He was credited with transforming the down-at-heel soul food shack into one of the success stories of the decade.

Now Gordon Ramsay has roasted Momma Cherri and made mincemeat of her staff. Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares shot the Soul Food Shack to fame two years ago - but in an updated programme on Tuesday night, the celebrity chef reduced its owner to tears with his four-letter assessment of slipping standards.

He told the assembled kitchen staff the soul food was becoming more like "fast food".

Now Momma Cherri - real name Charita Jones - has a message to staff and customers alike: "I'm back."

The charismatic Philadelphia-born cook was ordered to leave her kitchen to her chefs and let her personality shine at front of house on Ramsay's first TV mission to turn the restaurant around.

But when he returned in November, he found chefs pre-preparing the famous Soul in a Bowl tapas dishes and reheating them for customers. He ordered her to return to the kitchen and take a firmer hold of the reins.

Charita told The Argus: "He's put me back in the kitchen. The quality of some of the dishes in his opinion had fallen, due to the fact that there are so many people coming through our door and the kitchen was mass-producing food to keep up with demand.

"It just has to be pointed out to me and I'm on it."

She has already made the changes Ramsay said she needed in his Channel 4 programme Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares Revisited. Charita said: "The programme was three or four weeks ago.

"It was on TV on Tuesday night. People look on that as being current but whole changes have already happened. I have had a chance to address a lot of issues."

The new premises, Momma Cherri's Big House in Little East Street, Brighton, has the capacity to serve 200 customers a night over more than one sitting.

Thanks to her growing popularity, diners must book eight weeks in advance for a table on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. Despite the high demand, Momma Cherri is dropping the number of meals she serves every night to address criticism that dishes are closer to fast food than soul food.

She said: "What I'm going to be doing now is putting a ceiling on bookings so there will be no more than 150.

"I don't want it to be fast food.

Charita is also reintroducing her a la carte menu.

The business, now in its sixth year, has expanded rapidly since Ramsay's first programme was broadcast in 2005. Charita's personal profile has stayed high - she even scooped the Entrepreneur of the Year prize at the Sussex Business Awards in November.

Staff at Momma Cherri's Big House say her new-found celebrity keeps her away from day-to-day kitchen duties. One said: "She has so many appointments, she is barely in the kitchen."

Charita defended her celebrity appearances. "Every spare job I do outside of this restaurant is purely to keep the profile up and to get people to come to Brighton to eat. That's what I'm about.

"I'm passionate about this city. I want to make sure the people out there in the north are booking to come to Brighton."

After a rocket from Ramsay, Momma Cherri is adamant her down-home style of cooking is not lost under the pressure of business.

She said: "I'm determined to get it right. I'm writing a cookbook, which comes out in May. The first people who will get a hold of my cookbook are my chefs."