Kenny Tutt, the MasterChef winner, has been accused of neglecting to pay his employees at a restaurant he closed down.
Pitch is the 41-year-old, who won the BBC competition in 2018,’s second Worthing restaurant to close in three months, following the closure of Bayside Social in April.
Disgruntled employees at Pitch, which featured modern and traditional British cuisine, allege they were not informed of the closure, were not paid, and were forced to approach liquidators to recover due money, with some now relying on foodbanks to live.
According to a post on Worthing Directory’s Facebook page, several employees realised they had lost their employment through social media and press headlines and hadn’t gotten their pay on their most recent paycheck.
A section of the lengthy statement reads: ‘The staff are owned wages, holiday pay and tips. In my son’s case his wages were £2000 per month, he was owed £800 holiday pay as he worked without taking holiday so he could afford to pay bills.
‘Also all staff got around £400 a month in tips which was the amount after equally sharing the total amount. All tips have been withheld including cash tips.’
In a statement Tutt said staff will be paid – although it could take between three and five weeks.
He said: ‘We’re working through the process of closing down the business, including official liquidation, which does take time. We are also using the Redundancy Payment Service, which means that all staff will receive full payment including any holiday pay, redundancy pay and any notice owed. This process can take between three and five weeks though.
‘We are incredibly sad to have to close our business, but we’re working with all of our staff to help them seek other employment in the local area, and have also been able to employ over half of the team on new projects we’re working on.’
Tutt and his business partner Lucy are looking to launch another eatery in Worthing after filing plans to add a café to the Dome Cinema.
The former bank manager triumphed over fellow competitors Nawamin Pinpathomrat and David Crichton to win MasterChef.
With a dinner that featured roast scallops, pigeon breast, and ale ice cream, he wowed judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode.
