Famous Food

Antonio Brown stuck a fork in his private chef -- who was one of his close friends -- and it's clear it was a bad breakup.

The Pittsburgh Steelers superstar was inseparable from Chef Niko ever since he hired him earlier this year ... and they would often post videos of each other on Snapchat.

In fact, our friends at "For The Win" just published a story about how close the two were. The story also details Niko's battle with drug addiction and how he's conquering it.

But something went down between Brown and Niko this week ... something bad ... because the NFL star fired the chef and in a new video, Niko makes it clear the relationship is OVER.

"I thought he was my friend and that's not the case I guess."

Neither Brown nor Niko have revealed what happened behind the scenes. Brown issued a "new chef alert" Monday night to announce Niko has been replaced.

A Benihana waiter says he got screwed out of his tips by having to cut in the cooks behind the counter -- and far from woking it back, he's suing.

The server who filed the class action suit claims he was forced to fork over tons of his hard-earned tips to sushi chefs at his NY restaurant ... for 8 years!

He claims he lost around $80 every week from '08-'16 -- which comes out to a little over $33k. He also says his restaurant's alleged practice of splitting front of house tips with back of house employees violates labor laws.

The suit claims there's a helluva lot more employees who might have been stiffed too, and invites 'em to hop on for a payout.

The L.A. Rams are eating like they're New England Patriots, even if they're not scoring like them. Yet.

The Cousins Maine Lobster food truck rolled up to Rams practice on the Cal Lutheran University campus in Thousand Oaks and shelled out $4,000 worth of lobster to the players.

Seems like the team's already going Hollywood, since even their food has to be famous now. The owners of Cousins Maine struck a deal on "Shark Tank" with Barbara Corcoran.

The Rams have their home opener in L.A. this weekend, and they'll be fueled up on lobster tots, lobster grilled cheese, and lobster rolls.

Probably won't be enough to help 'em upset the Seahawks, but at least they got some good grub.

Actor Duane Martin bobbed and weaved his way out of paying to air the Floyd Mayweather-Andre Berto fight in his restaurant ... according to the company in charge of distributing the bout.

J&J Sports Productions says it had exclusive rights to license Floyd's last fight -- a year ago -- to bars, restaurants, hotels and casinos. But according to a lawsuit, Martin and his restaurant, XEN Lounge, straight-up jacked the feed.

In the docs, J&J says Martin illegally intercepted the feed and showed the fight at the restaurant ... which helped them make a bundle that night.

Depending on the capacity of XEN, it would've cost a few thousand to get the fight on the up and up. Now J&J is suing for damages in excess of $175k.

'Sopranos' and "24" star Louis Lombardi thinks people getting pissed off over Walmart's Coke can 9/11 tribute ... is un-American.

Earlier this week a Florida Walmart built a 20 ft. display of the Twin Towers and an American flag using 12-packs of Coke products. Some people appreciated the artistry, but others found it a disrespectful, commercialized abomination.

Lombardi, a native New Yorker, thinks the haters are looking at the display the wrong way.

His take? Any tribute's a good one, and there's more important stuff to bitch about on social media.

Old people can EAT -- just ask the 76-YEAR-OLD MAN who came shockingly close to catching Joey Chestnut at one of the BIGGEST rib competitions in the world!!

Kim, Kanye and North felt the need ... for sweets, and lots of 'em based on how much they forked out during a candy shopping spree.

The fam hit up the Dylan's Candy Bar flagship store Monday, and sources tell us they whipped out 2 Benjs for lollipops, Push Pops and Gobstoppers. They also stocked up on sour goods like Sour Skittles, Rainbow Nerds Rope, Trolli Gummy Peachie-O's and Sour Octopus.

Zero Sour Patch Kids though. Big mistake. Huge.

Teyana Taylor's killer body is not only a tasty treat ... it's filled with them.

We caught the "Fade" dancer leaving Ace of Diamonds where you'd think she showed the girls there how to get down. But check out the vid ... instead we learn she's got a major sweet tooth.

And get this ... her fiance, NBA star Iman Shumpert, has his own plans after watching her in Kanye's vid.

Gladys Knight might've just proved blood isn't always thicker than water -- she just sued her son to stop using mama's name and face in the restaurant biz.

Gladys wants the person now running the restaurants previously managed by her son, Shanga Hankerson, to 86 her from signs and promotions for the chicken and waffle joints.

Gladys says she gave the green light to use her name and image for the restaurants back in '99, but put the kibosh on the deal a few months ago after the eateries were raided by the Georgia Department of Revenue. Her son was arrested for allegedly pocketing a million bucks.

If the Stanley Cup can go on a donut run ... so can the Larry O'Brien trophy!

Cleveland Cavs stud Tristan Thompson grabbed the NBA championship hardware and took it on a little getaway to Canada ... where he's been giving it a tour of his home country.

But the best part ... he took Larry to Tim Hortons ... a famous coffee and donut shop chain up north where Sidney Crosby brought the NHL's biggest prize back in July.

"I saw Sidney Crosby brought the Stanley Cup to @timhortons so only right I brought Larry!" Tristan tweeted.

Maybe Peyton will road trip with the Vince Lombardi Trophy next ... not like he's got anything else to do.

Justin Bieber is one helluva a multitasker ... dancing, chowing down on a sub and getting some QT with Sofia Richie ... and he did it all in front of the TMZ Celebrity Tour bus.

Sofia and the Biebs were cruising down Sunset Blvd in WeHo Thursday during rush hour when they ended up stopped next to our bus.

We tried to get some intel on JB's sandwich of choice, but all he was giving up was his dance moves. Fans on the bus and on Sunset Blvd. seemed more than satisfied.

We all know Emily Sears can throw down burgers, thanks to Carl's Jr. ... but her ass is pretty good at devouring stuff too.

We got the Aussie smoke show in Santa Monica, taking a dip and soaking up the end of summer rays.

Emily famously sucked down a ton of bacon during that "Three-Way" spot.

Yeah, it's pretty clear she does good work with food.

Chief Keef is so anti-sobriety even his birthday cake is under the influence.

The rapper celebrated his 21st birthday with a cake straight out of a stoner's dream -- edible blunts and a Promethazine bottle on a 3-tier cake. Settle down, lean users ... it's just a fondant decoration.

Cake and Art in WeHo made the sweet piece ... complete with edible frosting paper to recreate Bill Da Butcher artwork -- and the "gold" chains might look tough, but they're just buttercream.

For the record: No actual codeine syrup was included in the recipe.

We're told Marc Gravelle needed just 4 hours to create the dope cake, which set Chief back a cool $1k.

Jerry Ferrara is driving a really hard bargain with the chain of sandwich joints he co-owns and agreed to promote ... so claims Fat Sal's in a new lawsuit aimed at 86'ing Ferrara.

Ferrara grew unhappy with his Fat Sal's deal and wanted a bigger ownership stake in the restaurants as it expanded ... according to the docs. The Gayley Group, which runs Fat Sal's, says Ferrara bought stock back in 2010 and had a nice return -- nearly $200k on an investment of $74k.

The company says Ferrara was supposed to pump up the deli shop, but threatened to bail on all promotions because he grew sour with his deal. In the suit, the co. says Ferrara complained so much ... Gayley ultimately offered him a 5% stake in some of the new restaurants it was opening.

Gayley says Ferrara instead demanded 10%. When that was shot down, Gayley claims Ferrara sicced his lawyers on them.

Keri Hilson forgets the world's watching her social media ... at least that's her explanation for flaunting her, umm ... popsicle eating skills.

We caught up with Keri Tuesday at LAX and eased into the convo -- about the hypnotizing Snapchat vid she posted in June. Her fans, and others, were buzzing about it, but Keri never discussed what the hell she was doing. After all, she was in the middle of shopping when it went down ... so to speak.

Well, here's the full story. Hint: booze was involved. Also, she admits it could happen again ... not that anyone's complaining.

Ray Lewis says the 15 days he spent behind bars were some of the worst in his life -- and claims he was forced to smuggle in food ... to avoid eating the moldy-ass jail bologna.

Lewis was locked up in 2000 -- when he was charged with murder following an incident after a Super Bowl party in Atlanta. The murder charges were dismissed and he later pled guilty to obstruction of justice.

But now, Lewis is opening up about his jail experience to Cigar Aficionado -- saying the food was so bad behind bars he had to find his very own Red from 'Shawshank' to get him some decent eats.

"For like the first seven, eight days I never ate anything outside of orange halves. If you saw the moldy bologna and things that they were trying to … I was not an animal. And I was not going to succumb to that."

"So every day [my friend] would bring me a bunch of orange halves. He snuck them in for me."

Lewis has previously called his jail sting "evil" -- and adds, "What happened to me, those 15 days, I will live for the rest of my life. And I’m OK with that."