Restaurants am Abgrund

When I saw the trailer for this I got pretty excited, I love these types of shows and tend to be good entertainment. But this show was a big snooze fest.

The restaurants are like 6% of every episode and the rest is just the hosts doing cool stuff and meeting 'awesome' locals and talking about how cool things are. You see one shot of the restaurant and heck the owners aren't even involved in learner the new menu or food they are going to have.

This show is just a big circlejerk of the hosts being all hyped about how amazing they are and how amazing they are discovering things that are wrong. I feel bad for the owners participating with this show, this is all about the host not about any restaurant on any edge.

Entertaining, shows the locations well , but cringing at the food

but my biggest qualm is with the chef. This is a cookbook writer who has no restaurant experience trying to teach people to cook dishes for their culture?

In the HK episode they tasted the dishes and was like 'erm, this is not Asian enough' dafuq

I wish they went to a African American owned eatery and tell them their food is not 'Black' or enough

The ones where they go to Hong Kong and come up with dishes with 'Asian flavours' as interpreted by a foreigner or to South America and giving their take on a their culture is just cringe

I own two italian food restaurants in Mexico. Like the guests in the show me and my familiy were not professional restauranteurs when we started our business. I like very much this show because through the episodes the experts share so many knowledge that can be applied to any restaurant, in any place of the world. The weakness of the show are that the pace can be a little slow sometimes and that we do not get to see how the restaurants were doing after the experts leave. I think that it would be nice to see a scene with costumers enjoying the new experience after the revamp.

You could do a restaurant rescue program by humiliating the owners, cursing a great deal, abusing the staff and insisting that you, the host, have the final answer on everything.

Or you could do it this way: empathize with committed, hard working restaurateurs that need a boost. Understand their aspirations and what makes them tick.

Then take a look at local food options, renovate in line with local colour and culture, and take the viewer on a mini-travelogue while doing so.

Sure, it's low intensity television, but it's incredible fun to watch, and the vibe is very positive.

What should I say? This show is basically everything what is wrong with food journalism! It is shallower than puddle of gravy...

Let's start with the restaurateur: I don't say, that he doesn't have good ideas. But it seems that the solutions what he has, is short-lived.

The designer - wow - she is more interested in showing how beautiful she is (she is cute) - and pushes her taste on everybody around. While she is incorporating some designs and decorations from the respective regions, the changes are just skin-deep not really.

Same applies to the chef. I actually really enjoyed his experiences with local cuisine and food culture. But then he is just curating a menu, which again is shallow and doesn't really incorporate an important aspect of the culture.

Further I have got the feeling, that every single restaurant will fail (again) after just a short while. Because I don't see a lot of training or some changes. A lot of restaurateurs are really frustrated, that they have no clue how to manage a restaurant - but these guys coming in and just bruise up the restaurant make a new menu and calling it a day.

It seems, that this program is a total rip off of Kitchen Nightmare featuring Gordon Ramsey. I always thought, that it is not possible to turn a restaurant so quickly around - but Ramsey did a far better job than those 3.

The tragedies and failures of the restaurant owners seem to be just a prop for this show and it really seems, that these 3 protagonists are more interested to have their own fun - than really caring for the restaurants.