Terrible one-way system!

Kellie may be a lovely person away from food, but the sitting on counter tops, dirty nails (she used to drive army trucks - maybe she's still missing them & the dirty nails are her tribute to the good old days ) and the even poorer man's Eliza Doolittle performance didn't do anything for me. (Actually, change Eliza Doolittle for Emma from Big Brother.) I can't think of anything Kellie said or did in the series that was remotely interesting. Repetitive yes, crawling yes, but interesting no. The "Yes, Chef" became so automatic that she even said it to Angus Deayton on the night the vote was between her & Gary!

Her dishes received no honestly positive comments from the diners, not even from her own chef who encouraged to believe what he said instead of what the diners did. She may be a good cleaner-upper & there's no doubt her voice will be heard above all the hustle & bustle in a busy restaurant, but she's clearly not a good enough cook for a £250k investment to be made in her. The money is exactly that, an investment that will allow the programme makers to report back on how the restaurant's doing in the months ahead, especially in the run-up to the next series. Part of the restaurant's success/failure will be due to the level of trade brought to it by the name associated with it. Knowing someone from Hell's Kitchen owns it won't bring in the diners, but the chance of someone from the show actually cooking the meal could well do so. They're not going to award the prize to someone who didn't show any star quality in the cooking stakes - can you imagine what would happen if the restaurant was short-staffed? "Sorry mate, everything's off except the chips, but I can do you a coupla lagers". Knowing one end of a sprout from the other does not a signature dish make. No, no, no.

The money isn't for a cafe or a mobile food van (not that there's anything wrong with either of those), it's for a restaurant, where people can presumably expect to eat food cooked by clean hands with more than a bit of imagination, not by a woman who can barely talk without dribbling. It was reported the other day that she said if she won, she'd call her restaurant "Kell's Kitchen" - umm, that name must have taken oooh 2 seconds to think up? No, surely not that much. The name shows as much originality as she did.

I don't know whether Terry was the most deserving out of all the contestants (my choice would have been between him and Aaron) , but I'm 100% sure Kellie wasn't.

I'm with you on this robinsbatman. I never really cared to watch this series only at random ( hate Rhodes and Novelii can't speak proper english so hardly worth watching either) but was curious enough to watch it last night to see who'll (un)deservedly win the £250k.

Between Kellie and Terry I have to say that Terry deserved the money the reason being:

Terry - "I intend to get michelin star for my restaurant".

Kellie - "I'll serve pubgrub".

But like robinsbatman I think it should have been between Aaron & Terry.

I felt sorry for Kellie she was told she would win by JC and she did get a little to cocky, she took it well but it was obvious she thought she would win, she worked hard and rarely panicked but unfortunately her cooking wasn't up to scratch thats why Terry won, he could cook even if he did not have her running the kitchen skills at the end of the day it was about cooking hope JC gives her a job and teaches her to cook more than pub grub

Why is everyone saying her cooking wasn't up to scratch? When they changed kitchens the initially doubtful GR tried the sausage she made and pronounced it very good indeed. When the opposition gives praise, you know you really are doing something right.

That's part of the problem right there. The chefs may have liked an individual item that she cooked, but the diners (albeit on a freebie) didn't rate her cooking so she didn't get high enough praise to get enough votes from the viewing public at the final hurdle. That, coupled with her poor hygiene standards, meant that she was only going to win if the person against her was worse than her, rather than if she was better at cooking than them.

There's no doubt she did well to stay until the last two, but at some point people have to look at the business end of things - when one person has high aspirations & has proved himself both willing & capable of improving his standards, & the other is aiming for pub grub & hasn't proved herself even able to do that to a high standard, the one who aims higher has a greater chance of the money going their way. Pub food is fine, but there are plenty of those establishments. Terry is far more likely to create something original with that money (I can do without seeing the Rockerfeller Prawn dish again, though ), & I bet he'll aim to provide food at a reasonable price too. I suspect she'd either eat it or waste it.

She's a harmless enough girl in herself, but those nails could kill, & if she can have those nails & can sit on a worktop in clothes she's been working in for hours who knows what other standards she'd let slip? If she can't show a recognised improvement in her cooking with over 2 weeks of very professional help available, & has hands that look like she's been digging for truffles, then she doesn't need £250k. She needs £20 for a pair of rubber gloves, a bar of soap, a nail brush & a Delia Smith or Jamie Oliver cookbook - they're easy to read (I don't mean that in a nasty way) & will help her to learn to do restaurant-level food at a slower pace.

You obviously did not see the clips of the raw fish she cooked as her special, the sausage came last to the others and also her cooking was rated last by the night the food critics were in, sam's dish was first terry's second simon third gary 4th kellie last still think she is a lovely girl though

To the people who said that she just wanted to make pub grub, she did say that but she also said that she would want to serve an a la carte menu at night.

I think it's a shame that she lost. You could tell how much she wanted it. Terry was ok too though and I don't begrudge him the win.

That entire post along with the earlier one you made about the brussel sprout has had me laughing to myself whenever I thought of Kellie faced with a pile of sprouts.

I'm not entirely sure I agree with you- but you're making me laugh too much to disagree

Well remembered, taurus girl. I quote: "I left it in for 4 minutes - the oven must have been too low". That will be her Hell's Kitchen epitaph - her whole experience summed up in one sentence. If that food had been eaten by a member of the public, it could have been theirs.

Serve, not cook. Who's going to pay £250k for a waitress? I don't care if she can spin plates on her eyelashes, that's still too much money (would she want a tip on top? ). As for an a la carte menu at night, can I presume that would be once the chef she employed came on shift?

Thanks, LadyKnight. The best way to win an argument is to make someone laugh into submission - self-respect preserved on both sides I've only just noticed my pun in the first one - "cooking stakes".

LOL. nice pun.

Well when you write a post and can fillet with humour, and as long as you can get somebody to meat your opinion with a smile of their face, then nobody will have a beef with you.
Mind you, they would be stewpid if they did.

Well done

One of those statements is based on reality; the other on self-delusion. I'll let you decide which one is which.

Agreed, it's all about running a business and that's a different skills set. Kellie could have upped her game by investing some more training; nothing's going to turn Terry into a manager, he doesn't have the people skills or personality. Nice bloke but too passive. He showed that when he lost control of his team. I had my doubts about Kellie at times (especially when she said she admired Jade Goodie ) but overall I thought she had by far the more potential. Also, her team got scores of 9. They wouldn't have achieved this if the diners had slated her meals. It would have pulled the overall score down.

Not strictly true, most bookies only take minimal bets on reality TV shows, and very few were betting on Hells Kitchen at all so I cant see it being a betting coup.
I had avoid looking at the betting through the series, and was expecting Kellie to be a 1/3 shot on the final day, but was surprised to see 4/6 Terry and 11/10 Kellie. Luckily I didnt wade in as I was planning too!

Kellie's team got high scores because of the work of the others (maybe the scores would have been even higher if she'd done better), but she consistently came near the bottom when it came to assessments of what she cooked. JC wouldn't even let her see some of the comments.

People buy into the food & atmosphere of a restaurant - the personality of the chef isn't usually the issue (because most people won't meet him/her), but their cooking skills are. I agree that Terry is maybe too laid back, but employing a team he can trust will go a long way to resolving that - he could then be the chef without worrying so much about what the others are doing. Kellie is a different kettle of fish from Terry - she can't cook to a sufficiently high standard, & is therefore a long way from being in a position to tell others how to cook a dish properly or correct things when they go wrong. If she did that in her own restaurant & cooking staff left, she'd be stuffed (getting a bit carried away with the puns now ). £250k is an awful lot of money to pay for someone to learn to cook, or even worse for them to find out that they can't. She can be as funny as she likes, but if she can't cook well & safely in a restaurant, people won't go back there.

The point of the prize is not to have the winner be the maitre d' or the off-site manager of the restaurant, but be the actual chef in their restaurant - if they wanted to offer a prize of managing a restaurant to someone, then the show would have been geared around managing an establishment. Kellie might be good enough to be the chef in her own restaurant in a year's time, but not now, when the prize is actually on offer.

I absolutely agree with everything you said. Terry was a backstabber that didn't like anyone else getting any praise. Why no one could see what he was like is beyond me. So he should be good at cooking, he cooks for a living for goodness sake. To be honest, there was no one person that I like enough to vote for throughout the show but I would have rather have seen Kelly win than Terry, nasty person he is. I also thought he was a lot older than he is, can't believe he is only 46, seems like he is in his late 50's.

How hard it is up north?? Terry has not got a clue!

This link from our local Paper says Terry is from Darras Hall Link to news paper

Now check out THIS LINK (type in Ponteland for the area) to see how poor and hard it is to live where Terry lives.

Most of his neigbours are Newcastles biggest business men and people like Alan Shearer.


Daz

Oo Darras Hall is nice. It's all tree lined drives and enormo houses..

I thought Kellie did really well, what with idiots like gary and stein in her kitchen, she did really well only to blow her top just the once! Well done that girl!
I was annoyed with Sam and Aaron on the final night, they really messed Terry around, Sam had clearly been on the town the night before and shouldn't have volunteered anyway if she'd felt that ill. No excuses, both Aaron and Sam were pretty poor that night. Gary wasn't much better support for Kellie either. She was being overly kind. Good luck to them both anyway, hope Kellie does well with whatever she does and I wish Terry the best for his 'Rockefeller'

I could not agree more!! Of course coming from the area I would say that, but we have so much to offer and we are officially Europes Number 1 City Break Destination, thats right we are better than London for a city break!

We are a modern, buzzing, cosmopolitan city, Grey Street in Newcastle was voted the best street in Britain and some people say the world, we have the Baltic, Laign Art Gallery, Sage, Europes biggest shopping centre, Northumberland Street, Beamish, Newcastle United with one of the best stadiums in the world, Millenium Bridge, Europes best night life, and a train system (Metro) that aint a crap hole like the tube!

Most importantly we are friendly and welcoming, unlike London, where it is cold, busy and unnatractive, yes you are the capital but if Buckingham palace and parliment wasn't there what would you have?!

The North East region as a whole is currently the place to be.