What Happened to Bonapartes After Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares?

Part 1 — Season 1, Episode 1 Aired April 27, 2004

Bonapartes was a restaurant in Silsden, West Yorkshire, and the subject of the first episode of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, which Channel 4 aired on 2004-04-27. TheTVDB's listing introduces it as a restaurant in Silsden whose head chef specializes in fine dining. According to the episode summary on Wikipedia, a young head chef was running a fine-dining menu built on expensive ingredients that the restaurant's mostly local customers were not ordering. Weekly takings did not cover the kitchen wages, and the chef was early in his career.

Gordon Ramsay's rescue, as Wikipedia describes it, was about cost and simplicity. He took the chef to Leeds Kirkgate Market to buy cheaper produce, helped him cook a family meal, and replaced the fine-dining list with a shorter bistro menu. The summary mentions no change of name or decor. The relaunch was a Valentine's Day service for nearly fifty guests.

Wikipedia says a return visit about a month later found things worse: dinner bookings were almost nonexistent, food in the fridges had spoiled, and the owner dismissed the chef and planned to close the dining room to concentrate on the bar upstairs. The follow-up episode, "Bonapartes Revisited," aired on 2005-07-12. Wikipedia's article on the series says that by then the restaurant had closed and was up for sale.

Outside the program, the Estates Gazette's website carried an item citing The Times of 2004-07-13 that reported Bonaparte's in Silsden was being forced to sell after customers stayed away following the broadcast. The item said the owner was due to meet creditors the following week.

Google's listing for Bonapartes at 46 Kirkgate, Silsden, was marked permanently closed in October 2026.

Part 2 — Season 2, Episode 8 Aired July 12, 2005

"Bonapartes Revisited," the eighth episode of the second series of Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares, aired on Channel 4 on 2005-07-12 and returned to the Silsden restaurant first shown on 2004-04-27. TheTVDB's listing says Ramsay went back to see whether his recipe of passion and perfectionism had taken hold.

According to Wikipedia's article on the series, the restaurant had closed and was up for sale by the time of the revisit. The former head chef had moved on to work as a runner in television. The article also says the former owner made public allegations about Ramsay and the show.

The original episode, per the same article, had shown a fine-dining menu on costly ingredients that local customers were not ordering; Ramsay reworked it into a simpler bistro menu, and a return visit a month later found the restaurant in worse shape. The Estates Gazette's website carried an item citing The Times of 2004-07-13 that reported Bonaparte's was being forced to sell after customers stayed away following the broadcast.