's heart rates and makes them hungry quicker, eat quickly and leave quickly so that more customers can fill up the restaurant. Different colors do different things to people. Sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are bad for a restaurant depending on how much of a certain color you use."

"I think I understand darling," Rarity nodded. "The same thing certainly applies when I make clothing. Certain colors go well with the fur color of specific ponies and others don't."

"And does Zesty's restaurant have that problem?" Twilight asked. "It seems like the colors here are kinda on the dulled outside."

"Heavily," he agreed with irritation. "A light color scheme like this, when used properly, is great for small, I repeat SMALL upscale bistros and casual eateries, to make them look clean and relaxing, but here there's too much of it. It makes everything look sterile."

Suddenly, a grey-colored mare with a bright pink mane came walking out of a side room with Lemon Drop in tow. In an instant, Gordon could see how overly confident this mare was just by her stride and her stiff posture. As soon as she set her eyes upon Gordon, the mare put on a forced smile in a vain attempt to be welcoming.

"Ah, Princess Twilight," the mare said as she approached her and gave her a short bow. "It is a great pleasure to have you grace my humble eatery with your presence. You....as well Monsieur Ramsay."

Zesty gave Rarity a sideways glare causing Rarity to give an indignant and audible "Hmph!" as she turned her head away in disgust.

"A pleasure Miss Gourmand," he respectfully greeted as he shook her hoof.

She raised her eyebrow for a moment at the gesture but respectfully returned it.

"Why don't we find somewhere to sit so I can get a more proper grasp of what is going on from the owners themselves?" Gordon suggested.

"A reasonable request Monsieur Chef Ramsay. I will show you to one of my premium booths so we may speak," Zesty replied haughtily. "Come Lemon Drop."

"Right away Madam," Lemon nervously said.

Zesty guided Gordon, Twilight, Spike, and Rarity to the back of the restaurant where a large round white table with an oversized plush bench circulated the booth. Gordon's group sat down next to each other on one end of the table while Zesty and Lemon Drop sat down at the other end.


In Zesty Gourmand's office

"One thing about Zesty that I have always struggled with is that she has an inability to change from her past life as a critic," Lemon said to her interviewer. "It has absolutely hindered things for us."


"How much did you spend while bringing this restaurant to life?" Gordon asked.

"The full amount that went into bringing my vision here to life added up to three and a half million bits Mr. Ramsay, though I don't understand why that should matter."

'Damn! And I've seen these bits that they are talking about. They're pure gold and about the size of a quarter. With the going rate of gold in the U.S at the moment, three million of those bits comes out to a little over $728 million back on Earth!' he thought to himself. 'I can see why these ponies don't just let anyone come here'

"Well the success of a restaurant ultimately depends on how much profit you earn back from how much it took to build it and the love of your customers so that they come back." he finally replied. "What kinds of problems do you think your business has that might hinder that?"

"Nothing in my restaurant is the problem, Monsieur Ramsay. These heathen ponies simply do not appreciate the subtle tastes of art that I offer at my eatery. If it were not for a certain group of ponies, my restaurant would have gained the title of the best restaurant on the row," she proclaimed.

During all of this, Gordon noticed how silent Spike and the girls were being while he was speaking with Zesty.

"Well, I'd say that's a pretty bold statement," Gordon replied. "I think we shall order some lunch now if that's alright. Then I will make my judgments or praises from there."

Zesty Gourmand simply nodded and clapped, signaling Lemon Drop to follow her away from their table and off to wherever their kitchen was located.

"So. What do you two think?" Gordon asked the three.

"All I know about this place is what I heard from Pinkie," Spike replied.

"Zesty Gourmand is just causing all of these problems herself." Rarity snootily replied. "She makes mistakes and throws her toxic attitude at everypony else."

"Rarity, we all know your clothes are always beautiful. Don't let that get to you. I will say that it seems like Lemon Drop probably has something to say about all of this. You should probably get her side of the story."

"Oh, believe me, I will," Gordon agreed. "That poor girl seemed to be deathly afraid of her boss. I'm gonna have to see if we can talk to her while Miss Gourmand is not around. Let's just hope we can survive whatever our server brings us to eat."

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