A top chef who refused to settle the bill for the design of his gastropub has been ordered to pay £75,000 by a judge who branded him “argumentative” and “brusque”.
Daniel Clifford, who is a judge on the BBC’s Great British Menu and holds two Michelin stars, fought Joanne Dawes’s effort to reclaim money she was owed.
Ruling that the chef’s company, The Flitch of Bacon Ltd, which runs a pub of the same name in Little Dunmow, Essex, must pay the designer, Judge Nicholas Parfitt criticised Mr Clifford’s approach to the court fight.
“My impression of Mr Clifford was that his belief in himself would trump any need for detailed and balanced recollection, this being reflected in his argumentative witness statement and his brusque approach in cross-examination,” he said.
The judge also criticised Ms Dawes, 50, who he said had “lied” at an early stage in the design project by claiming a payment for costs which had not yet been incurred.
Central London county court heard Ms Dawes’s company, Jo Frances Ltd, was hired in 2015 to refit the pub.
The designer sued for £108,000 over unpaid invoices, while Mr Clifford insisted his company had already paid £180,000 and counter-claimed over allegedly shoddy work and missing items.
Mr Clifford, 45, argued seating worth almost £35,000 was too bulky for the dining area and claimed some chairs had broken when people sat on them.
He also criticised the bedroom refits and a garden pergola, and said he hired a new designer to redo the work.
However, Ms Dawes told the court that the “disorganisation and excessive haste” of the project was out of her hands.
Judge Parfitt ruled that issues with the furniture were more likely to be down to personal taste and said there was “no coherent or intelligible basis” for the chef’s claim that the bedrooms had been badly designed. He also rejected a claim that the pergola did not fit.
The judge awarded Mr Clifford about £30,000 in damages for poor tiling on the roof, as well as for other repair work and for items which had not been delivered.
This was deducted from Ms Dawes’s unpaid invoices, leaving Mr Clifford with a bill of £75,068.03.
