My Kitchen Rules host Pete Evans has made a career from judging aspiring restaurateurs but his Melbourne eatery Little Hunter broke the first rule of hospitality by failing to pay its bills.
The debts of $769,000 owed to more than 100 creditors has not stopped the celebrity chef and his business partners from starting a new venture, Junior Hunter, which will open in the same building.
After a fitout believed to have cost about $1.2 million, the restaurant's assets were sold for a paltry $104,000 to the new venture just weeks before Little Hunter was placed in liquidation, Fairfax Media understands.
At least two disgruntled creditors have reported suspicions about the transaction to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
The sudden closure of Little Hunter after just seven months of trading culminated in a farcical final week that resulted in a staff mutiny and bitter acrimony among shareholders, according to a former insider.
A source said: ''[That] Thursday, the kitchen team resigned in its entirety.
But some creditors said Little Hunter had run into trouble months earlier, when it began paying suppliers with a credit card and stringing along suppliers.
Alister Blunt, owner of Blunt's Electrical Contractors, said his unpaid $35,000 bill had put his company in a ''very difficult'' financial position, which had been exacerbated by a string of recent closures in the hospitality industry.
Other debts include $122,000 owed to the Australian Taxation Office.
Evans has personally submitted a claim for more than $50,000.
Evans recently told The Australian he was concerned about the debt owed to him but denied any involvement in Junior Hunter.
But ASIC documents reveal his personal company, P Evans Investments Pty Ltd, owns a 10 per cent stake in the new venture.
Evans did not respond to calls from Fairfax Media.
A spokesman for Little Hunter, who asked not to be named, declined to discuss the transfer of assets between the two businesses.
''We are taking a hiatus from our day-to-day operation and we are focusing on events to utilise the space until we re-open in the new year,'' he said.
The investigation by liquidator GS Andrews Advisory is expected to focus on the sale of Little Hunter's assets to Junior Hunter.