River Cree Resort & Casino will be the site of the first Hell’s Kitchen restaurant in Canada.
Gordon Ramsay’s fine dining restaurant concept will open at the gaming and hospitality destination on the Enoch Cree Nation in the Edmonton area in early 2026.
Ramsay founded the chain in 2018, inspired by the TV series of the same name that he hosts in which two teams of chefs did battle in a series of dinner services and eliminations before one chef won the grand prize. The Hell’s Kitchen restaurants aim to evoke the set for a unique dining experience, with design elements such as the HK logo and pitchfork door handles, as well as branded merchandise.
There are seven Hell’s Kitchen locations in the U.S., in Las Vegas, Southern California, Miami, Atlantic City, Washington, D.C, Lake Tahoe and Foxwoods, CT. An upcoming location in Chicago has been announced, but the River Cree site will be the first north of the border.
“I’m delighted to announce that my new Hell’s Kitchen will be opening at the River Cree Resort early next year,” Ramsay said in a statement. “We always receive such a warm welcome in Canada, and I’m excited to see the new restaurant come to life over the next few months.”
Big-name deal months in the making
River Cree CEO and General Manager Vik Mahajan told Canadian Gaming Business that the deal is the result of months of work behind the scenes.
“We’ve been working on this deal with the Ramsey group for a while,” Mahajan said by phone. “It’s been five or six months of back-and-forth, and them also visiting our property and so on. Because, of course, it’s a big deal to get a Hell’s Kitchen anywhere, and especially being the first in Canada. We came up with a contract and we are going to build it, manage it and run it. Hopefully, we should be open by early next year, maybe January or so.”
Ramsay has several restuarant brands. For instance, B.C.’s River Rock Casino hosts a Gordon Ramsay Steak restaurant.
Mahajan noted that Hell’s Kitchen is the famous chef’s “No. 1 brand.”
“I wanted to bring nothing but his top brand,” he added.
The Hell’s Kitchen is one of several additions being made to River Cree Resort & Casino. A new hotel is under construction right now, which will add approximately 35,000 square feet of meeting space when it opens in 2027, and the casino will be expanded.
For Mahajan, it’s all part of making the Edmonton-area casino resort the best it can be.
“It is on people’s bucket list to go visit Hell’s Kitchen or a Ramsey concept. So, having that definitely will attract people to the property, not just from within Edmonton or Alberta but outside the province and even people coming into Canada from the States or other countries. It’s big.”
