Keith McNally is not here for Graydon Carter.
The iconic restaurateur, of Pastis, The Odeon, Minetta Tavern, Morandi and Balthazar fame, has officially banned the former Vanity Fair Editor-In-Chief turned Air Mail Weekly Founder from dining at any of his establishments. The cause of such inhospitality? Well last week it appears that Carter made a lunch reservation for twelve people at Balthazar, never showed and called to cancel about an hour after he was due.
Now, perhaps McNally would be have been willing to overlook such an episode if it were not for the fact that by his account and records, this was not the media legend's first infraction...
But the drama doesn't stop there. Following McNally's Instagram post (if you're not a follower, you are really missing out), the New York Post published a story on the rift and included a statement from Carter which read:
"My office did forget to cancel the lunch reservation until a bit after 1:30, which is wretched and we will be making a donation today to the restaurant’s tip pool to cover what the staff would have made. As a fellow restaurateur I fully understand the implications of a large party no show. As for the rest of McNally’s deranged rant, it is pure fiction. I rarely eat at his places and this all stems from the story we did about his most recent Instagram controversies in last week’s Air Mail."
Now, if you're at all paying attention here, it should be very obvious that there was no way McNally was about to just let that go without a follow up Instagram essay. Not going to lie, Twitter is definitely a better suited medium for his lengthy style, but we digress.
So, which team are you on?
Scrappy McNally?
Cool And Collected Carter?
Of course, 'Neither Of These Rich Old White Men' is a totally acceptable option as well.
Personally, I don't care who's in the right. For me, the real interesting mystery of all of this is what could have possibly happened that at the absolute last moment Carter's scheduled lunch for twelve people fell apart? Like, was he going to take his editorial team out for a special treat and then decided he wasn't in the mood or that there was too much work to be done? Because in that case, I think it's those people, the ones who all of a sudden were left disappointed, hungry, standing in line at Sweetgreen, who were truly wronged here. No?
Oh the towering seafood plateaux that could have been...
[Photo via @balthazarny]
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