The launch of Fumetti early last December appeared to have everything working in its favour. Star chefs Robert Bragagnolo and Sergio Andreas Fiorino had signed on, earning heaps of advance buzz (including in Toronto Life), and the city’s taste­makers gladly packed the suave Brant Street room on opening night, swarming around trays of molecular gastronomic wonders to sing the kitchen’s praises. Yet less than three weeks later—high season on most restaurant calendars—the room was nearly deserted, with only two occupied tables served by a single waiter; Bragagnolo, the diners were told, had decamped to Spain; and Fiorino, struggling to keep the restaurant open, said that he had begun paying the restaurant’s suppliers from his own pocket. By early January, the restaurant had closed. Score another flop for John Cheong, the would-be impresario behind Hingson Corp., who’s left a string of failures and angry investors in his wake. Cheong first came to the city’s attention early in 2006, as Hingson announced a series of high-profile ventures and takeovers, including Fez Batik, Eight Restolounge (which Fumetti would soon replace), Banzai Sushi and, with nightclub bad boy Peter Gatien, the much-anticipated pleasure palace Circa, which was slated to open last summer. (At press time it was still in limbo.) Eight Restolounge failed not long after it opened, and plans for Banzai Sushi never materialized. Cheong’s partnership with Gatien quickly fell apart amid ugly invective. In July, two investors in one of Cheong’s companies filed a $20-million lawsuit against him, several of his partners and relatives, and his businesses, claiming fraud, conspiracy, breach of contract and fraudulent misrepresentation. None of the allegations have been proven in court, and Cheong has denied them in a statement of defence.

Though the details of Fumetti’s demise are still murky, what’s clear is that both Cheong and Atique Choudhry, his partner in Fumetti, had their assets frozen by court order in relation to the suit, and that neither was able to supply the restaurant with adequate operating funds. “When I accepted the offer from Fumetti, life seemed pretty rosy,” Bragagnolo said in January, on the phone from Spain. “Little did I know it would be the shortest-lived restaurant in Toronto history.” Fumetti may yet reopen in some form, but Bragagnolo said he’s now focusing on a new venture in Europe with Michelin-starred chef Marc Fosh, and Fiorino is talking about opening his own restaurant in Toronto. For his part, Cheong insists that Fumetti, complete with its two star chefs, will survive. When told that his chefs were making other plans, he replied, “That’s ludicrous.”