The Restaurant 2009

Exactly!

*SounRAB of a hammer hitting the head of a nail*

I just think they should have made what they were looking for a whole lot clearer to the viewing public straight away, or just changed the shows name*, because I just feel like you do.

Now I am questioning RB integrity and seeing him in a much more unfavourable light.

* Preferably to The F***ing Lite Bite 2009 if the winkers win!;)
 
I've just realised during the selection one of the bits of music providing the iPod in my head (You gotta get one of them! automatic internal soundtrack self-edit cut to fade... rather than pull your headphones/brainplugs out, erh! wot! yeh!:p) at the time was MGMTs 'Time to pretend' seems even more appropriate now! ;)
 
I totally agree with the negative comments already posted. I was completely hooked last year supporting my favourites from a group of serious contenders. This year
 
Ok, here I go again. Apologies for the rant.

Raymond wanted to pick two people to open a new venue with. That was the purpose of the programme. The process of the tasks was to narrow down the list of candidates and then present Raymond with two sets of finalists of which he will base his decision.

Let's take a look at who was in the final.

Chris & Nathan (Pros: Chris a very good chef) (Cons: Nathan attitude problem, both young, inexperienced)
JJ & James (Pros: Both already run a successful venue together, very enthusiastic) (Cons: Can't cook)

Now you may say "Can't cook! See! End of story!" but not so. Raymond has a training facility and was prepared to put his winners through it just like he probably did with his other winners. It's part of the package.

And package is an important word. This isn't Masterchef. It wasn't about finding the best chef. Chris was good, but he alone couldn't win the final. He required a good person at his side in Nathan, and sadly, Nathan seemed to do his best to muck up their chances with his attitude issues every week. He was a dire front of house. So Raymond would have needed to train him.

So then the question becomes, did he feel he could train JJ to cook or Nathan to front of house?

And it would have boiled down to which of the two he felt had the most potential to do well. And that was JJ & James. They already had a proven track record, they worked very well together, they were professional when they needed to be, and JJ wanted to learn how to become a great chef. And he has been put through the training course.

Who knows what may happen in the future, perhaps they won't even reach the state of opening a venue due to the financial climate and perhaps they'll go back to making cocktails. But that's RaymonRAB choice. End of the day he took a calculated risk based on what he knew and what he saw across the process.

Just like the winner of The Apprentice is Alan Sugars choice and isn't always the best sales person. Just like the winner of Masterchef is Greg and Johns choice and isn't always the chef with the best range of skills.

That's just my 2p worth. Personally I thought the best couple (Rebecca and Stephen) went out far too early and should have won, but alas, it wasn't to be.
 
The Restaurant 2009 had just been awful - maybe because this year at by far the weakest couples.

BUT

I think the main thing that failed this year was that the Restaurant changed its challenges.

Do you remember when the challenge was to turn over two tables in a night and we saw the couples really struggle? This year they had to give a recipe instruction in a tent. Since when was public speaking intrisic to being a chef?

I feel the struggle of the couples was passsed over and became far more about over the top and time wasting irrelevent challenges.

I also think it was much better when it had 2 nights to sort out the losers by doing properly difficult and relevant challenges.
 
Back
Top