Why Gordon Ramsay Is So Unhappy With This TikToker
When chefs are grilled by Gordon Ramsay, they either wilt like a piece of old lettuce or up their cooking game to meet the celebrity chef's exacting standards. Matthew Merril is a 16-year-old who became a TV chef at age 11, during season 2 of Kids Baking Championship on the Food Network (via Famous Birthdays). The young cook now has his own YouTube channel and a much more popular TikTok account, @matthewinthekitchen, that currently boasts 1.3 million followers.
As a judge on Master Chef Junior, Ramsay always handles the young cooks with kid gloves. But after watching Merril try his recipe for scrambled eggs, Ramsay treated the young chef more like a Hell's Kitchen contestant. The gloves were off. Merril told Insider that he chose to demonstrate Ramsay's scrambled eggs on TikTok because Ramsay's scrambled-egg YouTube video was the first cooking video he had ever watched. Imagine Merril's emotions when he found out that Ramsay posted his own TikTok in response to Merril's efforts. Was he overjoyed or humiliated? After all, the master was not so impressed with the pupil.
There really aren't that many things that can go wrong when scrambling eggs, but Merril appeared to be guilty of most of them, at least in Ramsay's eyes. Maybe Merril's first mistake was to put Ramsay in the hot seat and question the quality of his recipe. "Gordon, this better live up to the hype," he said at the start of his TikTok.
After the Ramsay roast, the young chef tries a second time
Merril got past cracking eggs well enough, but then he messed up the butter. Ramsay's original egg video called for a "knob" of butter. Merril didn't know what that was, so he dropped two tablespoons of butter on the eggs. In his reaction TikTok, Ramsay's frustration mounted quickly. "OK, a teaspoon, smarta**," Ramsay says. "Too much butter."
Ramsay also observed Merril failing to take the eggs off the heat often enough and overwhipping his scramble. "Don't overstir it, you'll break it up," Ramsay said. After bashing Merril some more as he spiced the eggs and spread them on toast, Ramsay concluded with the dagger: "Truthfully, you're such a nob." Obviously, Merril's mock accent when he said "knob of butter" was more than Ramsay could bear.
Merril told Insider he was "super happy" that Ramsay, one of the most famous TV chefs in the world, took the time to respond to his original TikTok post. He also admitted his heart sank to hear some of the withering criticisms. But Merril was a good sport. He made a new TikTok, trying the scrambled eggs over again, this time following Ramsay's instructions more exactly. "If I'm being honest, they kind of taste the same," Merril quipped at the end, though he did admit that the eggs were creamier and airier this time around.
All in all, a good bounceback by Merril. Some commenters on TikTok wouldn't have been so brave. "If he did that to me, I would move on to microwave food," one viewer commented.