Pop star Ananya Birla has alleged that a celebrity chef’s restaurant in California “threw” her and her family out. But the eatery has denied it saying that while there was a tense situation over IDs it was resolved and they were not made to leave.
“This restaurant @ScopaRestaurant literally threw my family and I, out of their premises. So racist. So sad. You really need to treat your customers right. Very racist. This is not okay,” she said in a tweet on Saturday.
The tweet received 617 likes by midnight Sunday.
In another tweet, the singer-songwriter, who is the daughter of Indian billionaire industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, asserted that “we waited for three hours to eat at your restaurant”.
Addressing celebrity chef Antonia Lofaso in the tweet, Ananya Birla said that one of her waiters, whom she named, “was extremely rude to my mother, bordering racist. This isn’t okay”.
According to Lofaso’s website, she opened Scopa in 2013.
Lofaso has starred in “Top Chef: All Stars” and the ABC network’s sitcom, “Real O’Neals”. She has also been a judge on CNBC’s “Restaurant Startup” and is on the Food Network’s “Cutthroat Kitchen”, and “Man vs. Child”.
Lofaso has authored “The Busy Mom’s Cookbook”.
After IANS contacted the restaurant for its reaction, a partner, Pablo Moix, called back and asked for an emailed request for a response to ensure accuracy.
But as of Sunday midnight, a response was not received.
Ananya Birla’s mother Neerja asserted in a tweet: “Very shocking … absolutely ridiculous behaviour by @ScopaRestaurant. You have no right to treat any of your customers like this.”
Aryaman, who is the Ananya’s brother, tweeted: “I have never experienced anything of this sort. Racism exists and is real. Unbelievable.”
Several people responding to the billionaire’s daughter tweet suggested that she buys the restaurant.
She tweeted a message to her fans: “I love you all so much (heart) you’ll are the best. Thank you for always protecting me! Today is a new day to create some magic! New song dropping soon.”
