Chow hounding
Eatery may close due to investor’s Chapter 11
Philippe Chow is better known lately for his legal woes than for his culinary talents.
The star chef — who turned his Upper East Side Chinese eatery, Philippe, into a destination for such A-listers as Carmello Anthony, Rihanna and Kobe Bryant and went on to open swank outposts in other cities — may be close to losing his first and now last remaining restaurant.
The latest setback for Chow, who had been embroiled in a sixyear battle with rival restaurant Mr. Chow over trademark infringement, is a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing this week by Phil- ippe’s largest investor.
Dave 60 NYC, a holding company that owns a 59 percent stake in Philippe, does not have enough cash to fund operations at the restaurant, according to a filing in Manhattan bankruptcy court.
The filing, by Joseph Goldsmith, president of Dave 60 NYC, lists liabilities of up to $1 million.
His lawyer, Mitchell Greene, declined to comment.
This comes on the heels of a complaint filed against Philippe in January, alleging the restaurant does not pay its employees the minimum wage, steals their tips and operates a hostile work environment in which kitchen staffers have had plates thrown at them.
Reps for Philippe Chow and the restaurant did not respond to requests for comment.
What’s more, the Beverly Hills outpost, which has separate investors, closed a few months ago, leaving the Big Apple eatery the last one standing.
Philippes in Boca Raton, Miami and East Hampton have also shut down in the past several years.
Aside from its celebrity clientele, Philippe, on East 60th Street near Fifth Avenue, has attracted some other deep-pocketed admirers who became investors in 2011.
Steven Kantor a former head of investment banking at Cantor Fitzgerald, and Steven Boxer, whose late father, Leonard Boxer was a founding partner of Liz Claiborne, are shareholders in Dave 60 NYC. But the rest of Philippe’s ownership is a laundry list of llcs, nearly a dozen, according to the labor complaint in January.
“Why would a small restaurant have all those corporations?” Vincent Ancona, Philippe’s former lawyer in its suit against Mr. Chow in Florida, told The Post.
Ancona and a Miami lawyer, Anthony Accetta, have been embroiled in their own legal battle with Philippe’s owners, who allege that the lawyers owe them money after winning the Mr. Chow case.
“No monies belong to them,” Accetta said. “They owe me more money.”