Story: (some spoilers will be coming ahead later) It's really something when a manga is able to knock out every other favorite I have and achieve top rank. This doesn't apply anymore as I'm re-editing this review a bit, but it definitely did achieve that for awhile in the past. Unfortunately, I should say this now. It really is superb story-wise until the manga gets to a certain arc. At that point, it's just not that amazing anymore, however. It redeems itself after because everything comes together. Trials that were just whatever end up forming something moving in the end.
How can a manga about cooking be so great? Hell's Kitchen is about how the Earl of Poor Eating is tired of only consuming souls of experienced, but conceited, immoral chefs. So he comes up with the idea of possessing your most average and normal person... the protagonist of course. With this, you're invited to the wacky, but highly creative and well thought-out adventures he has at a cooking academy for very talented teens. The techniques in this manga are REAL. They're so odd, but if you research them, you find out that they're actual skills that are used, and the cooking elements are in fact, fact. I figure I should stop here because I'd be spoiling more, though. An important fact I should include is that re-reading this as I'm older made me realize that it has some very touching and realistic moments. As in the way the characters react really speak to you. I'm mainly talking about those times where there's a sad time or after a... oops I nearly spoiled you there (no, it's not a character death if that's what you were thinking).
Art: At the beginning, the art style for Hell's Kitchen is ehh. Once you get into it, which will be near the beginning, you disregard the art completely. The only way I realized that the art isn't that great, was that I re-read chapters when I got caught-up. (I purposely held this off for weeks because I didn't want to catch up) Even so, the art is decent and above average. You'll notice some mistakes if you look, but it's all right otherwise. It's one of a kind and enjoyable nonetheless. The art styles and character designs give off a lot of personality that is practically oozing out from the characters.
Characters: Oh, of course, the characters themselves. The ones in this series are quite lovable, even with their flaws. They achieve their own personal, original flair. There aren't a few or too many characters, but there's a good amount. From this, I don't remember if -all- of them have backstories, but a lot of them do. Some are short, but still provide enough, and others are split. You'll have a backstory reveal, but learn later on that there's more to their past and reasons to why they're the way they are. The characters aren't just your overused, recycled character archetypes, which are pretty common nowadays. Nearly all of the characters are real likeable- even the main antagonists at times. I really like a lot of the cast; they're very colorful and have great personality for the story. It's hard not to get attached to them.
If it wasn't obvious enough, I enjoy this manga, and I really don't know what I did to keep myself from waiting for new chapters. ...but like I said before, with the current chapters, it lost it's brilliant shine. I hope it becomes amazing again. Oh, this manga has great humor, but the omakes are even more gold. Even excluding the omakes, the manga still has good humor.
All in all, you should give it a go! It doesn't matter if you're a shounen or shoujo fan, you might just love this.
