What Happened To La Galleria 33 After Kitchen Nightmares?

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Once the birthplace of Paul Revere, Boston's North End is now the city's Little Italy, home to over 100 restaurants in about a third of a square mile. Practically right in the center of the neighborhood sits 125 Salem Street, a brick five-story building with a storefront on the ground floor. Like most buildings in the neighborhood, it's historic but fastidiously maintained, and in 2006, sisters Lisa Cerundolo and Rita Moran opened their restaurant there: La Galleria 33.

Bustling Salem Street seems like the perfect place to open an Italian restaurant, and it is: Dozens of other great Italian restaurants line Salem Street and the other neighborhood streets within a short walk of La Galleria 33. That list includes L'Osteria Ristorante, a longtime eatery at 104 Salem Street — barely a block away, and owned by Cerundolo and Moran's parents. A vibrant location, a family in the restaurant business, what could go wrong?

Apparently, almost everything, going by what happened during their appearance on "Kitchen Nightmares." Gordon Ramsay arrived at the restaurant to find the owners drinking while working, smoking inside the kitchen, and arguing with customers, all while serving food Ramsay described as "gnarly." Much to his dismay, the owners told Ramsay that they're out of the only dessert they had. "This is too much. This is too much!" he said, shaking his head. "I want to go die in a corner somewhere," Moran told her sister.

The problems of La Galleria 33 were significant enough that they filled two episodes at the beginning of the fifth season of "Kitchen Nightmares." La Galleria 33's food ranged from uninspiring to downright bad, and most of it was frozen. (Even the house-made meatballs were frozen before serving!) But Ramsay quickly learned the team running the restaurant just wasn't on the ball. The wait staff wasn't paying attention to their tables, the chef said he didn't even like Italian food, and a server gave himself the title of general manager without the owners' okay.

La Galleria 33 was simply disorganized. The owners weren't communicating well with the staff, and vice versa. Cerundolo and Moran would become defensive immediately when getting feedback from customers, and during the episode, could barely talk to each other. Ramsay's "Kitchen Nightmares" team remodeled the restaurant and brought in a fresh, new menu, but more importantly, he encouraged Cerundolo and Moran to take charge of their restaurant. He emphasized that their leadership would be the key to fixing the business.

"We can't revert back to the old way of doing things," said Cerundolo during the relaunch. "Rita and I need to take the reins." And it seemed like they had made it work: The kitchen was running smoothly for the relaunch dinner service, and minor miscommunication in the front of the house was resolved with Ramsay's help. He seemed pleased with the outcome. "To me personally, they're always going to be very special," he said at the end of the episode.

All signs pointed to the turnaround being just what the restaurant needed. Rachel Leah Blumenthal, Eater Boston's editor, wrote that the restaurant has seen "redemption through a snazzy renovation, a new menu, and some major attitude adjustments." Customers agreed. "Gordon apparently did a good job," wrote one customer on Yelp, who said the restaurant was so good, he was actually surprised it had once been a Kitchen Nightmare. "Don't worry it is not a nightmare anymore!" wrote another in 2013.

Cerundolo and Moran had only good things to say about Ramsay and his work when he returned to the restaurant the following season for a "Revisited" episode. "Things have been really good since Chef Ramsay left," said Cerundolo. "I think everybody's attitude has changed." And they said business had picked up, with customer response generally being strong. La Galleria 33 was busy when Ramsay came back, and everything seemed to be promising.

But the momentum didn't keep up. "There's not one place I can think of that I would absolutely tell people to avoid...until now!!" wrote a customer, who specifically encountered issues with Moran's rudeness in late 2016, four years after the show aired. "Gordon couldn't even help this restaurant," said another, also in 2016. It's true: Ramsay's fixes on "Kitchen Nightmares" don't always work.

Ramsay's work didn't save La Galleria 33, though it did keep the restaurant open for several more years. When he arrived, the restaurant appeared to be struggling to stay open. But after his 2012 makeover, the restaurant stayed in business all the way through the end of 2018, when it closed with no explanation.

In the years between the "Kitchen Nightmares" episode and the restaurant's closure, customer reviews were mixed. Some mention friendly staff and great food, while others bring up the same issues that Ramsay tried to fix years prior. The restaurant doesn't seem to have been able to keep up the standards introduced during the show. "The last few times service has been very slow. The quality of the food has also declined, unfortunately," a 2018 Yelp review said. "Maybe Gordon Ramsay should pay them another visit." La Galleria 33 closed just four months later.

Naturally, "Kitchen Nightmares" fans on Reddit had opinions and theories. "They were nasty. Their food wasn't fresh and the owners were princesses," wrote one commenter, unsurprised that the restaurant didn't make it. Another seemed to confirm the idea that Cerundolo and Moran couldn't keep up with what Ramsay taught them. "Not a stretch to say the quality went down, ergo revenue went down and they shut up shop," the user wrote. Others didn't seem to find the closure particularly notable. "Sometimes restaurants just close, even if everything goes reasonably well," another Redditor wrote. But the sisters never put out an official announcement, so the exact reason remains unknown.

Cerundolo and Moran aren't running La Galleria 33 anymore, but it wasn't their last foray into the food business. The two sisters moved to Florida, where they opened Rocco's Italian Market in Cocoa Beach in late 2023. The small storefront, selling sandwiches, salads, and Italian groceries, has since also closed despite receiving a strong response from customers. They haven't announced any other plans yet.

Meanwhile, the family's other restaurant, L'Osteria down the street, is still open and under the same family's ownership, although Cerundolo and Moran aren't involved with its operation. Its menu contains all the classic Italian dishes you might expect from an old-school red sauce joint, including homemade gnocchi, manicotti, lasagna, chicken marsala, veal saltimbocca, and linguini in clam sauce.

Shortly after La Galleria 33's closure, another restaurant called Libertine opened in the space under new ownership. It's a bit different from most North End Italian restaurants as it says its menu is 99% gluten free. Libertine's owner is Portuguese American, and the restaurant's menu is Portuguese-Italian fusion food, making it not only slightly different from La Galleria 33 but also from the countless other Italian restaurants in the North End. On Libertine's menu, customers will find both Italian classics like lobster ravioli, chicken piccata, and pappardelle bolognese, and Portuguese additions like caldo verde, a kale soup, and tosta mista, a grilled ham and cheese sandwich.