SAYING NELLO AND GOODBYE
Restaurateur to the stars recalled as friendly and flawed host who ‘made New York fun’
If you wanted a plate of pasta for $275, with a side of Beyoncé and Jay Z, you went to Nello on Madison Avenue.
If you wanted to dine next to Paris Hilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger, you went to Nello.
And if you wanted to sample “sawdusty chicken livers lashed with balsamic,” “lentil soup familiar to anyone who owns a can opener” and “too-salty saffron risotto” — according to The New York Times back in 2010 — you went to Nello.
But the city hospitality industry is now mourning restaurateur Nello Balan, the richly accented self-styled “baron of dining.” He leaves behind grieving loved ones, a slew of lawsuits and memories of how he made 696 Madison Ave. the place to see the stars.
Celebs everywhere
Nello (never Mr. Balan), who counted Ivana Trump as one of his close friends, passed away at age 64 Tuesday afternoon at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, his daughter, Lucy, confirmed to Page Six.” “I was by his side,” she said.
The restaurateur underwent a successful surgery less than two years ago to remove a brain tumor, but he was recovering from a recent ski accident that landed him “in and out of the hospital for about a month,” Lucy said.
In the past few years, Nello had spent his time traveling around the world, including living in Rome for a year with his girlfriend, Princess Rita von Boncompagni Ludovisi. He told her it was his greatest romance.
He opened Nello in 1992. It was his first restaurant venture and came to define the idea of a celebrity restaurant. A year later, it attracted its first mention in The Post. We noted: “Chef Sandro Fioriti is now cooking at Nello on Madison Ave.”
But soon, the boldface names and not the chef became the story of Nello. The only food that stayed in the headlines were the truffles (there was always a supply of black and usually of white, too).
On any given night, you could find Mick Jagger at one table, billionaire hedge funder John Paulson (just “my friend” to Nello) at another and socialite Honore Ryan at a third.
The lure of Nello crossed generations and genres. Potentates, princes, Hollywood and Wall Street, lowbrow, highbrow: Nello welcomed all.
The list was almost literally endless. Pierce Brosnan, when he was James Bond. Jennifer Lopez. Sting. Selena Gomez.
Marlo Thomas. Uma Thurman. Charlie Rose. Mickey Rourke. David Duchovny. Robin Williams. David Hasselhoff.
“My dear friend Bob Dylan.” Anne Hathaway. Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York. Kate Moss. Clint Eastwood. Brad Pitt.
Legal troubles
But luring in the famous went hand-in-hand with his extortionate prices. Nello once tried to charge a group of stars — including “Succession” star Brian Cox before he was portraying Logan Roy — $500 for a pasta dish with truffles. Nello ended up paying the bill himself.
In 2012, tourist Craig Tall was stunned when he was handed a bill for $400 for an alcohol-free lunch for three.
When he asked how the bill could be so high, the waiters said his friend’s pasta cost $275. As Tall wrote to the Times: “I was told that Nello never discloses the prices of specials, and that it is the customer’s duty to pipe up with questions.”
Later that year, Nello defended himself to the Hamptons Cheat Sheet: “Overpriced, I’m not. Expensive, I am — for I offer only the best in teatro mundi. It’s the longest-running show with a full house every day.”
He was also brilliant at attracting feuds and lawsuits.
He was forced to leave his eatery in 2015 after falling out with co-owner Thomas Makkos. Nello compared it to “a marriage that didn’t work.”
For his part, Makkos said, “I wouldn’t be where I am today without Nello. He elevated Madison Avenue. There’s the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty and there’s Nello.”
But Nello wasn’t able to replicate the success of Nello’s. In 2017, his company, Be My Guest LLC — which hoped to open an ambitious new space on West 58th Street but became locked in a vicious legal battle with the former occupant — went bust and filed voluntary bankruptcy papers.
He was also facing criminalcontempt charges over $100,000 he owed to another restaurateur,
Max Burgio.
Nello had promised to bail Burgio out of failed restaurant B & Co., open his own operation in that space on West 58th Street and hire Burgio as a consultant, but Nello didn’t come through with the cash, according to court papers, and his relationship with Burgio fell apart.
An outpost of Nello in Aspen, Colo., was shuttered after six months with more than $300,000 in liens from suppliers, according to local reports.
Along the way, Nello was sued in 2012 by staffers who alleged that Nello and Nello Summertimes in Southampton made them work 60hour weeks without overtime.
They also claimed they were routinely cheated out of tips “de
pending on whether they were in or out of favor.”
Life and loves
A native of Romania with an exotic accent, Nello claimed to be a descendant of Vlad the Impaler, the inspiration for Count Dracula, and flaunted bleached blond hair.
His love life had its ups and downs. From his first marriage, he had oldest daughters, Lucy — his business partner — and Olivia.
He then had two children, Madison and Grant, with Turkish exwife Elbi Askin.
In May 2006, he was ordered to take six months of classes on domestic violence after pleading guilty to an attempted assault on ex-girlfriend Heather Payne.
He went on to become engaged to fashionista Jasmine Oh in 2013, as Page Six reported, although there was no marriage.
His final romance was with American-born Princess Rita.
Already traumatized after recently being thrown out of her $500 million palazzo in Rome by the sons of late husband Prince Nicolo, she told Page Six she was “bereft.”
“Nello brought joy into my life, once again . . . we have shed many, many tears,” she said.
She revealed that only last week, the showman told her their romance was the “happiest time of his life.” Rita, 73, a former actress-turned-real-estate broker who also counts former Democratic Congressman John Jenrette as an ex-husband, said the couple first met at Nello when he paid her bill because it was so expensive.
“We spoke every day, and I was on FaceTime when Nello died. It was very painful, Nello’s daughters are like my family. They are wonderful, and I love them and their children,” she added.
‘Saddest thing ever’
While loved ones will gather to remember him at his funeral planned for Wednesday in Great Neck, LI, he remained “secretive” about his life, according to his friend, socialite and Hampton Sheet publisher Joan Jedell.
Jedell told us: “He was definitely unique, a genius, look at all the celebrities and royalty that came to Nello.
“It was the most exciting place in New York, but unfortunately he fell with the taxes and the other things. He ended up losing the restaurant, and I think that was the saddest thing ever for him.
“Even to his last day, he didn’t want to give up, his daughter told me.”
She added that it was his dream to return to Nello, adding: “Of course he would have wanted to be back there, he would have kept it if he could.”
Jedell even recounted how Nello made her leave her home to dine with him outside in a snowstorm.
“He was so funny, he never wanted to look sad or upset and weak. And if someone was an idiot, he’d say ‘you are an idiot. ’ He had no tolerance for idiots.
“He made New York fun,” she said.