I used to watch the UK version of kitchen nightmares on BBC Amerca and enjoyed it a lot. Costs and regulations of running restaurants in Europe along with a more densely packed population means restaurants will survive even if they are shit in the food serving department, their costs are lower of just opening the doors are lower.
Compare that to the USA, where populations are very spread out, a small town in Britain will have higher population density than any small town in the USA, US health dept rules as well as the availability of bigger buildings and cheap and used restaurant equipment due to many failed restaurants means you can have a very big well supplied kitchen for less money than in the UK (source I dealt with restaurant refrigerator manufacturer at my previous job).
A perfect example of this scenario is when Jamie Oliver goes to Huntington, WV and looks at their kitchen and says they have a better kitchen than many restaurants and yet served such shit premade prepacked food.
You also ignore the general attitude of Americans when it comes to food and work, the shameful state of the food is the fridges he's been to does not strike me at all as being faked, I have been in many kitchens through out the USA because of my last job, and seen some truly horrifying shit.
Mixing chicken meat and sauce in a 55 gallon garbage drum, it was brand new, but still, not foodgrade plastic.
Same restaurant, their kitchen ceilling was barely 6ft, you could feel the humidity in the air and see it on the walls.
Same restaurant, need new exhaust filters? Nah son just wash those old ones in a fucking car wash pressure washer.
Different restaurant, employee peed in the sink, place closed, reopened as something else, exact same kitchen
Different place also, cutting up chicken breasts, had two already cut containers of chicken breasts, sitting on the floor, at room temperature.
I say the USA version of kitchen nightmares, is not as fake as one imagines it.
