Celebrity Chef Restaurants With Terrible Customer Reviews

Celebrity chefs promise spectacle on a plate. When you see Guy Fieri hyping Trash Can Nachos or Bobby Flay's name stamped on a burger joint, you don't expect a simple meal you could get at your local hole-in-the-wall diner. You expect culinary excellence on par with that chef's reputation — or, at the very least, something worth the premium price tag. Some celebrity restaurants surpass the hype, amazing guests with consistently great food and lively atmospheres. Others have become cautionary tales about why a famous name doesn't guarantee a good time.

We found nine celebrity chef restaurants that are bogged down by relentless negative reviews. These aren't little hometown spots struggling to find their footing; most of these restaurants operate in high-traffic, tourist-heavy areas such as the Las Vegas Strip and New York City. Yet, diners complain about bland food, long wait times, and disappearing servers. Many say that their celebrity-branded experience was so awful that they were still starving when they left. These aren't isolated incidents after a bad night in the kitchen. These are persistent problems that guests keep recognizing.

From Guy Fieri's misnamed "Flavortown" to Wolfgang Puck airport outlets that make travelers question pizza, here are the celebrity restaurants that consistently disappoint people who walk through their doors.

Technically, Guy Fieri's Flavortown Sports Kitchen is located on the Strip, sprawled over 6,540 square feet of the Horseshoe Las Vegas. But, weave past the blaring slot machines, and you'll enter a new dimension by the time you reach the hostess stand: Flavortown. Here, you're blasted with wall-to-wall TVs, giant pictures of Guy, and a menu offering Trash Can nachos and donkey-sauce-drenched everything. It's a deep-fried paradise. At least, that's what the branding claims. Actual Flavortown pilgrims tend to say the food is bland, overpriced, and slow to reach the table.

A Yelp reviewer complained, "Do not waste your time or money... the food is AWFUL." Another ranted that they sat by the bar for over 30 minutes without receiving service. "It was a rude and horrible experience," they said. "I do not recommend this restaurant at all." Even if you manage to snag the server's attention, you still might not be able to order what you want. Bizarrely, for a restaurant that advertises excess, customers have claimed that the kitchen is often out of basic supplies. A Tripadvisor reviewer said they ordered wings, only to have the waitress walk over 30 minutes later and explain that they were out of ranch. A diner who showed up for an NFR watch party and a $5 Coors deal said the Coors were sold out. Other complaints mention Flavortown being out of menu staples, such as ribs and Coke.

There are a few ways to become a celebrity chef. You can commit to the restaurant grind and heap executive chef titles on your resume until someone notices your greatness. You might be like Guy Fieri and use the Food Network to broadcast your brand to the masses. Or, you can look to the style of Nusret Gökçe, aka Salt Bae. He treats salt like it's a showstopper, throwing it both on steaks and his well-muscled forearm. Over 50 million Instagrammers follow his salty antics, and many try to visit one of his luxurious restaurants in New York City, Miami, and beyond. Unfortunately, those restaurants are far less crowd-pleasing than the Bae himself.

"It was painfully expensive, and I still ate pizza after," a Yelp user griped about the NYC location. There, the typical starter salad costs $25, and a cheeseburger costs $35. If you're in the mood to splurge, you can order a gold-crusted wagyu steak for $650. The spectacle may be less elaborate than you want, however. Another NYC reviewer on Yelp said they "expected more from the owner, Salt Bae himself, with the extravagant prices. 1/5 stars for HIM."

Salt Bae may sometimes disappoint, but even harsh critics sometimes praise the ambiance at Nusr-Et. It's the food and high pricing that put this restaurant on the worst-reviewed list. Customers have also called out its steak for its dryness and lack of seasoning, despite a tableside salt show. This is a restaurant brand built on virality rather than food that consistently impresses guests.

Bobby's Burgers is a national chain helmed by Food Network great Bobby Flay. Guy Fieri brings you to Flavortown, but Flay's marketing promises a trip to the crispy side with fresh fries and buttermilk-dipped onion rings. The burgers, according to Team Flay, deliver plenty of flavor. This might be true if you visit one of the Bobby's Burgers locations with relatively decent reviews. Show up in Las Vegas or New Orleans, however, and you might think the restaurant serves lukewarm gas station food.

Vegas Yelp users give the Bobby's Burgers inside Caesars Palace a meager 2.8 stars. One Yelp reviewer said, "We figured it'd be pricey since it's Vegas, but when the bill came out to over $100+, it felt like we were fully robbed." Ordering the cheapest burger, fries, and drink at this location costs $26.97 before tax. A Tripadvisor reviewer warned, "If you want overpriced and nasty food in Caesars Palace food court, then this is the place to go." Specific complaints about the food include a stale, overcooked veggie burger mentioned in a two-star Tripadvisor review and disappointing flavors that led another reviewer to ask for a refund. 

Diners are even less happy with Bobby's Burgers in New Orleans. It has a 2.6 Yelp rating and a mass of one-star reviews. A self-described Bobby Flay fan on Yelp said, "The overall experience felt more like a gas station stop than a chef-driven restaurant. Honestly, even Wendy's delivers a much better burger for the price and convenience." 

When celebrity chefs and pop stars collide, the results should be spectacular. One brings culinary heft, the other adds razzle dazzle. That was the plan for New York City's Joanne Trattoria, an Italian-themed collaboration between chef Art Smith and Lady Gaga's parents. However, the restaurant has been peppered with bad reviews since it opened in 2012. Critics have called out slow service since the restaurant opened, with a diner who visited in November 2025 writing on Yelp that the servers "seemed to be operating on a level best described as 'enthusiastic amateurs.'"

Joseph Germanotta, Lady Gaga's dad, told Time Out New York in 2024 that the restaurant wanted to satisfy diners who craved an "experience" at dinner. Now, drag nights and emerging artist showcases occur weekly. These shows might be why Joanne's has mustered up a 3.3 rating on Yelp. They are extremely popular, even among people who aren't quite as keen on the menu. One Yelp reviewer said, "Entertainment is great and so are the drinks! Food is not good." The Germanottas raised Lady Gaga and clearly know how to put on a show. However, it appears the food isn't on the same level, with more critical Yelp reviews claiming that some dishes are "an overpriced embarrassment to NYC."

We can't mention Giada's Las Vegas without talking about how California-cool it's supposed to be. The website mentions California influences, California-inspired Italian dining, and a California twist all on a single page. Apparently, this is what Giada De Laurentiis is known for. In a 2022 interview posted on Substack, she said, "A lot of my dishes, my Italian food, is very much influenced by California. ... Most of it has to do with [lightening] the dishes up — lots of lemon, lots of fresh ingredients, arugula, basil — more than heavier, more robust dishes."

According to some diners, however, the "California" vibe actually just means tiny portions. A Google reviewer said their "[$30] spaghetti was the size of a small fist," with others echoing similar sentiments about the portion sizes. Someone on Reddit warned, "If you're hungry, you will leave hungry. Expensive and the portions are REALLY SMALL." The quality of the food receives a lot of attention, too. Many say it doesn't live up to the luster of De Laurentiis' name. Even her signature pasta is routinely bashed by reviewers. One Reddit poster said, "The lemon spaghetti was gross. Just factory spaghetti sitting in a pool of watery lemon juice."

Nobu is another restaurant with dual star power. Two-time Academy Award winner Robert de Niro spent four years convincing Nobu Matsuhisa to open a restaurant. The famed Japanese chef was initially too focused on his Matsuhisa brand to have time for a new venture. De Niro's persistent charm worked, however, and there are now dozens of Nobu restaurants spread around the world. Some locations, like its flagship spot in New York City, are wildly popular and often filled with entertainment greats. However, the heavy acclaim garnered in New York doesn't extend to the Nobu Las Vegas at Paris.

Patrons dining on the Las Vegas Strip are used to eye-watering prices. But even seasoned tourists are scowling over their Nobu bills. A disappointed diner said on Google, "I've been dining at Nobu locations around the world for over 20 years, and the experience at Nobu inside the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas was shockingly disappointing." They explained that they spent $122 for two people and still left Nobu hungry.

Another diner wrote on Reddit, "Tasting menu (Omakase) came to $1,300. ... I had probably 10 bites of food and was starving when I left." Those with small appetites may not mind the minuscule portions, but there are plenty of negative reviews that also cite poor service. One person on Google accused their Nobu server of being "rude, dismissive, and completely unhelpful." Others complained about unreasonable wait times, with someone saying on Google that their "sushi came out pretty quickly, but we waited much longer for the hot plates — almost an hour and a half after we ordered."

In 2013, Paula Deen was rocked by a racism scandal. Her Food Network empire crumbled, and former fans turned against her. That could have been the end of her reign as a Southern food queen, but she managed to hang on to her career. Now, she owns four Paula Deen's Family Kitchen restaurants. These are family-style restaurants serving buttery comfort food like ooey gooey butter cake. According to Deen's website, "Every entree, side dish, and dessert comes from Paula's cookbooks." If that's true, some diners would say that Deen must've been writing cookbooks intended for mediocre cafeterias.

The reviews for Paula Deen's Nashville restaurant are especially harsh, with 2.9 stars on Yelp. Diners come craving homestyle cooking, and they leave with their bellies full of bland food. At least, that's what many reviewers say. Someone wrote on Reddit, "Food is real bad, man. Bland, sloppy. Definitely mostly from canned or frozen." Some Yelp reviewers praise the restaurant's family-style setup and unlimited portions. It's the food itself that earns disastrous reviews. Words that frequently pop up to describe the food include salty and overprocessed. A particularly unimpressed reviewer wrote on Yelp, "Salad was wilted, collard greens were tasteless, fried chicken was very small pieces and hard like it had been sitting for a while." Others claimed that the fried fish is particularly disappointing, as are the sides.

Giving Italian food a California twist must be harder than it seems, because Giada De Laurentiis is back on the list with another Las Vegas Strip restaurant. This time, we're talking about Pronto by Giada, a fast-casual concept that many reviewers claim isn't worth the price. The biggest problem? Food often comes out cold. Someone who ordered a breakfast wrap wrote on Yelp that they suspected something was wrong when their food was somehow prepared and cooked in seconds. "It took less than a minute, so clearly this was sitting there pre-made," they said. "Sure enough, it was cold inside." Someone else admitted that their gruyere bake tasted okay, but it wasn't the same temperature throughout the whole pastry.

Guests come to Pronto for Giada. This spot is more accessible than her namesake restaurant and significantly cheaper. Yet no one will want to eat here if the cold-food reviews keep raining down. Someone moaned on Google, "[$20] for a cold wrap! Tasted like it had been in the fridge for a week." Another Google reviewer paid even more for their lackluster food, saying, "I ordered a roast beef sandwich and the service worker pulled it from a refrigerator, took the wrapping off, and put it [in] a toaster [oven]. How disappointing for a $25 sandwich." Pronto is located in Caesars Palace, so realistically, there may not be a cheaper option for breakfast on the property. But you should at least be able to find some warm bacon.

We all know airport food is absurdly expensive. But when you're facing a long flight and an empty stomach, you don't have a lot of options. So, you shuffle toward your gate and try to convince yourself that paying $5 for a can of soda isn't that bad. Seeing Wolfgang Puck's name shining in that sea of airport mediocrity must feel like a boon. Sure, it'll be expensive, but it'll be worth it. It's Wolfgang Puck.

That's the theory that sends hungry travelers to Wolfgang Puck Express, a chain that appears in airports and shopping centers across the country. A Yelp user who reviewed the LAX location said, "You'd figure the pizza would be safe at a Wolfgang Puck joint. In this case, you would be wrong. It was inedibly undercooked." Many reviews say the food at these restaurants is poorly prepared and not up to Wolfgang Puck's standards.

Wolfgang Puck Express has a rating of 2.4 stars on Yelp for its LAX location and a 2.6 rating for its spot in Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. People are routinely frustrated by unappetizing food and disengaged servers. A dissatisfied diner in Las Vegas warned on Yelp, "This is a pathetic operation. Absolutely clueless staff from top to bottom. Do not order from this place." Gripes about the food include underwhelming pizza and cold breakfast potatoes with an unusual texture.

To identify the worst-reviewed celebrity chef restaurants, we looked at several overlapping factors. Our goal wasn't to single out isolated bad experiences that could occur anywhere, but to highlight consistent patterns of dissatisfaction.

We started by identifying celebrity chef–branded restaurants with low ratings on major platforms, including Yelp, Tripadvisor, and Google. From there, we analyzed the balance of positive and negative feedback to understand the overall feeling and noted whenever negative reviews clearly outweighed positive ones. We filtered out complaints that were overly emotional or vague, as well as those not supported by other reviewers. Someone mentioning poor service once doesn't tell you much about the restaurant. However, if a dozen people complain about the service, it's a sign that something's really wrong.

Restaurant atmospheres change quickly, so we prioritized the most recent reviews, focusing primarily on feedback from 2024 and 2025. Older reviews were still considered, but mainly to determine whether complaints reflected long-standing issues or more recent declines in quality. In cases where a celebrity chef operates multiple concepts or locations, we assessed each restaurant independently rather than judging it by the chef's broader reputation. For example, Bobby Flay's restaurants in different cities received separate evaluations, as location-specific factors influence diners' perceptions. The restaurants that ultimately made our list earned their spot because of sustained, well-documented customer dissatisfaction, whether guests are unhappy with exorbitant prices or child-sized portions. For more high-profile failures, check out this list of celebrity chef restaurants that completely flopped.