James Corden, host of CBS’ “The Late Late Show,” was briefly banned from a popular New York City restaurant on Monday after the owner accused him of being “abusive” to his staff over order errors. Corden’s ban was lifted after he called to apologize, the restaurateur said.
“James Corden is a hugely gifted comedian, but a tiny cretin of a man,” Keith McNally, the owner of French restaurant Balthazar, wrote on Instagram. “And the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.”
CBS News has reached out to Corden’s team for comment.
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.
McNally wrote that in June, Corden was in the restaurant and found a hair after eating his main course. He showed it to a manager, who apologized. But then Corden allegedly became “extremely nasty” and demanded “another round of drinks” and that the restaurant pay for all of the drinks he had up until that point.
Most recently, on October 9, Corden was said to be at Balthazar with his wife Julia Carey for brunch. The restaurant said chaos ensued after his wife received her order: she had asked for an egg yolk omelette with gruyere cheese and salad, and it arrived with “a little bit of egg white mixed with the egg yolk.” When the kitchen remade her omelette, they added a side of home fries instead of salad.
“That’s when Corden began yelling like crazy to the server,” McNally wrote . “‘You can’t do your job! Maybe I should go into the kitchen and cook the omelette myself!'”
McNally said the order was fixed and Corden and his wife were given champagne glasses to “smooth things out” but the talk show host was still “nasty to the server.”
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in second chances,” McNally wrote, joking that if Corden allowed him to host his show for 9 months, his ban would be rescinded.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.”
