Another helping, served sizzling hot
By ERIC DEGGANS, Times TV/Media Critic
Published April 18, 2004
From the moment you realize the second installment of NBC's reality show The Restaurant is sliding toward an apocalyptic confrontation between chef/star Rocco DiSpirito and financier/partner Jeffrey Chodorow, a question surfaces.
Is this all a setup?
After all, the timing is amazing: Just as cameras showed up to begin filming the show's second, six-episode season in November, Chodorow and DiSpirito's long-simmering disputes over who should control the Rocco's on 22nd St. restaurant burst into public view.
Fans will recall the two already had clashed during the show's first installment, when DiSpirito opened a swank Manhattan restaurant in five weeks, a task that usually takes a year.
And just as NBC prepared to debut the season of episodes documenting the disintegration of their partnership - months after Chodorow sued DiSpirito for breach of his duties as the restaurant's manager - DiSpirito filed countersuit April 5, accusing Chodorow of everything from paying vendors late to changing the locks in the restaurant and using frozen pasta in dishes.
It's the kind of synchronicity that only seems to happen on reality TV - often encouraged by the heavy hand of an unseen producer (in this case, Survivor and The Apprentice mastermind Mark Burnett). But in an April 9 conference call with reporters, DiSpirito insisted that he always had hoped to keep his legal tussle with Chodorow off the air.
"The unfortunate answer is, "It's all real,' " said DiSpirito, who claimed in court papers that he never had a written agreement with Chodorow. "My partner chose a tactic that was a surprise - I had no idea we were going to make this public. I'm essentially powerless in his whole thing."
The central issue emerges quickly in this year's batch of Restaurant episodes. Chodorow, a New York-born, Miami-reared businessman who operates eateries both cities, tells staffers that Rocco's is the only restaurant in his chain of 22 that loses money - to the tune of $600,000 in six months.
Scenes of DiSpirito promoting his book on CNN and in bookstores - tasks that draw him away from actually running the restaurant bearing his name - are interspersed with footage of Chodorow convening a corporate task force to figure out how to turn crowds drawn by the restaurant's TV fame into profits (shots of disappointed customers continually asking waiters "Where's Rocco?" doesn't help).
Before long, Chodorow has brought his entourage to Rocco's, where they will hover, "observing" operations until they decide how to cut costs. The only staffer who crosses that line is Drew, an inexplicably hands-on 20-year-old intern (and son of a Chodorow pal) who gets the Trump's rush after calling DiSpirito a disparaging name over the telephone and illegally serving liquor behind the bar.
On camera, DiSpirito reacts petulantly, storming out of the restaurant to call his lawyer. Later, during a meeting with Chodorow, he will insist he has seen no financial statements on the business, despite having served as its top manager for months.
DiSpirito now accuses Chodorow of taking expenses from the start-up and billing them as losses after the opening. Shown relentlessly flirting with women during public appearances, the chef also said his publicity tour was required by his book deal and planned months before Burnett decided on a filming schedule.
"(The schedule) definitely worked out well to make it look like I wasn't there," said DiSpirito, who continually casts himself as a helpless pawn in NBC's and Chodorow's plans. "(But Chodorow) wasn't present in the restaurant until the show started shooting again."
Fortunately, for NBC and Burnett, the mix of intrigue and tension - restaurant employees eavesdrop on every conversation, like children of divorcing parents trying to choose sides - lends an electric energy to the first two episodes that jump-starts the series.
Questions remain: If DiSpirito is such a prisoner, why is he doing publicity interviews to promote the show? And if the series takes off, will Chodorow and DiSpirito reconcile quickly enough to present a third season?
One gets the sense that, if the ratings peak, Burnett - a consummate showman who spices telling footage with swelling cymbal sounds and percolating drums - will find a way.
Regardless, fans now have another can't-miss confection to add to their roster of Burnett-bred reality TV guilty pleasures.
AT A GLANCE:
The Restaurant debuts a six-episode season at 10 p.m. Monday on WFLA-Ch. 8. Grade: A.
[Last modified April 18, 2004, 01:35:47]
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