barRamsay's Kitchen Nightmares (UK) · Season 2, Episode 2 · Aired May 31, 2005
D-Place (renamed Saracen's Café Bar)
Chelmsford, Essex, England
This one did not make it. The business closed.
On the show
Season 2, Episode 2 · May 31, 2005 · cafe bar
Renamed on-air to "Saracen's Café Bar" after the hotel it is situated in; no revisit episode shown.
What happened after
Cafe/bar run by businessman Israel Pons on the former Saracen's Head Hotel site; no evidence of the business trading under either name today, and local coverage discusses it only in the past tense.
What happened on the show
Ramsay's first objection at D-Place was the name, but the deeper trouble was that rookie owners Israel and Tara Pons were being run over by two strong personalities: a confrontational, ineffective general manager, Dave Bone, and an experienced but arrogant head chef, Philippe Blaise, fond of shortcuts. Ramsay rebranded the Chelmsford venue the Saracen's Café Bar, borrowing the name of the hotel that housed it, and built a menu around a club sandwich. Philippe took a lot of persuading, and Dave's mishandling of the reopening lunch tipped it into chaos, leaving guests unfed, which finally pushed Israel to sack Dave on the spot. Ramsay left unsure whether any of it would hold. It did not: on his return he learned the couple had been evicted by the building's owners, a decision apparently taken before he ever arrived, and were now in serious financial trouble. The one twist was Philippe, hired by the hotel itself and still serving that club sandwich as a signature.
After the cameras left
This is the thinnest evidence in the batch, and we will not pretend otherwise. The cafe-bar run by Israel Pons, on the former Saracen's Head Hotel site, shows no sign of trading today under either the D-Place or Saracen's name, and what local coverage exists speaks of it only in the past tense. We mark it closed as an inference from that absence, not from any dated statement, and we could not confirm a claim that the building now trades under a different name. As of our latest pass, current use of the site in Chelmsford is unconfirmed.
Sources
Confidence: low. Last checked 2026-07-19.