Sydney’s top chefs reveal their best and worst celeb experiences
After NY restaurateur Keith McNally called out “abusive” customer James Corden, Sydney’s top chefs have weighed in with their best and worst celeb dining experiences.
Confidential
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Sydney’s top chefs have lifted the lid on their experience with celebrities after a famed New York restaurateur sensationally called out talk show host James Corden for his rude behaviour at his venue.
Keith McNally admits he started a “storm in a restaurant teacup” when he took to Instagram to say how the English host of The Late Late Show had been “yelling like crazy” at a server at Balthazar for getting an order wrong.
Chef and restaurateur Luke Mangan, who knows McNally and has visited him in New York, said Australia’s food scene is very different and the smaller nature of it means it’s harder to call people out.
The restaurateur, who owns Luke’s Kitchen and glass Brasserie, has cooked for the likes of Tom Cruise, Elton John, Baz Luhrmann, Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett and Priscilla Presley. He said most of the celebrities he’s served are very “humble and approachable.”
“We normally know we have a celebrity because security will sweep their management through the restaurant first,” he said.
“They then might ask for a quiet area for the VIP to sit away from the thick of the restaurant but they aren’t demanding,” he said.
When it comes to the food orders, it’s often the simpler the better, often the request will be to forgo a dish with the bells and whistles and instead have steamed fish with vegetables.
Tom Cruise liked Mangan’s barramundi dish so much he actually ordered another two servings.
Mangan, who has opened a new restaurant on the South East Pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, recalls a memorable experience he had with Dallas actor Larry Hagman, who came into glass at 10am and asked for a glass of Shiraz.
“I only knew he was in Sydney cause I’d seen him on morning television. He was jet-lagged and after a wine, but the staff didn’t recognise him so were going to say it was too early. But at the end of the day, with any customer, if they want a glass of red or a steak you just do it,” Mangan said.
“Larry ended up asking me to join him for a couple of glasses of red in the morning. Which I did. He then tipped $200 and off he went!”
Chef Jeff Schroeter, who runs the up-market Beckett’s in Glebe has cooked for a host of celebrities, including King Charles, as a chef in London and New York’s top restaurants. Often when VIP guests who come into his restaurant they would ask for the most basic meals or bring their own, which was the case of Vogue Fashion Anna Wintour who would BYO her own tuna can for the tuna niçoise salad.
“Karl Lagerfeld came in with his entourage after a show at New York fashion week and said, “I want a hot dog with fries!” But we had nothing like that where I was working. We were scratching our heads and so we sent a bus boy to the local hot dog vendor on the street to buy some and then to Macca’s for some fries and put it on a plate. He told us it was the best meal he’d had in a long time,” he recalls.
Celebrity chef and host of Kitchen Nightmares, Colin Fassnidge, believes McNally shouldn’t have called out Corden’s behaviour in public.
“There is kind of an oath you take in the business, like a doctor in patient, where you don’t really share what goes on in restaurants because it makes everyone think they have to mind their p’s and q’s,” he said.
“If you’ve got great front of house staff, any problems with guests should be nipped in the bud straight away or if they continue to be rude, you just don’t have them back. When they call to book we tell them we are full.”
Fassnidge has cooked for the likes of Daniel Ricciardo and Marco Pierre White. “I’ve never had a problem with the superstar, it‘s often their entourage who expect things,” he said.
“I once cooked at a private event for a superstar but there was a woman in his team would was the snappy finger type and clicked her fingers at me.”
Fassnidge also recalls the time he got a call from fellow chef Curtis Stone, asking him to go to a mansion on the harbour to cook for a celebrity. “It was all very top secret. When I arrived, there were curtains on the gates. But it turns out it was Adele. I cooked a BBQ for her and her son,” he said. “She was very down to earth.”
The saga between McNally and Corden continues, with the English host of The Late Late Show telling The New York Times “did nothing wrong” after he was temporarily banned from Balthazar and labelled “the most abusive customer” in the venue’s 25-year history.
McNally has since taken to Instagram to once again call out Corden, but also added that actor Ralph Fiennes came into his venue and “tipped Very Generously” and was described as the “ever the most gracious customer!”
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