Basil Fawlty is having trouble with his Austin 1100 car. Despite Sybil's insistence that he take the car to a repair shop, the miserly Basil tries to fix the car himself.

Meanwhile, Fawlty Towers has a new Greek chef named Kurt who has been found for them by André, Kurt's culinary trainer and a friend of the Fawltys. Basil and Sybil are intending to host a gourmet night at the hotel. After a rude, pampered boy calls the hotel a "dump" simply because the chips weren't the shape he preferred, Basil – ever eager to attract the upper crust of clientéle in Torquay – includes a "no riff-raff" notice in his advertisement for the gourmet night. Unfortunately, only four people turn up for the occasion: Colonel and Mrs. Hall, both JPs; and Lionel Twitchen, one of Torquay's leading rotarians, along with his wife, Lotte. A party of four, the Coosters, were forced to cancel at the last minute due to one of them getting ill, to which Basil remarks "Let's hope it's nothing trivial."

Kurt has taken a liking to Manuel. As the episode unfolds it is revealed that Kurt is a homosexual alcoholic and his interest in Manuel is romantic. Manuel is not interested, so Kurt seeks solace in alcohol and ends up drunk to the point of being unable to cook, leading the remaining staff to panic as the dinner guests arrive.

Basil becomes oversensitive to Colonel Hall's introduction to the other guests. The Colonel has a nervous twitch which causes his neck and head to convulse violently. When Fawlty attempts to introduce the two couples he gets hung up on the name of "Lionel Twitchen", so as not to offend the Colonel, and is unable to introduce them, thereby causing maximum embarrassment for himself. Mr Twitchen introduces himself, revealing his surname is pronounced "Twychen". Basil also addresses the diminutive Mrs. Hall as "Mrs. Small" at one point.

Basil is horrified to find Kurt has passed out and vomited, so there is now no chef. Fortunately, André, who was aware of Kurt's alcoholism, is on hand to help. However, as André's restaurant has a restricted availability, the 'gourmet' menu ends up with only three possible dishes for Basil's guests to choose from – all consisting of various forms of duck: duck with orange, duck with cherries, or "duck surprise" (duck without oranges or cherries). When Colonel Hall asks what happens if they don't like duck, Basil responds "If you don't like duck... then you're rather stuck!"

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Wikipedia