Epic Facebook stoush between restaurant owner and MasterChef contestant

HeadQuarters Viaduct owner Leo Molloy (left) and MasterChef contestant Gideon Marisa (right) were involved in a Facebook stoush.

Making it to the top 16 on MasterChef would generally suggest you know a thing or two about cooking and hospitality - but not according to this particular restaurant owner.

Gideon Marisa, who competed on MasterChef New Zealand, recently headed to Auckland's HeadQuarters Viaduct.

Marisa, 33, clearly wasn't that impressed with the venue and decided to leave them a scathing review on Facebook - complete with a one-star rating - and even threatened to get the Herald involved.

As the review shows, the owner of HeadQuarters Viaduct Leo Molloy was quick to comment back, asking him to elaborate on his bad review.

While the Facebook conversation was relatively civil, with Molloy inviting Marisa for a free lunch to remedy the situation, the Facebook messages were a different story.

Marisa posted screenshots of the messages between him and the restaurant owner, with both of them engaging in a bitter war of words.

Gideon went on to bring up staff allegedly climbing over customers and jumping on tables to pull down plastic covers.

"It is totally unprofessional considering great risk of injury," he wrote.

Then, Molloy hit back with a personal insult.

The venue owner went on to tell the chef his offer still stands for a free lunch.

"Your current views are marginal and probably seriously misleading. I'll conclude by saying that thousands of people disagree with your view of us every week and it'll only get better at HQ because we're doing a damn good job," he ended, but that wasn't everything.

Then Marisa threatened to send the conversation to news outlets, a threat that Molloy didn't take very well.

"The Herald threat scares me not but you've just proved what sort of a toxic individual you are. Feel free to drop by anytime though, I'd love to meet you and help you understand hospo," Molloy commented.

When Daily Mail approached Molloy for comment, he said he found holes in his story.

"He made a lot of comments that had no basis or facts, clearly there were holes in his story," Molloy said.