restaurantRamsay's Kitchen Nightmares (UK) · Season 3, Episode 4 · Aired March 14, 2006
La Gondola
Derby, Derbyshire, England
It has since closed. The site is now home to Approved for residential redevelopment (demolition).
On the show
Season 3, Episode 4 · March 14, 2006 · Italian restaurant
No revisit episode shown within the main run.
What happened after
Building had stood vacant/derelict for years; council approved demolition for residential redevelopment in February 2024, and the vacant building was then damaged by a fire in August 2024 (arson investigation opened).
What happened on the show
Daniela Bayfield had bought into a forty-year-old Derby institution and was loath to change any of it. Ramsay found La Gondola trapped in a time warp, the dishes straight out of the seventies and eighties, silver service long out of fashion, and prices set so low the kitchen lost money on the plate. Head chef Steve Straughan lacked drive and was unused to a rush. At a birthday function the cracks showed plainly: tinned tuna standing in for tuna steak, bought-in apple pie, fresh minestrone bulked out with packet soup to save pennies, and a dim, oversized brigade with no system to hold service together. Ramsay stripped the menu back, redid the dining room, and brought back tableside flambe as a signature flourish. The dinner service ran reasonably well even as Steve struggled to communicate. By the revisit Steve had moved on, and Daniela had cycled through several chefs before settling on another.
After the cameras left
The restaurant's own ending is lost to time, but the building's is well documented. Left empty and derelict for years, La Gondola was approved for demolition and residential redevelopment in February 2024, then the vacant building was damaged by a fire that August, with an arson inquiry opened. We hold this at medium confidence: the closure signal is strong, but it comes via a summary of BBC reporting rather than a direct read, and the restaurant's actual trading end, well before the 2024 events, was never independently established. What is clear is that the Derby site's future is housing, not dining.
Sources
Confidence: medium. Last checked 2026-07-19.