Alarming video has shown the moment a Melbourne chef unleashed on a customer, trashing their table and throwing them out of the pizza restaurant.
A group of friends were visiting the Italian eatery Kaprica in Carlton in April after the venue had gone viral on TikTok.
One of them was recording a message for their boyfriend to complain about how spicy the prawn pasta was when chef Pietro Barbagallo appeared behind them.
‘I literally had like, the chilliest food tonight, and it was so spicy,’ the unnamed customer said to the camera in footage published by Nine newspapers.
Appearing behind them, Mr Barbagallo can be heard saying: ‘Really? Really you have to do that?’
The customer responded: ‘What’s wrong?’ but the chef, voice raised, went on: ‘This is what you’re doing in my restaurant, in my house.’
‘This is so abusive,’ the customer replied, but Mr Barbagallo started to tell the group they needed to leave and appeared to attempt to grab at the recording phone.
‘You get out now,’ he said, and can then be seen to grab the tablecloth, plates falling to the floor, as if to drag the dinner setting and food off the table.
‘Turn that f***ing phone off! You and your f***ing phone!’ he shouted at the group.
‘Get out of my f***ing restaurant!’
The Age has spoken to five eyewitnesses, with one of them describing the pasta dish as ‘inedible’ due to the strength of the chilli flavour.
A waitress agreed to replace the meal and went to the kitchen where she told Mr Barbagallo who then became angry.
He allegedly claimed the customers had eaten some of the dish before smashing the plate against a kitchen wall.
‘All the pasta was running down the wall,’ said one witness.
During the confrontation on the restaurant floor, one person said they could hear ‘yelling and screaming’ from outside the venue.
Another said they thought ‘a homeless person was in there attacking someone’.
Meanwhile, the customers inside the restaurant fell silent and it became ‘incredibly awkward’, a witness claimed.
‘The music was playing but everyone was shocked and disturbed.’
Daily Mail has contacted Kaprica for comment on the incident.
An Italian-born chef, Mr Barbagallo has been on the Melbourne restaurant scene since 1998 when he opened the restaurant I Carusi in Brunswick East.
He then opened I Carusi II in St Kilda and most recently the Italian restaurant Kaprica in Carlton South.
He was credited by The Age in 2005 with kick-starting Melbourne’s ‘pizza revolution’.
In 2011, he was then declared bankrupt which led him to end his involvement with the I Carusi venues and close his pizza-pasta house on Lonsdale Street.
The recent rise of Kaprica’s popularity has been attributed to a viral TikTok campaign which posted cosy videos filmed under warm lighting.
However, multiple current and former staff have told The Age the success caused over-booking as well as long-waits for customers.