In the season twelve premiere, Chef Ramsay splits the twenty competing chefs into two teams. For the first challenge, each team prepares a signature dish.
In the season finale, the two chefs and their respective teams participate in a final dinner service that will determine this season's winner.
The final two chefs must prepare two appetizers and three entrées to present to a panel of respected judges. The winner gets first pick in a team of chefs eliminated from the competition.
The remaining four contestants split into two teams. Each team has thirty minutes to replicate the sample dish using only taste, touch and sight.
The budding chefs create ten gourmet burgers, which are then evaluated by Chef Ramsay, Jean-Philippe and a row of judges associated with some of the finest restaurants in the country.
Chef Ramsay devises a team of former "Hell's Kitchen" winners to challenge the remaining contestants. The two teams must wow Chef Ramsay with their signature dishes.
Each chef has 45 minutes to use a pressure cooker to make a meal using one of five cheap cuts of meat — each hidden in a pressure cooker — and fashion the dish as a five-star entrée.
Chef Ramsay tests the remaining contestants' abilities to communicate with one another in a three-entrée relay race. The winners tour LA by helicopter and visit the King Gillette Ranch.
Hosting its first quinceañera, Hell's Kitchen throws a party fit for a princess. Each team must make a five course tasting menu based on the guest of honor's preferences.
The aspiring chefs must cut a steak, cook it to medium-rare and then serve it with a spice rub or sauce of their own making. The winners spend the afternoon lounging around a pool.
For the team challenge, the remaining contestants visit an animal pen to choose a form of protein to cook with. During the dinner service, the budding chefs must impress Chef Ramsay's family as well.
Chef Ramsay challenges the remaining contestants to create six stunning Chinese dishes, which will then be judged by the renowned chef Martin Yan.
Dinner service comes to a halt when Jean-Philippe requests help in the dining room. When one contestant from each team helps the wait staff, Ramsay discovers that both draw illegible checks.
Chef Ramsay orders the remaining contestants to identify the particular protein used in five meat dishes. The fastest team to guess all five proteins wins a day at the beach in Malibu.
The two teams must create a healthy meal for Olympians Maurice Greene, Natalie Coughlin and Danell Leyva after a 3,000m run. The winners jet off to California's Temecula Valley Wine Country.
The remaining contestants participate in a physical challenge. Each team has five minutes to climb a wall and retrieve as many lobsters as possible.
The contestants taste Chef Lefebvre and Chef Hatfield's dishes. This leads to a challenge in which the chefs must distinguish the ingredients in the meals and reproduce it in thirty minutes.
The two teams must prepare three dishes from the regular Hell's Kitchen menu in a tag-team race. Chef Ramsay judges the dishes on completeness, appearance and taste.
A Southern gospel choir sings a rendition of "This Little Light of Mine" to the remaining contestants. The teams must put a modern spin on a traditional southern dish in thirty minutes.
The remaining chefs create their own menus in the toughest challenge yet. Chef Ramsay relies on diner comment cards for his brutally honest criticism.