Celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito is cooking up more TV drama. By now, we've all heard he's embroiled in a lawsuit with business partner Jeffery Chodorow, his Manhattan bistro's financial backer. That means his litigious strife will dominate Season 2 of NBC's The Restaurant, which starts April 19. Rocco's grumpy about it, but his distress is nothing compared to the hand-wringing of the show's Italian matriarch, Nicolina "Mama" DiSpirito.
"The stress of the litigation has definitely affected Mama," he says. "One of the benefits of opening this restaurant — and having her be involved — was that I got to see her more and work with her. One of the disadvantages of that is now she knows more about the business of doing all this stuff. People sue each other; it happens all the time. But for her, it's a monumental event.
"She thinks Jeffery's going to take our house away and put us in the street," DiSpirito continues with a chu
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