Celebrity chef Lidia Bastianich is back in the legal frying pan after a Manhattan appeals court reinstated a $5 million suit by a woman who said she was promised a prestigious cooking gig then forced to care for an elderly woman.
A lower court in 2012 tossed the suit by Maria Carmela Farina, saying that Bastianich, part owner of the acclaimed Chelsea eatery Del Posto, lured her from Italy to the United States with the promise of a $600-a-week test-kitchen job.
It found that while Farina wasn’t paid a salary to care for Bastianich’s 98-year-old neighbor, she got health insurance, room and board. The Manhattan appellate division ruled Farina should have been paid.