The eighth season of ''

Hell's Kitchen Hell's Kitchen, also known as Clinton, is a neighborhood on the West Side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. It is considered to be bordered by 34th Street (or 41st Street) to the south, 59th Street to the north, Eighth Avenue to the eas ...

'', an American

reality competition Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring unfamiliar people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 19 ...

television series starring

Gordon Ramsay Gordon James Ramsay (; born ) is a British chef, restaurateur, television personality and writer. His restaurant group, Gordon Ramsay Restaurants, was founded in 1997 and has been awarded 17 Michelin stars overall; it currently holds a tot ...

, premiered on the

Fox Network The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...

on September 22, 2010, and continued until December 15, 2010. Sous Chef Nona Sivley won the competition, earning a

head chef A chef de cuisine (, French for ''head of kitchen'') or head chef is a chef that leads and manages the kitchen and chefs of a restaurant or hotel. A chef patron (feminine form ''chef patronne'') (French for ''boss chef'') or executive chef is ...

position at the L.A. Market restaurant at the JW Marriott Hotel at

L.A. Live L.A. Live is an entertainment complex in the South Park District of Downtown Los Angeles, California. It is adjacent to the Crypto.com Arena and Los Angeles Convention Center. L.A. Live was developed by Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG), Wach ...

in Los Angeles, as well as an opportunity to be a spokesperson for Rosemount Estate Wines. This would be the last season to feature 16 contestants, until

season 17 A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and po ...

. Sabrina Brimhall is the second person after Virginia Dalbeck (from season 2) to hold the distinction of being nominated at every opportunity she was not on the winning team or granted immunity by Chef Ramsay. She is also the second person after Autumn Lewis (from season 7) to be nominated a total of seven times.

Format

The first half of each episode consists of a team challenge, in which the winning side gets a reward of some sort of leisure activity, while the losing side has to clean up and prepare both kitchens, as well as some activity that is not so pleasant. Afterwards, the teams compete in executing a dinner service, during which Ramsay can impose additional punishments or kick chefs out of the kitchen. The losing team(s) nominates chefs to be considered for elimination. Ramsay can also nominate chefs, and ultimately sends a chef home. At six chefs left, the teams merge to one, and the chefs compete as individuals.

Staff

returned to the series as the head chef, as well as sous chefs

Scott Leibfried Scott Leibfried (born March 9, 1971) is an American chef and culinary consultant best known for his work hosting and participating in cooking-related competition programs ''Hell's Kitchen'' and the ''Food Network Challenge''. Leibfried was born i ...

and Andi van Willigan. James Lukanik served as the

maître d' ''Maître'' (spelled ''Maitre'' according to post-1990 spelling rules) is a commonly used honorific for lawyers, judicial officers and notaries in France, Belgium, Switzerland and French-speaking parts of Canada. It is often written in its abbrev ...

, replacing Jean-Philippe Susilovic, who had been serving as a restaurant director at Ramsay's restaurant in London, Petrus. Seasons 7 and 8 were taped a year apart, resulting in other staff changes.

Broadcast

''Hell's Kitchen'' was planned to air weekly from September to December 2010. However, due to Fox's televising of the

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playoffs The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

and the

World Series The World Series is the annual championship series of Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States and Canada, contested since 1903 between the champion teams of the American League (AL) and the National League (NL). The winner of the World ...

in October and November, the show was broadcast with double episodes from September 22 until October 13 in addition to double episodes on November 10 and single episodes from November 17 until the finale on December 15. This is the first time that the series took more than a week off while the competition was in progress.

Cablevision Cablevision Systems Corporation was an American cable television company with systems serving areas surrounding New York City. It was the fifth-largest cable provider and ninth-largest television provider in the United States. Throughout its ex ...

did not carry Fox during the first sixteen days of the hiatus due to a

carriage dispute A carriage dispute is a disagreement over the right to "carry", that is, retransmit, a broadcaster's signal. Carriage disputes first occurred between broadcasters and cable companies and now include direct broadcast satellite and other multicha ...

Contestants

16 chefs competed in season eight. Ages shown are at the start of competition. ;Notes

Contestant progress

Episodes

Notes

References

; Recaps ; Other references

External links

''Hell's Kitchen''
official Fox.com website by

Fox Broadcasting Company The Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps as FOX, is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by Fox Corporation and headquartered in New York City, with master control operations an ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hell's Kitchen (American season 8) Hell's Kitchen (American TV series) 2010 American television seasons