LOS ANGELES (TNA) – Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef with the volcanic #@%&* temper, knows it’s not easy to be on the receiving end of one of his profane outbursts.

But the “Hell’s Kitchen” hothead insists that he’s never mean simply for the sake of being mean.

“Being assertive and really firm has to be backed up with being fair,” he says. “And one thing I’ve been all along is incredibly fair.”

Gordon Ramsay, host of 'Kitchen Nightmares,' can't stomach bad food or shoddy service.

So when Ramsay gives a fellow chef or the kitchen help or the wait staff or even a restaurant owner a good dressing down, believe him, they deserve it.

They deserve it tenfold, in fact – because, the way he sees it, a vile meal or shabby service is an unforgivable way to ruin a dining experience.

“I spend a lot of time in top restaurants,” says Ramsay, whose new Fox reality series, “Kitchen Nightmares,” airs Wednesdays at 9 p.m. ET. “No disrespect, but when you’re cooking in the premier league of restaurants, trust me, when things go wrong, it has to be sorted immediately.

“I never like [for someone] to misconstrue that level of meanness. My mum doesn’t enjoy sometimes listening to me tell staff off. But I say to my mum, ‘It’s a kitchen, not a hairdressing salon.’”

A botched hairdo can be fixed, after all. But serve someone an inedible plate of food and he could end up in the emergency room getting his stomach pumped.

The stakes here are higher, so Ramsay amplifies the outraged histrionics in equal measure.

In “Kitchen Nightmares,” inspired by one of England’s top-rated TV shows, Ramsay gives foundering restaurants top-to-bottom makeovers. Whether it’s an unimaginative menu, out-of-date dining-room decor, faulty kitchen equipment or petulant personnel, Ramsay roots out the problem with laser precision and then, without apology, takes immediate action.

And if you can’t stand the heat, get your #@%&* ass out of Chef Ramsay’s kitchen.

His food-service pet peeves are legion, but here are a few that really get Ramsay’s blood boiling:

Chefs who take shortcuts: “I think what frustrates me more than anything is when chefs start to cut corners and believe that they are incognito in the way they send out appetizers on trays and they know it’s not 100 percent. They think that the customers can’t spot it, but we know damn well that customers vote with their feet in the way that they return to restaurants.”

Chefs who forget that flavor comes first: “I train my chefs with a blindfold. I’ll get my sous chef and myself to cook a dish and that young chef will have to sit down, he or she, and eat it with a blindfold. Because if you cannot identify the flavor, then you shouldn’t  be cooking the dish. That is really important.”

Inadequate service from the wait staff: “When you talk about service in a dining room, it’s got to be attentive without being noticed in a way that you can’t be overbearing.”

And lest we forget that fresh, quality ingredients are an absolute must in any meal. It’s eye-opening and downright stomach-turning to see the flagrant health-code violations Ramsay unearths in nightmarishly filthy kitchens.

Scottish by birth but raised in England, Ramsay is one of the world’s best-known chefs – in part due to his TV hits, but also because of his popular restaurants, which have received three Michelin stars, and his best-selling cookbooks.

Viewers who have seen Ramsay terrorize wannabe chefs with F-bomb strafing runs might be surprised to see a more nurturing persona in “Kitchen Nightmares.”

“‘Hell’s Kitchen’ is a reality show where you find your talent and you push that talent to the breakpoint,” he says. “You push them to the extreme and you keep a live scenario of running a restaurant. ‘Kitchen Nightmares’ is a completely different journey.

“It’s about understanding where a business has gone wrong, identifying the weaknesses, improving them immediately and then being blatantly honest with them. When I’m dealing with families, jeopardy, financial ruin and very delicate situations, I’d like to think that I think about it in an immaculate way.

“It’s something that means a lot for me to make sure that these restaurants get turned around and benefit from my advice,” he adds.

In fact, Ramsay still vividly remembers the meal that first turned him on to food, and cooking, and the restaurant business.

“I lived in Paris for two years and Monaco for a year,” he recalls. “My time in France made me appreciate what [a great meal] was all about. I was 21 years of age and I went to eat with my friend’s grandparents. We were in the countryside, underneath a mountain, and it was just the most amazing dinner.

“We had this little amazing salad of chevre. Then we went to a really simple taglaitelle with white truffles. Then we had this braised rabbit dish. And then they brought out this locally produced camembert. And finally we had this amazing tartatan. I had this amazing dinner with a couple of bottles of rose and it went on for about three and a half, four hours.

“And the most fascinating thing about this dinner,” he continues, “was the fact that we didn’t even change plates or knife and fork throughout it. We ate off the same plate throughout the whole dinner. There was no level of pretension, but I can still remember that level of taste and flavor.

“And that’s when it clicked: the beauty of food.”

Is it any wonder, after that dining experience, why he goes berserk when served a plate of mush?

Chef Gordon Ramsay simply can’t stomach the taste of failure.

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