Hell-kitchen confidential
Chef silences mistress with sex-vid threat: suit
The chef-owner of a slew of hot Manhattan eateries such as Toloache and Yerba Buena is blackmailing his former side dish with a sex video, a new lawsuit charges.
Julian Medina, a respected restaurateur — and married dad — secretly filmed one of his bartenders, Olga Ramos, giving him oral sex, then used the footage to threaten her to keep quiet, the woman’s $500,000 suit alleges.
“He’s trying to blackmail her into quitting and disappearing . . . It’s nuts,’’ Ramos’ lawyer, Eddie Hayes, told The Post.
The Manhattan Supreme Court suit says Ramos, 37, met Medina, 42, when she began bartending at his West 50th Street Mexican hot spot Toloache in 2010 — and he immediately started hitting on her.
“Medina made numerous and repeated requests that [she] go on a date with him,” her suit says. “Despite the fact that [Ramos] was not interested, Medina continued with his unwarranted and unrelenting pursuing of [her]” for months.
Ramos caved in 2012 and started a romantic relationship with her boss, even though he was married with a child, the suit claims.
Medina paid her rent and other expenses, the lawsuit says. Then in March 2015, he suddenly thrust a piece of paper in her face when they were at the bank withdrawing money, she said.
Ramos said Medina wouldn’t allow her to show the document to a lawyer before signing it, according to the papers. She said she later learned that the document released him from “any and all future claims.”
The affair ended in November 2016, the suit says. Ramos continued working at Toloache, although Medina started treating her differently, telling her to “get back into your cage,” referring to the bar area, and once kicking her between her legs, the suit says.
When Ramos asked him to stop in May, he texted her the video of her giving him oral sex, which she wasn’t aware he had taken, according to court papers.
“Medina intimated with this video that she must stay quiet,” the suit says.
Later that month, he showed up to her apartment drunk and demanding anal sex, according to court papers.
Medina told her “he would use his influence in the New York restaurant industry to make sure that she never worked again,” if she told anyone about the incidents, the suit says.
Medina did not return messages seeking comment but his lawyers said in an e-mail that “Julian is innocent of the charges” and predicted that the case would be eventually dismissed.
“Ms. Ramos has manufactured this scandalous tale for the sole purpose of embarrassing our client,’’ the statement said.
Medina, a native of Mexico City native, was executive chef at Sushi-Samba before opening Toloache in 2007. He now owns nine restaurants across the city, including the new Grand Central Station taco joint La Chula.