Celebrity chef Momma Cherri has been dealt another blow after her restaurant was burgled.

The soul food chef was told yesterday that alcohol had been taken from the premises of Momma Cherri’s Big House on Little East Street.

Momma, real name Charita Jones, said the early morning theft had come as she and her daughter endured a barrage of abusive phone calls after her business closed for good.

Mrs Jones, who told The Argus last week that she would have to claim unemployment benefit, said: “I have been receiving really nasty, vicious phone calls. The restaurant has been broken into and they have taken alcohol.

“The phone calls to me and my daughter have been continuous. I think it's terrible because I do not feel my daughter or I have done anything which means we should be victimised like this.

“I tried my best to keep the business open and I have always been open and honest with my employees.”

Momma Cherri shot to fame after the restaurant appeared on Gordon Ramsay's hit show Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares.

But the restaurant has now been closed for several weeks after administrators moved in, told staff to leave and changed the locks.

She was hoping a Brighton businessman would stump up the cash to buy the business out of administration but after waiting several weeks for the money she took the decision to close the restaurant down.

A spokeswoman for superchef Mr Ramsay said: “In Kitchen Nightmares Gordon visits premises that are already in critical decline and offers practical advice on how to turn the businesses around.

“What he can't do is raise new finance, hire different personnel or enforce some of the fundamental changes he recommends.

“He makes it clear on the show that in the end it is up to the proprietors to make the changes that will turn around their businesses.”

A Sussex Police spokeswoman said a member of the public had called them just before 1am yesterday and said they had seen two men opening the sash window of the restaurant.

She said: “They made off with bottles of alcohol. It has been left with the administrators to tell us exactly what has been stolen.”