The so-called “little bit of shit” that potty-mouthed star chef Gordon Ramsay “just can’t get out” has wiggled his way into a new line of work.
Martin Hyde, the former restaurant manager of Dillon’s in the theater district, who angrily quit during a spat with the combative celebrity cook on the set of the Fox reality series Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares—and who later made international headlines by suing the network—is no longer supervising waiters and bartenders, but rather limo drivers at an upscale uptown car service.
Mr. Hyde, 52, started his new job on Friday, just two days after the hugely hyped Sept. 26 episode finally aired. He blamed the show’s producers, who pegged him as the fall guy for the embattled eatery’s woes, for ruining his chances of ever again working in food service.
“They’ve blocked me from the restaurant business,” Mr. Hyde fumed to the Transom over beers at the Boat Basin Café on West 79th Street on Friday, Sept. 28.
Depicted on the program as a bumbling buffoon of a manager, who seemed eternally glued to his cellphone and entirely oblivious to the chaos in the kitchen, Mr. Hyde had unsuccessfully sought a court order to block the broadcast.
In his lawsuit, he claimed that many aspects of the so-called reality show were actually staged, including rotten meat allegedly planted in the refrigerator, and that important details were intentionally edited out, particularly the part about him not having any real role in the kitchen.
“As general manager, I took responsibility for the front of house, hiring and training bar and wait staff and, most importantly, booking shows for the cabaret theater,” he said. “The kitchen was out of bounds to me.”
Yet, during the episode, Mr. Ramsay singles him out for blistering criticism about unclean cooking conditions in the back of the restaurant. (In an interview with CNN’s Larry King last week, Mr. Ramsay called Dillon’s “one of the most disgusting kitchens ever found in my entire cooking career.”)
Another discrepancy: Dillon’s 100-seat cabaret theater is never mentioned on the program, a bit of context sorely lacking during all those shots of Mr. Hyde affixed to his mobile. “I was on the phone booking shows,” he said.
Some scenes mentioned in Mr. Hyde’s lawsuit never made it on air; most notably, an alleged incident in which Mr. Ramsay forced him to crawl “on his hands and knees” in search of his phone, which the celebrity chef had supposedly tossed out onto the street.
“I was relieved the most degrading part was cut out,” Mr. Hyde said. “But, at the same time, there’s so much humiliation anyway, it doesn’t make much difference.”
An employment agency warned him that notoriety would probably follow him wherever he goes, he said.
But in the days immediately following the broadcast, that infamy had yet to really manifest itself.
Until, that is, comely Westchester yoga instructor Joanna Rothschild spotted the lanky Brit on his way out of the Boat Basin.
“I think all reality TV is bullshit,” said the friendly brunette.
