Mashantucket ― It might be the flaming pitchfork.

Whatever it is, the aura surrounding Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen at Foxwoods, the proclaimed “game-changer” of a restaurant set to debut here Saturday, is decidedly edgy.

Preparations have involved several weeks of some of the most “intense” training Foxwoods Resort Casino has ever provided employees, Jason Guyot, the casino’s president and chief executive officer, said Thursday during a grand-opening celebration and media event. Hundreds of invited guests attended.

Foxwoods hired nearly 100 people to staff the restaurant, Guyot said, indoctrinating them in the ways of Ramsay, the British celebrity chef and reality TV host known for displaying culinary exactitude and plenty of attitude.

Ramsay, who was not present at Thursday’s grand opening, provided a video message as he had back in March when his partnership with Foxwoods was revealed at a news conference.

Guyot said he thought filling the restaurant’s positions would be challenging, but applicants came forward in droves. Turns out people ― chefs in particular ― are eager to associate themselves with Ramsay and the Hell’s Kitchen brand, he said.

Christina Wilson, the winning contestant on the 10th season in 2012 of Ramsay’s “Hell’s Kitchen” cooking show, has been helping ready the Foxwoods staff. She’s been with Ramsay since appearing on the show, serving since 2021 as vice president of operations for Ramsay’s restaurant empire’s North American operations.

Everything about the Hell’s Kitchen at Foxwoods, the sixth iteration of the concept, the others being in Atlantic City, Washington, D.C., Lake Tahoe, Nev., and Las Vegas and southern California, is designed to evoke the feeling of being on the set of the TV show, Wilson said.

That explains the red and blue in the kitchen, the 20-foot ceiling, the 300-bottle wine display, the video screen of Ramsay and the portraits of “Hell’s Kitchen” winners in the restaurant’s foyer ― and the flaming pitchfork, an enclosed 25- by 15-foot, natural gas-burning “fire feature” that Guyot said is the biggest of its kind anywhere.

Much on the restaurant’s menu will be familiar to Ramsay fans, too, including such signature entrees as beef Wellington ($65), a 24-ounce bone-in ribeye ($110) and crispy skin salmon ($40) and lobster risotto ($33), an appetizer. Wilson said the restaurant has added some distinctive seafood dishes with a connection to the region, such as the Stonington lobster roll (also $33).

Rodney Butler, the Mashantucket chairman, credited Guyot with pursuing Ramsay as part of a vision for Foxwoods’ transformation of its Pequot Concourse area, an ongoing project that will culminate later this summer in the opening of Wahlburgers, the restaurant chain founded by Paul Wahlberg, brother of Donnie and Mark Wahlberg, and a new gaming floor featuring more than 400 slot machines and 24 table games.

Guyot, named Foxwoods’ interim CEO in 2020 and permanent CEO a year later, said he decided to pursue Ramsay “because he’s the best” of the celebrity chefs and appeals to a broad demographic. Guyot reached out to him in late 2020, when, fortuitously, Ramsay had just started to look at expanding his operations in North America.

Ramsay visited Foxwoods in early 2021, and “fell in love with it,” Guyot said.

Hell’s Kitchen at Foxwoods will open to the public at 4:30 p.m. Saturday. Reservations can be made for Aug. 1 and beyond, with walk-up business accepted until then.

Patrons will find dining there “an experience,” Guyot said.

b.hallenbeck@theday.com