Vinnie Fama

“

I didn't know what you wanted. You didn't want to show me, so what did you want me to do?

”

Hometown	Milltown, NJ
Occupation	Nightclub Executive Chef
Statistics
Blind Taste Test Score	0 out of 1
Challenges Won	0
Services Won	2
Times as BoW/Announcer	0
Times Nominated	1
Placement	8th
Episode Eliminated	8 Chefs Compete

Vincent "Vinnie" Fama was a contestant on Season 3 of Hell's Kitchen. He ranked in 8th place.

Season 3

Episode 1

Main article: Episode 301 - 12 Chefs Compete

The twelve new aspiring chefs were heading down to Hell's Kitchen in SUVs while getting to know each other on the ride. Once they arrived at Hell's Kitchen, Jean-Philippe introduced himself. Before he could go into how he and Ramsay met, the latter appeared and told the former to cut the crap. Afterwards, Ramsay ordered the contestants to cook their signature dishes.

During the Signature Dish Challenge, Vinnie was the first person to have his dish judged by Ramsay and presented a chorizo-crusted pink snapper. Ramsay could not find the snapper until he told him where it was and found the dish way too hot. Ramsay called it a disappointment, but he argued against it, which made the former call him a jerk.

During dinner service, Vinnie was at the appetizer station. At one point, his spaghetti was overcooked to the point of looking like paste, and he was caught laughing over Ramsay's slang. Later, he needed more vegetable stalk for his risotto, but Rock told him they had run out. He put water in the risotto, thinking it would work just as well as vegetables were made out of water, but Ramsay spat it out and compared the taste to gnat's piss. Then, Ramsay kicked him off appetizers, re-delegating him to washing dishes for the rest of the night, and Brad was sent there to rescue the station. When appetizers were going out of the blue kitchen, Ramsay snidely asked him if he was happy about washing pots and pans, and he claimed he was.

During the post-mortem, Ramsay reprimanded Vinnie for his risotto fiasco. Still, he argued that Ramsay never told him exactly what he wanted. That led Ramsay to call him a two-faced lazy little fucker. He got angry at being called lazy, but Rock calmed him down and got annoyed that he was arguing with Ramsay. The blue team won the dinner service.

Episode 2

Main article: Episode 302 - 11 Chefs Compete

During the Dover Sole Challenge, Vinnie failed to clean his fish to Ramsay's standards and scored zero. The team lost the challenge 8-9, and they were punished by cleaning all the Dover Sole of the following service. He saw four ounces of roe coming out of one fish during the punishment and felt sick looking at it.

During dinner service, Vinnie was at the fish station. At one point, he was prepping the Dover Sole special, but Ramsay saw that it was burnt. He claimed it was brown but was forced to serve it to the pass for a closer inspection. Indeed, the Dover Sole was burnt, and Ramsay was angry that he lied to him. He knew he was Ramsay's crosshairs, and if the men lost, he would be going home as Ramsay never saw such illiterate cooking before. Fortunately, he got his refire accepted. The blue team lost the service after getting kicked out, and Ramsay said he felt unsafe with him due to covering up mistakes. Rock was named the "Best of the Worst."

He was not nominated for elimination.

Episode 3

Main article: Episode 303 - 10 Chefs Compete

Before the Army and Navy Service Challenge, Vinnie claimed that he used to play the bugle back in school after everyone received a wake-up call from the military. The blue team lost the challenge, and he felt disheartened that they could not serve the people who served their country. They were punished by doing KP duty, which included prepping a thousand pounds of potatoes and onions. During the punishment, he wanted to ask where the hand truck was after seeing the produce bags.

During dinner service, Vinnie was at the garnish station. At one point, he started getting slow on scallops to Ramsay's impatience, and then, he noticed a raw egg on the dish, smashing it on his chest. That caused Ramsay to declare he was not trusting him anymore, though he restrained himself from lashing out. The blue team won the service.

Episode 4

Main article: Episode 304 - 8 Chefs Compete

Back to the dorms, Vinnie railed on Jen for almost sending Ramsay pasta from the trash can and stated that he would have kicked her out if she did that in his kitchen. Even though Bonnie got annoyed by him, he said he would do anything to stay as he did not think there was anything wrong with speaking his mind.

Before the Blind Taste Test, Ramsay asked Vinnie if he had any nightmares. He said he had one of him, and Ramsay snarkily wondered if it was about the quail eggs from the previous night. He was the final person from the blue team to compete and went up against Jen. Before he took his turn, Ramsay warned the men that if he got the first ingredient wrong, the challenge would end, and the red team would win due to them having a huge lead. Sure enough, he mistook tuna for pancetta which automatically made the blue team lose 3-5. The blue team was punished by prepping kitchens for that night's service and eating a tray of offal. Back at the dorms, he accused Bonnie of cheating as she could hear through her headphones earlier. However, Bonnie argued against it, accusing the men of making excuses.

During dinner service, Vinnie was at the meat station. He prepped his Wellingtons but told Ramsay that he needed fifteen more minutes as he overcooked his four initial ones. That shocked Ramsay as the former criticized his performance as everything else was moving well. Then, he did not communicate back to Ramsay as expected but managed to bring his order of Wellingtons up. However, Sous Chef Scott revealed to Ramsay that he flash grilled them in the oven, and they were still rare. After having the men feel the Wellingtons, Ramsay derided him for not caring for the customers, making him think he had hawk eyes on him. When he tried to send up another one, it still had raw pastry as he failed to trim them. As he tried to rebound, Ramsay accused him of making all the meat entrées inconsistent. Still, he believed that his new one was perfect. Curious about how much Vinnie threw out, Ramsay checked on the bin and was dismayed to see six wasted Wellingtons and a chicken in there.

Both teams lost the dinner service, and Rock was named "Best of the Worst" for the blue team. During deliberation, Vinnie had a feeling Rock would nominate him for the mess he made on meat. When Jen met with him, he told her to be smart and nominate her toughest competitor. However, Jen wanted to play smart but struggled to pick between Bonnie and Melissa. He asked Jen if she wanted to win, and the latter said she did before noting that people would hate her decision regardless.

Vinnie was not nominated for elimination by Rock but was later nominated by Ramsay after initial nominations from both teams were overruled. He joined Bonnie from the red team. After coming down, Ramsay asked him why Rock did not nominate him, but he admitted that he could not explain Josh's performance because he had his head so far up his ass that night. During his plea, he felt he was the most qualified chef out of the group to win the prize, but Ramsay asked him to show humility and accept that he messed up. That led him to admit that he did not have control over meat as he thought. He was eliminated for his poor performances and for not taking responsibility for his mistakes. During his exit interview, Vinnie admitted that he could not do what Ramsay does due to the latter's experience. While he wanted to redo a couple of things, he knew he did not deserve a second chance.

Ramsay's comment: "Vinnie talks the talk, but he doesn't walk the walk. The bottom line with Vinnie is he's a crap cook."

Episode 10/11

Main article: Episode 310 - 2 Chefs Compete

Main article: Episode 311 - Winner Announced

Vinnie was one of the six chefs who returned for the final dinner service. When he came down in the kitchen, Ramsay reminded him of the time he got a raw egg slammed in his chest. He was Rock's second pick for his team, after Brad, and was followed by Josh. Rock picked him because he thought he would do well under good direction. When Rock was briefing the team on the menu, he admitted that he was concerned about his performance as he never cooked any of Rock's dishes before. Despite those concerns, he was willing to listen to him.

During dinner service, Vinnie was at the garnish station. After Josh burned a good amount of crab cakes, Rock moved him over to Josh's fish station to replace him. Despite being concerned about not knowing how to prepare the fish entrées, he managed to get acceptable snapper out, and food finally left Rock’s kitchen. After service, he noticed Rock's family coming up and urged him to meet them while the rest cleared down. Rock eventually won the finals over Bonnie.

Nomination History

Week 1	Win
Week 2	Safe
Week 3	Win
Week 4	Nominated

Post Hell's Kitchen

• After his appearance on the show, Vinnie planned to return to his previous job, alongside offering catering lessons.

Trivia

• In 8th place, he is the highest-ranked contestant who never won a single challenge.
• He is the first contestant to be eliminated after overruled nomination from Ramsay.
• He is the third contestant to only ever be nominated specifically by Ramsay, and never by his team, following Ralph (Season 1) and Gabe (Season 2).

Quotes

• "I think he looked at me and said, 'That guy is really confident,' and I think that intimidated him."
• (On using water for cooking risotto) "Well, um, stock is made of wa-ter and vegetables are, made of wa-ter. No harm, no foul. That's all we have."
• Vinnie: "I didn't know what you wanted. You didn't want to show me, so what did you want me to do?" Ramsay: "You two-faced lazy fucker!" Vinnie: "Lazy?!"
• (To Ramsay) "I screwed up again, Chef!!"
• (About the trashed meat) "I kept my own private garbage bin at my station, and, uh... I had six Wellington orders and one chicken in my bin. It’s a mistake. It’s an expensive mistake."
• (After being eliminated) "I can't do what he does. He's got years of experience on me. He knows what oysters and caviar taste like from Japan, he knows what spices from India are like, and I don't know that. There's a lot of things that I'd like to do over, but the reality is that you know there isn't. There's no second chances in Hell's Kitchen."

Gallery

Vinnie's Intro Spot

Vinnie's Signature Dish

Vinnie in Blue Jacket

Vinnie's Confessional

Vinnie in Blind Taste Test

Bonnie and Vinnie Nominated

Vinnie Eliminated

Vinnie as Returning Chef

Vinnie's Confessional (Returning Chef)