Chef

The premiere episode serves primarily to set up the series and introduce the main character, Gareth Blackstock, a master chef with an obsessive drive for culinary perfection, no friends or outside interests other than his wife Janice, and remarkable verbal talents used primarily to creatively abuse his unfortunate staff of assistant cooks, although he is perfectly prepared to give the same treatment to waiters, management, suppliers, bankers, and, occasionally, customers. As the show opens, Gareth is shown verbally lacerating his kitchen staff as ""easily the most bone-idle bunch of useless toe-rags I have ever encountered in any kitchen anywhere. You are sloppy, lazy, half asleep, late, and, at the moment, only giving about 12 1/2 per cent."" Gareth is then shown with the restaurant manager who insists that he must reduce his staff to save money. He replies that the staff is dedicated, superbly efficient, and already impossibly overworked and underpaid. Gareth announces he is quittin

After Le Chateau Anglais is forced into receivership, Gareth and Janice prepare to buy the restaurant. To make the purchase, they have to sell their home and car, as well as meet with a banker to arrange a loan. Janice's fears that Gareth's notorious temper will be unleashed on the banker prove justified.

Chef's plan to buy Le Chateau is stalled by inability to sell the house. A sentimental conversation about living in the house turns into an argument between Gareth and Janice when Janice finds out that Gareth remembers exactly what she ordered the night they first met in a restaurant but can't remember what she wore. The kitchen is in disarray when Everton loses a band-aid and thinks it might be somewhere in the food he's prepared. The purchase of the restaurant moves forward again after an article about the house in a local publication brings in new buyers.