Gabe Gagliardi

“

When I see an opportunity that I can to expose someone's weakness, I'll definitely take that.

”

Hometown/Residence	Chicago, IL
Occupation	Marketing Executive
Statistics
Challenges Won	0
Services Won	1
Times as BoW/Announcer	0
Times Nominated	1
Placement	10th
Episode Eliminated/Withdrew	11 Chefs

Gabriel "Gabe" Gagliardi was a contestant on Season 2 of Hell's Kitchen. He ranked in 10th place.

Season 2

Episode 1

Main article: Episode 101 - Day 1

The twelve contestants arrived in Hell's Kitchen on a bus and were greeted by Jean-Philippe. They celebrated with some champagne glasses, got to know each other, and had a first look at the restaurant. Afterwards, Ramsay walked through the hallway, opened the dining room doors, and greeted the contestants by introducing himself and announcing that only one of them would win the competition. The only way that person would win, though, was to impress him, and he asked all of them to cook their signature dishes.

During the Signature Dish Challenge, Gabe feared that his heart was beating in his neck due to being nervous. On Garrett's turn, Ramsay called him over to taste the latter's meat dish. Wanting to use that to showcase Garrett’s weakness, he told Ramsay it was overcooked. While Garrett accused him of lying, Ramsay confirmed his opinion by calling the meat dry, praising him for his honesty. He was the ninth person to have his dish judged by Ramsay, and he made an unknown fish dish. Ramsay said his fish was so raw it could be called sushi. After the challenge, he was placed in the blue team because Ramsay declared that for the first time, the teams were divided by gender, men in the blue team and women in the red team.

The blue team finished prep hours after the red team and did not sleep much that night. During dinner service, Gabe was at the meat station. An hour into service, he helped prevent a fire in the kitchen by turning Tom's stove off, although the latter did not know until later on. Two hours into service, the kitchen moved to entrées, but he said he needed ten minutes because his oven was not hot enough and his Wellingtons were not well done. Ramsay was discouraged as they were very far in the red, but he felt frustrated as the former was not watching every little move he made. After three hours with barely any food sent and the customers shouting, "I want my food!", Ramsay shut down both kitchens. The blue team won the dinner service.

Episode 2

Main article: Episode 102 - Day 2

Back at the dorms, Gabe talked with Garrett about eliminating the women one by one before the men eliminated each other.

The following day, after only two hours of sleep, the contestants were woken up by Sous Chefs Scott and Mary-Ann playing cowbells at 5:24 AM. They were told to go outside immediately. Once outside at the loading area, Ramsay recalled how the previous service was embarrassing. Afterward, Ramsay wanted them to know how much food they wasted last night, as a restaurant would never survive with a lot of waste. To get his point across, Ramsay ordered the chefs to jump into the dumpsters and pull out all the garbage from last night. After that, Ramsay told the contestants that he did not want another large amount of waste in the competition again. Now that the chefs understood the lesson, Ramsay ordered them to clean up because they stunk.

During the Perfect Steak Cut Challenge, Gabe was the first chef from the blue team to have his attempts judged and scored three points despite never having done this before. He was proud of himself before hoping his teammates could also score threes. The blue team eventually lost the challenge 11-12, and they were punished by cutting all the steaks for the next dinner service. When the red team returned from their reward, he made a joke about how the red team was one man down and missing somebody, supposing he would like to transfer to their team. Heather answered by saying she would think about it in the jacuzzi. When he saw the women getting drunk in the jacuzzi, he felt it was not a smart move.

The following day, Tom asked if anybody saw Larry, but Gabe said he could not. Later, Larry called the dorms from the hospital and told them that he was not coming back as his body shut down from the stress. He was devastated and wished him to get better before deciding to honor Larry in that night’s service.

During dinner service, Gabe was at the appetizer station. When Ramsay called the first ticket, he had a heated argument with the former when he asked if quail was needed, and no quail has been called. Ramsay schooled him on his rudeness and asked if he wanted to email the order to his Blackberry. After that, everybody took over his station, and Ramsay schooled him on that laid-back behaviour, even though he claimed he could not handle appetizers by himself. Despite that, he managed to send acceptable appetizers out. Three hours into service, Ramsay asked both teams to look in the dining room, which was almost empty because too many customers had left. After calling it the death of a restaurant, Ramsay shut down the kitchens.

The blue team lost the dinner service, and Ramsay questioned Gabe's multi-tasking skills. Garrett was named "Best of the Worst". During deliberation, he knew he had no idea what was going on that night before fearing that his inexperience was catching up to him.

Gabe was not nominated for elimination, but he was called down by Ramsay and joined Giacomo after Tom was sent back in line. During his plea, he said he wanted to learn from Ramsay and that he chased perfection. He was eliminated for his lack of passion, the fact he allowed his teammates to run his station for him, and that his sweet guy attitude would not make him a great cook. During his exit interview, he felt he did not have to be loud and obnoxious to run a kitchen and that Ramsay made the wrong decision.

Ramsay's comment: "It's absolutely crucial in Hell's Kitchen to have finesse and passion. It was pretty obvious that Gabe had no passion."

Nomination History

Week 1	Win
Week 2	Nominated

Post Hell's Kitchen

• After his appearance on the show, Gabe moved to Seattle and opened a barbecue joint in 2011 called The Boar's Nest. However, he is now a realtor based in Seattle for John L. Scott Real Estate.
• He got married and is now a father to two boys.
• In 2013, he sold his Hell's Kitchen Blue Jacket for $45 on eBay.
• On January 28, 2021, he started his own brokerage company called Suburban Edge Realty.

Trivia

• He is the first contestant to be eliminated after Ramsay overruled the formal nominations.
• He is the second contestant to only ever be nominated specifically by Ramsay and never by his team, following Ralph (Season 1).
• He is the first male contestant to receive the coat hanging and burning picture sequence.
• He and Larry (also from Season 2) are the first two male contestants never to win a reward challenge.
• He is the first contestant to rank 10th place due to being eliminated.

Quotes

• "When I see an opportunity that I can to expose someone's weakness, I'll definitely take that."
• "You could see my heart pounding through my neck."
• (To the red team) "We have six, so you guys are missing somebody?"
• "A million things is going on, and I couldn't handle it by myself."
• (After being eliminated) "Chef said I was too much of a sweet guy, but you don't have to be loud, and rude, and obnoxious to run a kitchen. I definitely don't think Chef Ramsay made the right decision."

Gallery

Gabe's Intro Spot

Gabe's Signature Dish

Gabe in Blue Jacket

Gabe's Confessional

Gabe and Giacomo Nominated

Gabe Eliminated