What Happened to Sabatiello's After Kitchen Nightmares? (Stamford, CT)

Sabatiello's was an Italian restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut, owned by Sammy Settembre, when it appeared in the ninth episode of Kitchen Nightmares season 2, airing November 13, 2008. Settembre, who had grown up working in his brother's pizzeria, had put up his house as collateral and taken on roughly a million dollars in debt to keep the restaurant afloat, according to the episode. Gordon Ramsay found the decor appealing but the food lacking: a wedding soup he judged bland, a lasagna made with white meat that the kitchen confirmed had been frozen rather than made fresh daily, and a New York strip steak that turned out to be a different, cheaper cut than advertised.

A dinner-service inspection turned up cooked and raw chicken stored together, imitation crab meat used in a stuffed sole dish, and an undercooked lamb order that the kitchen attempted to fix by microwaving it, prompting Settembre to confront the customer directly in the dining room. Ramsay introduced a homemade lasagna and a tableside filet mignon, then relaunched the restaurant as an Italian steakhouse; on relaunch night, head chef Jose struggled to keep pace until Settembre stepped behind the line to help finish the service. Sabatiello's shut down in October 2008, according to Kitchen Nightmares fan-maintained accounts, though this report could not verify the exact date through a news source; the restaurant did not survive the debt Settembre described on the show.

According to the Stamford Advocate, state marshals attempting to serve Settembre with eviction papers that had been filed with the court discovered roughly $20,000 in damage at the Bedford Street building on December 4, 2008, including smashed mirrors and decorative glass, and Settembre was arrested that week on a first-degree criminal mischief charge; Settembre denied responsibility for the damage in comments to the paper. The same article reported that Settembre had opened a pizzeria in Greenwich that had already changed hands by the time of the interview. A Yelp listing for the Bedford Street address is separately marked permanently closed as of a September 2026 update. A later Stamford Advocate article reported that Settembre was separately charged in connection with unauthorized credit-card charges tied to deposits taken for events booked before the restaurant's closure.