Chef! Quotations

Chef! is a British sitcom, starring Lenny Henry as tyrannical chef Gareth Blackstock, that aired 20 episodes over three series on the BBC.

"Personnel" (1.01)

Gareth Blackstock: Let me explain the order of things to you. There's the aristocracy, the upper class, the middle class, working class, dumb animals, waiters, creeping things, head lice, people who eat packet soup, then you.

Gareth Blackstock: See, in life, Piers, different people want different things. Some want large fortunes, some want carnal knowledge of vast number of the opposite, or indeed their own sex, and some want to write down the numbers of all the British rail diesel locomotives currently in service. Chacun à son goût. Me, my single aim in life is to send the finest, best presented food through that door there. That’s it! And if it’s at the cost of a few human lives, well, that’s fine by me.

Restaurant Manager: Gareth, please…be reasonable!

Gareth Blackstock: Reasonable?! What are you talking about, reasonable? Since when am I reasonable? Do reasonable people produce eighty covers twice a day of the finest gastronomic experiences in England?! Do reasonable people get two Michelin stars? Do you think it’s reasonable to spend your life walking around dressed like this?! Reasonable?! I’m a raving bloody lunatic! If I wasn’t cooking I’d be out doing serial killing! You look at me, you see a personality problem under a silly white hat. Don’t talk to me about reasonable, I don’t do reasonable!!

Gareth Blackstock: I get the feeling that we’re in the general area of the topic of discussion now. Could we now get to the point? I mean, what has brought to you all this way that might interest your old school-extremely-slight-never-liked-you-anyway, probably-flush-your-head-down-the-toilet-as-soon-as-look-at-you-acquintance?

Everton Stonehead: Well, I’ve decided that I wanna work in a decent kitchen.

Gareth Blackstock:You are no doubt waiting for me to say to you 'It pains me to say this' or 'It gives me no pleasure' YOU WILL WAIT IN VAIN! I am Gareth Blackstock I am seriously unpleasant. I am a bastard what am I?

Piers:You're a bastard Chef.

Gareth Blackstock:Contact.

Gareth Blackstock:Ahh so you have a drreeeaamm Everton how unspeakably delightful for you.

"Beyond the Pass" (1.02)

Gareth Blackstock:Well I guess this is Crispin's Day. All we have is remaining stocks and what I'll buy today. We've lost two porters and a commis so the people in the room are IT. Piers and Everton whose duties once included keeping the kitchen clean will now concentrate solely on the preparation of food so no change there then. The morons will survive on tips alone, little babies. And it occurred to me that since you're all working for nothing you might think I'd be inclined to treat you all with greater caring, patience and understanding but then I realised that even in THIS kitchen no one could be THAT stupid,

[A customer has asked for salt]

Gareth: Nothing else you wanted was there?

Customer: What?

Gareth: A splash of Lea & Perrins? A dollop of Daddies to stir into the artichoke and hollandaise coulis? It really is no trouble, we could send someone into town. I can get you any thing you like to enhance the flavour of your food. Salad Cream, Newman's Own, Branston Pickle. You only have to ask. A little Tobasco perhaps or barbeque sauce, a spoonful of sandwich spread maybe. A nice packet of cheese and onion flavour crisps to sprinkle over your monkfish and salmon gratin. We could even get you a prawn vindaloo or family sized pack of chicken drumsticks or menu B for two persons with special fried rice and extra sweet and sour pork balls if you like, I mean we don't mind going to a bit of trouble to please the customers here really. SALT!!! I'm going back to my kitchen now although GOD KNOWS WHY! I MEAN DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA OF NUMBER OF HIGHLY SKILLED MAN HOURS OVER A THREE DAY PERIOD HAVE GONE INTO PRODUCING THIS DISH THAT ARRIVES AT YOUR TABLE AT THE ZENITH OF ITS POWERS? IT'S TASTE, FLAVOURS, TEXTURE AND TEMPERATURE AT THE PEAK OF PERFECTION AND WITHOUT TASTING IT YOU CALL FOR SALT?

Lola: Your salt sir.

Gareth: I hate you with a passion you can only dream of. Bon apetit.

"Subject to Contract" (1.03)

Gareth Blackstock: Everton. This is a restaurant in which we serve the finest food that can be prepared by man. If you can think of anything more appalling to find on your plate than a used Elast-o-plast, then I don't want to know what it is. Search the pies, and when you are finished, take your sharpest knife, point it at your chest, and hurl yourself violently forward.

Gareth: Is there no one else interested? Oh Mrs Rather Nasty Smell, Mrs Fortis-Perkins jolly good. Nice lady I liked her. SNOTTY COW, what's wrong with it?

Reporter: I expect you microwave a lot of this stuff do you?

[Gareth looks mortified at the very idea]

Gareth: Strange to relate, no.

Reporter: Oh come on. You buy things in bags and boil them up. My friend told me.

Gareth: No, actually we don't. You see this is what we call a kitchen, we are CHEF'S we prepare the food from SCRATCH!

Gareth: Please don't print that picture. I was being wordlessly sarcastic. Marcel Marceau would have been proud.

"The Big Cheese" (1.04)

Gareth Blackstock: I'm very glad you made this Piers. It's reminded me why we never have Vegetable Terrine on the menu. It does indeed look like a Tuscan Summer, it tastes like a Neopolitan compost heap.

Gareth Blackstock: Vegetables for a mullet?

Otto: Nearly done Chef.

Gareth Blackstock:: Nearly? Now is when they are needed. The fish is peaking, thereis no nearly you must peak together. Has your wife never mentioned this to you?

Otto: Almost there Chef.

Gareth Blackstock: BIN!!! What is to most important element of cooking?

Everton: Ingredients.

Gareth Blackstock: TIMING! Ingredients was the most important element this morning.

"Fame is the Spur" (1.05)

Gareth Blackstock:You're pea brained, prat faced, pillock headed cretin, what are you?

Everton:I'm a pea brained, prat faced...

Gareth Blackstock:If you took an intensive course of intelligence injections and studied till you drop then one day you might make it to moron third class failed. GIVE ME STRENGTH!

Everton:Yes Chef.

Gareth Blackstock:I don't want to shout at you.

Everton:No Chef

Gareth Blackstock:I WANT TO BATTER YOU TO DEATH WITH A HARD AND JAGGED KITCHEN IMPLEMENT. I'M ONLY RESTRAINED BY THE LUDICROUS LIBERAL PINKO LAWS THAT THEY'VE GOT IN THIS COUNTRY!

Everton:Yes Chef.

Gareth Blackstock:In a sanely ordered and civilised society anyone found making RUNNY mayonnaise would be tortured to death SLOWLY IN FRONT OF A WARM APPLAUDING AUDIENCE!!! Egg yolk, mustard, rescue it DROP BY DROP!!!

Gareth Blackstock:Piers can cook in his sleep you know it's amazing. How do I know? Cos i've never seen him do it AWAKE!!!

"Rice and Peas" (1.06)

Gareth Blackstock:Do you know I was thinking the other day about how kitchens used to be in olden times. Little things we used to do back that we've all but forgotten about since, like for example how we used to CLEAN THEM from time to time Piers. You see this is my explanation for why the surfaces in this kitchen are so low, it's the foot or two of CRAP we've accumulated under foot making us seem that much taller. PIERS dear heart, you've found a brush how wonderful, haven't seen one of those since I was a small boy where did you get it the Science Museum? Go carefully Piers there my be a Roman Mosaic hidden underneath.

Gareth: NO! What is that?

Everton: This is hollandaise sauce Chef.

Gareth: What for?

Everton: For this Dover Sole.

Gareth: No, no, NO Everton! A little herb butter. What is the essance of cooking?

Everton: Ingredients? Timing? Cleanliness?

Gareth: Restraint. This Dover Sole needs that hollandaise sauce like the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel needs a coat of brilliant white emulsion.

Janice: Those things he said about you when you came top at school when you were 9.

Gareth: Yes. (Jamaican Accent) Have to move de boy to a better school. The other children must be as thick as pig shit. (normal) Then when I won the sprint (Jamaican) Well he gets so much practise running away from an honest days work heh heh heh!

Gareth: Everton lets get a few things straight here. I am Chef de Cuisine, this is MY kitchen.

Everton: Yes Chef.

Gareth: You have learnt all my recipes.

Everton: Well...

Gareth: Recipes which have won this place TWO Michelin stars and will remain your faithful stand bys all your cooking career.

Everton: Yes but...

Gareth: AND I'M NOT ALLOWED TO LEARN (Jamaican accent) UNCLE IVANS'S SECRET TO HIS DUMPLING?

Everton: He made me proimise on my honour sort of thing.

Gareth: EVERTON I AM NOT GOING TO TURN MY BACK IN MY OWN KITCHEN!!!

Janice: How's it going?

Gareth: Everton's doing some wonderful things. His dumplings are a dream, his Guiness Punch is to die for. It's hell. Absolute hell, he's become such insufferably cocky little smartie pants I want to SMACK HIM IN THE GOB!! I HATE him, I wish I'd never heard of West Indian food.

Janice: Then don't do it.

Gareth: I MUST!!! My father is bringing his latest floozy Dorethy on this night out. She loves West Indian food and we will serve the finest the world has ever known, he won't be able to slag it off because she will be in ecstacies with every mouthful and he'll have to admit it's the best he's ever had. Tee hee. Stubborn little git!

"A River Runs Thru It" (2.01)

Gareth Blackstock: Get me a large knife sharp like a razor. I have to castrate the person who made this sauce and I want to avoid any unnecessary suffering. It is imperative that the author of this atrocity is not allowed to breed any more.

Gareth Blackstock: No need to worry about the health inspector coming, the shock would kill him on the spot. The bacteria under Everton’s section would consume him in seconds.

Gareth Blackstock: God I love fishing. Well, obviously what I actually love is standing in cold water up to my goolies. That must be the appeal because I never see a fish, neverless catch one.

Gustave LaRoche: Her legs go all the way to the top. I reckon I could force myself.

Gustave LaRoche: ALPHONSE!! Where is the sommelier? ALPHONSE!! Where is that frog? ALPHONSE!!

Alphonse: Oui, Chef.

Gustave LaRoche: Oh. Encore deux bouteilles de burgundy, s'il vous plait.

Alphonse: But you have had these bottles already.

Gustave LaRoche: Oi oi oi! Never mind what I have had or haven't had. Fetch us up a couple of bottles tout de suite.

Alphonse: But monsiuer, Chef said....

Gustave LaRoche: "Chef?" Chef? I'm "Chef!" Grand Massieur de Blackstock est away. Je am "Chef." And make it four bottles.

Alphonse: Uh...

Gustave LaRoche: Come on sunshine. Sûr votre bicyclette, eh? Quatre bouteilles maintenant. Not le jour après next.

Alphonse: Oui, Chef.

Gustave LaRoche: Vive la France. He understands every word I say.

"Time Flies" (2.02)

Janice: (to Gareth) This child of yours, it's going to be the male version of the immaculate birth, is it?

"Do the Right Thing" (2.03)

Gareth Blackstock: The partridge I want is one which has eaten wild food and lived a wild life, has struggled, hoped and dreamed, has sown wild oats, has tasted the bitter disappointment of middle age, and knows what it is to eyeball The Grim Reaper in the watches of the night; the partridge sunk in the veil of years, with all the flavors of its rich eventful life captured in its texture, it’s juice, its very flesh. I do not want this callow, milk-fed, adolescent, uncouth, undeveloped wodge of protein. I don’t believe in eating virgins! THIS partridge.

Everton: Yeah that's right Chef.

Gareth Blackstock: This partridge on the other hand.

Everton: Got its leg well over I shouldn't wonder.

Janice: Out?

Gareth Blackstock: Yes, out. You remember out. You go through this door, the temperature drops suddenly and the scenery changes.

Health Inspector: You have a cracked tile on your wall, Mr. Blackstock. It was there last month.

Gareth Blackstock: A cracked tile?

Health Inspector: Just above the skirting board.

Gareth Blackstock: Should I evacuate the building?

Health Inspector: Just have it replaced by next time.

Gareth Blackstock: Just tell me how is a cracked tile going to wipe out my clientele?

Health Inspector: Bacteria collects in the cracks. Food may come into contact with it.

Gareth Blackstock: Ah, but bacteria may collect in the grout, all over the kitchen. They've got us surrounded, these bacteria.

Health Inspector: That's so Mr. Blackstock. Which is why, as from next year, it will no longer be acceptable.

Gareth Blackstock: What...?

Health Inspector: As from next year...

Gareth Blackstock: You don't mean they're going to outlaw grouting?!

Health Inspector: Exactly. Continuous impervious surfacing will be mandatory.

Gareth Blackstock: Well that's it isn't it, really? I mean that's the bottom line. That's what you people want, all over the planet: continuous impervious surfacing. Only trouble is, if it ever did break, health inspectors would collect in the cracks!

Winky Waterman: Gareth Henry Blackstock?

Gareth Blackstock: I am indeed, and I'm in the middle of service. So, if you don't vacate my kitchen immediately, I'll serve some warm cheese on a wooden chopping board and you won't see the morning.

Winky Waterman: Gareth Henry Blackstock...

Gareth Blackstock: I'll set my cracked tile loose on you!

Winky Waterman: My name is...

Gareth Blackstock: Problems with the hearing, eh? There's the door. You: walk through it, closey-closey after you. Otherwise, blood everywhere. Even in the grouting. Grieving relatives. Orphaned children. Long court case. Acquittal due to extreme provocation. Compensatory award to me from public funds. Bad business all round. Nuf said? And if you have any further business with me, I'll see you in an hour or so. Goodbye.

Gareth Blackstock: Once this gadget is in the salmon, they can track it to study fish migration. I mean they can follow salmon now from a helicopter. They have made many remarkable discoveries, but even so they were very surprised when they detected a mature salmon traveling at 58 miles an hour down the A40. I think it was then that they perhaps thought something other than fish hormones might be at work.

"A Diploma of Miseries" (2.04)

Gareth Blackstock: Now, about the poultry—

Janice: Screw the poultry, Gareth!

Gareth Blackstock: We live in a small community, Janice. People would talk.

Gareth Blackstock: (to Everton) I pay you what you're worth. How could you possibly afford a flat?

"Masterchef"(2.05)

Policeman: I've applied to be on Masterchef. I even met Lloyd Grossman once.

Gareth Blackstock: Well don't worry we won't tell anyone.

Gareth Blackstock:[Seeing Everton's interview in Gastronomy]AH! AHHHHH!!

Janice: What?

Gareth Blackstock: No, no no. It's too much. What have I done? Look at this.

Janice:[Reading article] My GOD!

Gareth Blackstock: He dies. Everton Stonehead RIP. Two years being a useless pain in the arse in my kitchen and now this. I mean look at it. It's not a person it's a smirk on legs and listen to this. 'I do feel the restraints of not having my own kitchen and having to conform to a DATED AND RESTRICTED CUISINE!!!

Janice: Now Gareth don't sack him straight away.

Gareth Blackstock: I'm not going to sack him straight away. I'm going to KILL him straight away. Slowly and wickedly revealing a hiterto unsuspected sadistic streak in my psycological makeup.

Janice: Unsuspected?

Gareth Blackstock: THEN I'll sack him. Ammending his P45 to his mutalated remains so only his nearest and dearest can identify him.

Janice: Gareth.

Gareth Blackstock: Forget it Janice. The only possible response to this is gross physical damage. Hot Chef's, signature dishes and now DATED AND RESTRICTED CUISINE? I must be allowed the sight of his blood outside his body. God would agree, there is no other way.

[Janice and Gareth are in the dining room after tricking Everton into running service hoping it will teach him a lesson]

Gareth: What a DISASTER.

Janice: I know.

Gareth: In my own restaurant. This is all your fault.

Janice: That's right blame me.

Gareth: Well I do blame you. Give him a little rope you said, now look what's happend.

Janice: I KNOW!

Gareth: Everything absolutly...perfect!

"England Expects"(2.06)

Gareth: Gaston if you do not hop it tout suite I will frape votre teeth so far down votre gorge, you will be able to mange avec your derriere as well as parlezing out of it.

Gareth: ALPHONSE! Where's Alphonse? I want him here at once alive and I want him in chains. ALPHONSE?

Alphonse: Oui Chef?

Gareth: I am not a wine expert Alphonse but even I have no trouble identifying rats piss when I taste it and this isn't even VINTAGE rats piss. If I were running Gazza'a Fish Shop as so many people here seem to think I am, I wouldn't let my customers shake this over their chips. The person who thinks this is good enough to cook with is a grap brained MILLIEWIT!

Gareth: Four Partridge. One WELL DONE. Debrough, ruin a partridge for me please. Dry it out destroy its texture, spoil its taste. Wantanly cast its very partridgeness to the four winds to satisfy this barbarian, this visigoth, this viking who has presumably ordered it because the knowlwdge that I am weeping in the kitchen brings him pleasure.

Gareth: That's right Everton put the eggs and the olive oil on the seat under everything else. That way by the time we get there if we're lucky the mayonaise will have made itself.

Gaston: Hello Rosbif.

Everton: Not here mate, try another kitchen.

Gaston: You have to start boiling your vegetables now or they will not be soggy and tastless in time.

Everton: Who's Rosbif?

Gareth: We are Everton.

Everton: You mean they call us Rosbifs like we call them fr...

Gareth: Everton, don't stoop to their level.

Gaston: So what you do Rosbifs? Le grey bouf with ze soft cabbage and ze Rice Pudding with ze nice lumps? [rads menu] Wine sauce?

Gareth: That's right.

Gaston: But what is this wine?

Gareth: I'm sure you've heard of it it's an alcoholic drink made with fermented grapes.

Gaston: But you must use ingredients anglais monsuir.

Everton: It is english monsuir.

Gaston: What is english?

Gareth: Having trouble with the old second tongue are we IT is english wine.

Gaston: Le vin anglais? [laughs] Le vin Rosbif? My friend you have won this contest already no one else has this great advantage.

"Reeny/Renee" (3.02)

Gareth: Everybody this is Reeny.

Renée: Renée.

Gareth: I'm sorry?

Renée: It's not Reeny is Renée, there's an accent abouve the second e. Renée.

Gareth: I see. What a faux-pas.

Renée: That's alright, it's an easy mistake to have made but it's Renée.

Gareth: And I expect you really hate being called Reeney.

Renée: Loath it. My friends at finishing school used to tease me about it all the time.

Gareth: I see how awful for you. I do appologise.

Renée: Apology accepted.

Gareth: Everybody this is...you sure this is ok?

Renée: Yes, fine.

Gareth: This is REENY. REENY is going to be helping us out here in the kitchen (northen accent)en't that right lass? REENY will in time no doubt become a valued member of the kitchen staff but seeing as REENY is not as yet expearienced, I want you to make sure REENY learns the ropes as I'm sure she wants to. (northen accent)Eee there's nowt so funny as folk en't that right Reeny?

Gareth: Janice, don't hang up. I just want to say I miss you and I love and I want to feel your body next to mine, I want to make love to you, I want to lick chocolate from all over your body I... Is this 712494? No wait don't hang up, do you deliver?

Gareth: DIE! COINS OF EVIL!!! DIE!!!

Cyril: She's got lots of good qualities.

Gareth: Like?

Cyril: Well... She's ever so pretty.

Gareth: Do you know I was forgetting the prettiness factor? Yes I remember when Gustave started working here. It wasn't that he was a great chef and he'd worked in some of the finest kitchens in the world, oh no we wanted him because he was so bloody PRETTY!

Cyril: But he's ugly.

Gareth: AHHHH!

CyrilAlright, keep yer hair on son. [leaves]

Gareth: I am not your son. I will never ever be your son. Cyril have you got 50p? Cyril? Dad?

"Lessons in Talking" (3.03)

[Two customers are at a table as Gareth enter the dining room when one who is on his mobile talking to a bloke called Dave flicks his fingers at him]

Gareth: Ignore it, ignore it.

Customer 1: Oh waiter.

Gareth: WAITER!

Customer 2: We ordered two large brandies. Pull your finger out mate.

[Customer 2 puts a cigar in his mouth which Gareth lights. He then starts clicking his fingers at the pair of them]

Gareth: You know I can't decide what this is. Either your being very rude in gaining my attention or you're auditioning for a part in West Side Story or your being very rude in trying to gain my attention.

Customer 1: What?

Gareth: [grabbing mobile] Bye Dave. [Throws mobile into coffee pot and shakes it up]

[Gareth and Janice have ended up in bed with a little help from a Barry White LP of Can't Get Enough of Your Love Babe]

Barry White: [The record is stuck] I love you baby, I love you baby, I love you baby, I love you baby. [Gareth stops record]

Gareth: Thanks Barry. [Kisses record]

[Despite their night of passion Janice has told Gareth she still wants a divorce. That night Gareth lets the customers know how he feels about it]

Gareth: [sings whilst starting to cry] I can't live if living is without you. I can't give, I can't give anymore [starting to sob like a baby and voice goes high pitched] I can't live if living is without you. I can't give, I can't give any more. Ohhhhhhhhh! Ohhhhhhhh![Stops singing and just sobs like a baby]

Cyril: [watching from the back] I think I'll knock this small talk lark on the head.

"Love in the Air"(3.04)

Gareth: Would you mind signing for this Langoustine Mr Balesteros?

Gareth: It's from my father, he's coming to visit.

Everton: How is he?

Gareth: As gittish as ever. I loath him more than Gary Rhodes's hair cut.

Everton: Your not still vexed with him are you?

Gareth: Vexed? Everton when I was ten years old my father went out for a newspaper, he never came back.

Gareth: He'll probably put his big fatherly arms round me and say comforting words like (Jamaican accent) Heh heh heh, boy I tell you that girl was to hoity tioty for you. Well now she hoity toity all the way out the front door ain't it? Heh heh heh!

"Rochelle" (3.05)

[Gareth is driving along and sees Janice kissing a man]

Gareth: [taking his eyes off the road] Janice, Janice, JANICE!! [crashes into a cab]

Gareth: She was kissing a man. We're talking first degree snogging here Cyril.

Paris? Jamaica?

[Cyril enters the kitchen with flowers]

Cyril: Savannah.

Gareth: Cyril. [takes flowers and cuts off heads with cleaver]

Gareth: I'm not a cruel man Cyril.

Cyril: Yes you are.

Gareth: Sometimes one needs to get ones point across in a short space of time. Cyril Savannahy does not want to be and never will be your valentine, your sweetheart or your squidgy love bundle.

Cyril: But we snogged.

Misc

Gareth Blackstock: This isn't a bill, this is grievous bodily invoicing!

Gareth Blackstock: You're charging me so much money, you could afford to eat in my restaurant!

Gareth Blackstock: Do not misunderstand me Mrs Courtney, do not take this the wrong way, this IS personal, I WANT to be rude, I an HOPING to cause offence. I have a lifelong abhorence for violence inflicted upon women, Mrs Courtney, but I am taking urgent consideration for making an exception in YOUR case. I have just seen your bill, It is for the sort of money which rarely changes hands without the aid of a gun and a getaway car. There a names at Lloyds sitting around in darkened rooms with loaded revolvers who owe less than this. IT'S A DISGRACE!!!! You are chaging me so much money YOU COULD AFFORD TO EAT IN MY RESTAURANT!!!!