MasterChef New Zealand contestant Gideon Marisa caught in restaurant review stoush

A FORMER MasterChef contestant probably wasn’t expecting this kind of reaction from a restaurant owner after leaving a one-star review.

MasterChef contestant Gideon Marisa was caught in a restaurant review stoush.

MAKING it to the top 16 on MasterChef would generally suggest you know a thing or two about cooking and hospitality — but not according to this particular restaurant owner.

Gideon Marisa, a chef who competed on the New Zealand version of MasterChef recently headed to a venue in Auckland called HeadQuarters Viaduct.

Mr Marisa, 33, clearly wasn’t that impressed with the venue and decided to leave them a scathing review on Facebook — complete with a one-star rating.

MasterChef contestant Gideon Marisa caught in restaurant review stoush.

As the review shows, the owner of HeadQuarters Viaduct Leo Molloy was quick to comment back, asking him to elaborate on his bad review.

While the Facebook conversation was relatively civil, with Mr Molloy inviting Mr Marisa for a free lunch to remedy the situation, the Facebook messages were a different story.

Mr Marisa posted screenshots of the messages between him and the restaurant owner, with both of them engaging in a bitter war of words.

The conversation begins.

Leo does some digging.

Gideon hits back.

Gideon continues.

Gideon went on to bring up staff allegedly climbing over customers and jumping on tables to pull down plastic covers.

“It is totally unprofessional considering great risk of injury,” he wrote.

Then, Mr Molloy hit back with a personal insult.

Molloy hits back.

The venue owner went on to tell the chef his offer still stands for a free lunch.

“Your current views are marginal and probably seriously misleading. I’ll conclude by saying that thousands of people disagree with your view of us every week and it’ll only get better at HQ because we’re doing a damn good job,” he ended, but that wasn’t everything.

Molloy continues.

Then Mr Marisa threatened to send the conversation to news outlets, a threat that Molloy didn’t take very well.

MasterChef contestant Gideon Marisa caught in restaurant review stoush.

“The Herald threat scares me not but you’ve just proved what sort of a toxic individual you are. Feel free to drop by anytime though, I’d love to meet you and help you understand hospo,” Mr Molloy commented.

The fight continues.

And on it goes.

Molloy brings up Marisa’s reviews.

And keeps going.

When Daily Mail approached Mr Molloy for comment, he said he found holes in his story.

“He made a lot of comments that had no basis or facts, clearly there were holes in his story,” Mr Molly said.

Bad reviews aside however, this isn’t the first time Mr Molloy has hit out at people leaving negative comments on his venue that opened in May.

After Facebook user Paul Marks left the venue a two-star review and claiming it was “struggling to find an identity”, Mr Molloy unleashed.

Mr Molloy responds to another Facebook user’s comments.

Originally published as MasterChef New Zealand contestant Gideon Marisa caught in restaurant review stoush