Restaurant: Impossible

Chef Irvine is bombastic and British - perfect fodder for an American food show.

This fresh update of the tired formula still being pushed by Kitchen Nightmares is worth a look. I enjoyed Gordon Ramsay when he first started, but lately the 'lay it on thick' emotional rubbish and bosses who just don't deserve help have reduced my interest in the show. If it wasn't for the show revolving around helping people (always worth supporting on that basis) I probably would have stopped watching.

Restaurant Impossible is like a nice reboot of the concept. We get to meet the crew who do the renovation, and watch it all come together. The cooking tips are real and the pressure seems genuine. I look forward to the next season, and do genuinely hope that the Kitchen Nightmares producers learn some lessons from this junior 'knock-off' and revitalise their own tired show.

Restaurant: Impossible is the much milder version of Gordon Ramsey's 'Kitchen Nightmares' television series, and while Robert Irvine tries to flex his gargantum muscles and blast his icy-blue eyes hidden behind his shimmering spectacles on wary and generally confused restaurant owners, there is a gentleness and generosity to this show which gives it a much needed breath of freshness from many 'makeover' shows airing today.

We all remember Irvine from his Dinner: Impossible days, and it seems that the Food Network has forgiven any of the lies or exaggerated claims he has made about his credentials (because of course, this is show business, and no one is quite honest about what they have done or are doing now, have they?) and given him this new baby to feed, and it seems to be doing pretty well. In fact, it's one of the more interesting series on the Food Network right now.

Here, there is a little mixture of extreme grossness (cockroaches, rats, ten years worth of molded grease and other forms of nastiness galore), enough sob stories to to keep you mildly endeared to the situations of these mainly clueless, hapless people who think that owning and running a restaurant is just shoveling out plates of food and taking in the dough, but not enough that this become Psychosis: Impossible. Irvine marches into these failing institutions, and proceeds to rip, tear, and shred them down to the very naked bone, but not in a mean, nasty, or condescending way. There is no sense of him pimping the emotional weaknesses and general ignorance of these people just for the kicks, and in the end the results are good, and sometimes quite lovely, even though there is a question of how many of these people will keep up the suggestions and listen to Irvine's critiques and improve their business upon them.

Here, the focus is more or less on the owners and their jaded misconceptions about one of the most-likely-to-fail businesses on the planet than on established restaurants which are crumbling beneath bad management, so on and so forth. Whereas Ramsey will curse, defile, and break down restaurants and their owners, Irvine uses some of the brashness without the snarls, and there have only been a few times when he seems genuinely irritated or upset with these people, which shows quite a bit of patience and sympathy on his part. He knows, better than even the viewers can, that most of these people have generally no idea what they are getting into and have, not surprisingly, gotten themselves into a situation which they cannot escape from. Some are angry, others seems numb, others are stuck in disbelief that their food tastes terrible or that their décor looks like something out of a bad horror movie.

Eventually, after all the tears have dried or facial tissues have proceeded to return to their original shades, the work begins. Over the three seasons, a retinue of different designers have appeared on this show with differing degrees of attractiveness to their work, and the most consistent designers will be seen over-and-over again. The rest of the show is spent reworking the menu and flavors, cleaning up the normally disgusting kitchens, and putting all the feathers back into place. In the end, the results are normally quite attractive, and the reactions of the people can seem a little cheesy at times, but Irvine seems genuinely happy to bring happiness into the lives of these depressed, on-the-edge of the precipice people and their families.

It's a much gentler, family-friendly version of Kitchen Nightmares and much more watchable if you're looking for a decent show to pass time with, not the bitterness-and-bile boot camp where people are degraded and insulted everyone two seconds. As time progresses, I feel this show will get even better, and there is a great chance we can enjoy Irvine and his restaurant escapades for many seasons to come.

It's enjoyable and fun to watch. It's a lot more about changing the business end, personal issues and aesthetics of the restaurant than the food. New Dishes only account for about 1 minute per show, which is a little disappointing. The biggest challenge is that it seems 80-90% of the restaurants don't make it and are closed within months anyways. That's not necessarily the fault of the show, many of these have tax liens, behind months in rent, or go back to their old ways as soon as the crew leaves, but sometimes it's also because they come in and make the place look amazing, update the kitchen, bring everything back to code and then the landlord realizes they can make 50-100% more in rent so all the benefits of the money and renovations and repairs end up going to the landlord. I would only do this if I personally owned the building they were doing renovations to or was like 1 year into a 5 year lease, otherwise it's just creating an incentive for your landlord to gouge the restaurant as soon as the show airs and location gets national attention. That's the sad part.

Each week, a different failing restaurant is given a FAST makeover by Robert Irvine and his assistants. In many cases, you find the restaurant owners likable but clueless. In others, they just seem like annoying jerks who seem to fight Irvine's suggestions--and the audience WANTS to see them fail but Irvine, inexplicably, doesn't give up. Regardless, by the end of the show, the establishment is cleaner, brighter and more able to succeed. Despite being HIGHLY scripted, the show, overall, is very entertaining. My only complaints are that the followups online are very vague and I'd LOVE to see a followup show a year or two later when they revisit many of the old shows. Still, a simple idea that manages to work.

I know that there has been some controversy about the host, Robert Irvine's credentials. I tried to get to the truth of this by reading a lot of articles on the internet and really couldn't. It appears as if he might have exaggerated a bit instead of actually lying about his experiences. However, he IS a very good host of the show--mostly because he appears to care so much about the people (unlike in the British version of this show--where the host is very abusive). He also seems like a really nice guy--and that is hard to fake.

I loved the first several seasons of this show, because it was all about the FOOD. Sure, it involved fixing the kitchen/giving the place a facelift to make it an attractive package, but it has devolved to "HGTV/Marriage counseling Hour". I, like many people, will go into a hole in the wall, as long as it's relatively clean, but mostly IF THE FOOD IS GOOD. The last few seasons the food aspect has been less than 5 minutes out of every hour episode. So the recent places may look nice, but the food is still going to suck.

Here's something you'll hear every episode: The designer of the episode will say "There are sooooo many dust collectors", or "We HATE nik-naks!", only to put up a thousand new dust collectors and nik naks to replace the ones they just hauled outside.

It was funny when Robert used to take a sledgehammer to a wall or whatever, because then he'd walk off to the kitchen and make something delicious. Now he hangs around the remodel or goes to the trailer and makes phone calls. Very disappointing.

I thought this was a FOOD network show. What happened to the FOOD part of the show??