Levanti's Italian Restaurant

What happened after

Italian restaurant (opened 1998 by Dino Fratangeli, renamed Levanti's American Bistro during production) closed for good in November 2013, about a year after its Feb 2013 episode, following reputation damage (2.5-star Yelp). The space was sold to a new owner and reopened under the different name 'Heirloom.'

Closure date on record: 2013-11

What happened on the show

Dino Fratangeli claimed the signature Carletta sauce at Levanti's had come to him in a dream, even inspired by God, which Ramsay found a lot harder to believe after tasting the over-garlicked result on very dry chicken. Dino had opened the Beaver, Pennsylvania restaurant with his father Tony, and his sister Tina had sold her flower shop to help run it, but competition had eroded early success and the siblings could barely work together; Dino had once left for a year just to avoid resenting Tina forever. Before he even started his meal, Ramsay spotted rancid olive oil and months-old tiramisu. The stuffed banana peppers, frozen and overloaded with cheese, he compared to congealed snot; the Italian stuffed filet came out raw and frozen inside. Ramsay called it the worst Italian food he had ever eaten, and Tony, bankrolling the whole thing, stood to lose a quarter of a million dollars if it failed.

After the cameras left

Levanti's, rebranded American Bistro during production, closed for good in November 2013, about a year after the episode, its reputation dinged by weak reviews. The space was sold and reopened as a different restaurant, Heirloom, under a new owner. A quarter of a million dollars of Tony's money went into a family business his children could not run together, and the Beaver storefront moved on to someone else entirely.