I am not that much into reality shows and in your face takes on business but What Gordon Ramsay can teach Software Developers by David (on Signal vs Noise) distills a few truths we often do not want to hear.
David’s take is inspired by Kitchen Nightmares (the TV show). I will focus on the cooking side of things.
On trying to please everyone and running the risk of standing for nothing:
"Everything to no one:
Almost all Ramsay’s cases feature an overstuffed menu derived from a misguided notion that more choice is always better and that making every dish under the sun will broaden the appeal of the restaurant. The first order for the cuisine is to trim the choices and go from thirty-some dishes to ten or twelve."
Cook what eat (love what you cook):
"Cook what you know
British chefs slicing Japanese Sushi or Indian chefs cooking
traditional American cuisine are two examples that Ramsay cracked down
on under the banner of Cook What You Know. If you don’t have a strong
history of eating and living with certain ingredients and styles of
cuisine, it’s much, much harder to reach the upper echelon’s of taste.
And why bother? Pick your native ingredients, those in season, and make
what you know and can personally appreciate."
As for the show, one thing that did stick with me on Episode 5 was ‘Is it normal for waiters to chew gun‘ which I find to be the epitome of rudeness.
Related stories: Ragout or why some American chefs want to call a cat a dog? and ‘No good chef would put on anything he could not eat’ …Bruce Poole and Menu Writing