When Dolce Vita replaced Dom's, Montreal chef Tyler Cyre told us the restaurant was “so close to so much bad Italian food.” Apparently that didn’t sit well with the neighbors, because the owner of Dolce Vita has now posted a letter to its Website complaining of “a tremendous amount of fear-mongering, bullying and ill will towards my restaurant from local restaurant owners and the like in the neighborhood.”

The letter claims local owners acted in concert with the restaurant’s original lawyer to stall a liquor license, and that they sent authorities to check up on the restaurant “on the rare occasion that we have a busy night.” In Little Italy, the letter claims, “if you are the new guy on the block and not in everybody else’s back pocket or part of Old Little Italy, you apparently do not have a prayer of making it.” The owner seems to think he’s struggling for the very soul of Little Italy (“It’s time for a New Little Italy … even if I fail at trying”), but let’s face it, Dom’s didn’t get a lot of traffic at this address before it was seized by the city, and owner Frank Migliori was loved by the neighborhood. Is there truly something rotten on Mulberry Street, or could this just be an unfortunate case of location, location, location?

Dolce Vita [Official site via Eater]