Michael Chiarello, the celebrity chef best known for his Napa Valley restaurant Bottega, unexpectedly died at age 61 in 2023. Now, Chiarello’s estate has filed a lawsuit accusing three of his former business partners — onetime Disney executive Richard “Rich” Frank, investor John Hansen and Peter Crowley, a co-manager of Chiarello’s restaurants — of plotting to take control of his sprawling restaurant and business empire.
In a filing this week in Napa County Superior Court, Chiarello’s estate alleges that upon his death, the three individuals “immediately and maliciously embarked on a campaign of coercion, fraud, and interference to try to trick, intimidate, and pressure Chef Chiarello’s Estate” to surrender his restaurants and related assets to them. Chiarello’s estate’s trustee is his wife, Eileen Gordon, and their four children are beneficiaries. The chef and TV personality’s other restaurants include Ottimo in Yountville and Coqueta in San Francisco.
The complaint accuses Frank, Hansen and Crowley of misrepresenting ownership, concealing business records and giving themselves unsanctioned cash payouts from Chiarello’s restaurants. It also alleges the individuals lied to employees and landlords and deprived the estate of critical revenue streams as part of a broad effort to financially strain Gordon and her children. “I do not want to do anything that gives [Ms. Gordon] cash or help,” Frank says to Crowley in messages included in the lawsuit. “The more she gets squeezed the better it is for us.”…