DOCUMENT: Crime

Food Fight Over Rocco's "Restaurant"

View Document

Food Fight Over Rocco's "Restaurant"

APRIL 6--With the second season of NBC's "The Restaurant" starting later this month, you've probably seen the commercials promoting the escalating (and entertaining!) feud between chef Rocco DiSpirito and Jeffery Chodorow, the eatery's financial backer. Well, several months after Chodorow sued DiSpirito for mismanagement and breach of duty, the telegenic meatball maven fired back yesterday, filing a countersuit alleging that the meddling money man had turned his dream restaurant into a nightmare. Below you'll find an excerpt from DiSpirito's 39-page complaint filed in New York State Supreme Court. The way Rocco tells it, Chodorow has, among other things, changed the locks on the East 22nd Street joint and not given him the keys. Worse yet, Rocco alleges that Chodorow's henchmen "fired the pasta makers" and have "substituted frozen pasta in the Restaurant's dishes." With all this distasteful litigation, NBC might consider renaming Rocco's show, perhaps with a nod to a network staple: "Law and Order: Tiramisu Unit," perhaps? (6 pages)