“James Corden is a hugely gifted comedian, but a tiny Cretin of a man.” This was how Keith McNally, the owner of a popular New York City restaurant Balthazar described the Late Show host in an Instagram post. McNally recently banned Corden, albeit briefly. On Monday (October 17) the French restaurant owner accused him of being “the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.”
McNally, who opened the restaurant in SoHo in 1997 and has been referred to by The New York Times as “the restaurateur who invented downtown,” said he doesn’t often “86 a customer,” but that he felt he had to after his staff’s experience. He pointed to two separate incidents: one in June and another in October.
Per his Instagram caption, McNally wrote that in June, the “Carpool Karaoke” host was “extremely nasty” to a manager when showing a hair while eating his main course. He allegedly said, “Get us another round of drinks this second. And also take care of all of our drinks so far. This way I [won’t] write any nasty reviews in yelp or anything like that.'”
In the second instance of Corden’s intolerable behavior, “He asked for a table outside. Brunch Maitre D’ Allie Wolters took the party to table 301. Mr. Corden’s wife ordered an egg yolk omelette with gruyere cheese and salad. A few minutes after they received the food, James called their server, M. K. and told her there was a little bit of egg white mixed with the egg yolk. M. K. informed the floor manager, G. The kitchen remade the dish but unfortunately sent it with home fries instead of salad. That’s when James Corden began yelling like crazy to the server: ‘You can’t do your job! You can’t do your job! Maybe I should go into the kitchen and cook the omelette myself!’ M.K. was very apologetic and brought G. over to the table. He returned the dish, and after that, everything was fine. He gave them promo Champagne glasses to smooth things out. G. said that Corden was pleasant to him but nasty to the server.’ M.K. was very shaken, but professional that she is, continued to finish her shift.'”
Hours after McNally’s first post calling out Corden’s behavior, he made a second post, this time saying that the ban had been lifted after Corden called him and “apologized profusely.”
“Having f—ed up myself more than most people, I strongly believe in second chances,” McNally wrote, joking that if Corden allowed him to host his show for 9 months, his ban would be rescinded. “…Anyone magnanimous enough to apologize to a deadbeat layabout like me (and my staff) doesn’t deserve to be banned from anywhere. Especially Balthazar. … All is forgiven. xx”