It’s been barely a month since Hell’s Kitchen vet Jennifer Gavin opened Hyde Park’s The Big Easy to what, for Hyde Park, constitute rave reviews. But she’s gone now, Steve Dolinsky reports, and former assistant chef Ronisha Preckwinckle has taken over the kitchen in the wake of what sounds like a pretty messy shakeup. According to owner David Shopiro, Gavin got on the phone with a reporter at 1 p.m. one Saturday, and by 1:40 she still hadn’t hung up and the kitchen was in the weeds.
“I started pounding on door [to the office], telling her to give them your phone number and call them back,” Shopiro told Dolinsky, at which point Gavin left the room, demanded an apology, and exited the premises. Meanwhile, Gavin’s hired an attorney, the restaurant’s testing out its new chef during the high-traffic Mardi Gras period, and Dolinsky’s Friday morning segment on The Big Easy — featuring Gavin — is going to be kind of awkward for everyone. [Steve Dolinsky, via HPP]
