A FAILED restaurateur says she is going to sue Gordon Ramsay, Channel 4 and the television programme makers Optomen for landing her £400,000 in debt after featuring her restaurant on Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares.

Sue Ray, owner of Bonaparte’s in Silsden, West Yorkshire, says she faces the prospect of being left homeless after a meeting of creditors next week. Ms Ray lives in a flat above the restaurant, which is now closed, and hopes to sell both to help to pay off her debts.

She says that instead of having its takings boosted as a result of being featured on television, Bonaparte’s met its Waterloo “because of the way Gordon Ramsay slagged us off”. Ms Ray, 53, said yesterday: “The programme makers told us the programme would end on a good note and would put us on the map. Instead it put us out of business.”

Viewers saw the cameras pan in on filthy refrigerators and mouldy strawberries in the kitchen. In one scene Ramsay was seen choking on a rancid scallop cooked by the restaurant’s head chef, 21-year-old Tim Gray.

Ms Ray claimed that many of the scenes had been exaggerated to make “good telly” and said: “If I had known it was going to be called Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares we wouldn’t have taken part.”

She admitted: “A lot of the time I was serving in the upstairs bar when filming was going on in front of the cameras so I didn’t see exactly what was happening. But Tim admitted he had hammed up a lot of the scenes because he was playing up to the cameras.”

In the programme Ramsay was seen criticising Ms Ray for not paying sufficient attention to the restaurant, and warning her that Mr Gray was not up to the job. Though the restaurant managed to get through a Valentine’s night dinner successfully at the end of Mr Ramsay’s visit, viewers saw that when he revisited the premises a month later, Mr Gray was still the head chef, the kitchen was dirty again and mouldy leftovers were once more in the refrigerators. Ms Ray said: “We had a bit of a party in the restaurant to watch the programme when it was screened and at the end of it there was just a stunned silence.

“Then I had to listen to us being ridiculed on other TV and radio programmes. The bookings just vanished.”

Bonaparte’s was the first restaurant to be featured in Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares and more than four million viewers tuned in to hear the chef moved by what he found there to swear 111 times in the single episode.

During the programme Ramsay was seen gagging with his hand over his mouth, claiming that Mr Gray had tried to poison him by serving him a decomposing scallop. Ramsay told the hapless chef on air: “I’m f****** gobsmacked.” The tirade continued as he suggested that he was going to tell the owner to shut the restaurant because, among other things, it was an “embarrassment to catering”.

Ms Ray said: “The truth is the only reason Tim used the scallops was because he thought he was being asked to demonstrate the presentation of his signature dish.

He never expected Gordon to eat them because they were about to be thrown out. Before Gordon Ramsay came along we were doing fine. He may have raised his profile with Kitchen Nightmares. I’m the one left with the real-life nightmare.”

Christine Hall, the producer of Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares, said yesterday: “Sue Ray has only herself to blame. She did not accept Gordon’s advice. We showed everything 100 per cent as we found it, and we have the footage to prove it.”

THE EFFECTS OF CELEBRITY

The Glass House, Ambleside, Lake District: Neil Farrell, the owner, says that after Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares “we had our best May in nine years”. Business has continued well. The head chef Richard Collins (who Ramsay suggested was a “waste of space”) is still there. Aspects of the programme angered Mr Farrell at first, but “Ramsay was inspirational”.

The Walnut Tree Inn, Llandewi Skirrid, South Wales: Francesco Mattioli says business has been “nothing to shout about” since the programme but he blames changes in lifestyle and a decline in tourism.

Moore Place, Esher, Surrey: the once-empty restaurant is now busy serving Moore Place burgers, the recipe for which can be found in Ramsay’s latest book, Kitchen Heaven.

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