Emily Writes tries the dish that got James Corden banned from a fancy restaurant.
This story was first published on the author’s newsletter, Emily Writes Weekly.
I have had quite a few sleepless nights lately, worrying about the pandemic, my parenting skills, bills, and James Corden’s wife’s egg allergy and her apparent disregard for her health in pursuit of an omelette. Only one of these things I can easily do something about. And it’s omelette-related.
In case you have a life, and you don’t follow celebrity drama, I will bring you up to speed.
Who is James Corden?
James Kimberley Corden OBE is a British comedian. He was Peter Rabbit in the godawful Peter Rabbit movies and he was in the Cats movie which was described as “a cinematic car crash”. He is also the host of a late night TV show famous for Carpool Karaoke.
OK, what about the omelette?
Corden and his wife went to a fancy restaurant and she ordered a yolk-only omelette. Apparently, it had a little bit of egg white in it. Depending on who you ask, Corden either made a rude comment to the server (his version) or he yelled at the server (the restaurant owner’s version).
How do we know about this?
The restaurant is owned by Keith McNally who is described by the New York Times as “a powerful restaurateur”. The restaurant was Balthazar – an apparently very fancy restaurant. McNally wrote on Instagram that he’d banned Corden; “James Corden is a Hugely gifted comedian, but a tiny Cretin of a man. And the most abusive customer to my Balthazar servers since the restaurant opened 25 years ago.”
What happened next?
Corden apologised to McNally who said “All is Forgiven”. Evidentally all was not forgiven though. Because Corden said in a New York Times interview just after the brouhaha – “I haven’t done anything wrong, on any level….I feel so Zen about the whole thing. Because I think it’s so silly. I just think it’s beneath all of us. It’s beneath you. It’s certainly beneath your publication.”
This is not as interesting as you’re suggesting it is
WAIT! THIS IS THE IMPORTANT BIT! On his show, Corden said: “My wife explained that she has a serious food allergy, so when everybody’s meals came, my wife was given the food that she was allergic to but she hadn’t taken a bite of it or anything, so no worries, we sent it back, all was good”.
When I read this, it would not leave my mind. Because do you see what I see?
Yes! She ordered an EGG omelette even though she has an EGG allergy!!
Right?! I mean that is fucking bonkers behaviour. What omelette is worth death? I know nothing about eggs beyond the fact that I like them poached, but surely you cannot separate egg yolks without getting a bit of egg white in them?
I sure hope you asked the experts
I did. I went straight to my favourite cafe and restaurant. Wellington institution Floriditas has been running for 17 years. I asked owner Julie Clark what in the world is going on.
Well, what did she say?
In the 17-year history of Floriditas, Julie Clark thinks they’ve made “maybe two” egg-white omelettes, despite them being “all the rage” in the late 80s and early 90s. They’ve never been asked for, or made, an egg yolk omelette.
Until now.
I asked Julie to talk eggs with me while I tucked into an egg yolk omelette and an egg white omelette.
I have not even a basic understanding of how eggs work so Julie explained it to me.
“If you think about the egg, the white or the albumen is the protein part of it. So often people will ask for an egg-white omelette, especially if they’re bodybuilders. Because they just want the protein. The yolk is essentially the good part, the fat, the yummy bits.”
Would she serve someone with an egg white allergy an egg yolk omelette?
No. “If somebody had a real allergy to egg whites I would be very reluctant to make them an egg yolk omelette.”
And Julie isn’t the only one. During my egg-eating brunch, various chefs and staff members stopped by the table. All were incredulous at the idea of making an egg yolk omelette for someone allergic to egg whites. The consensus was it’s not possible. I also learned there’s an umbilical cord connecting the yolk and white which was not helpful information to have while I was eating.
Allergies affect 30-40% of the population in New Zealand. A good restaurant or cafe should be well aware of the risk. Surely no chef wants their meal to kill someone.
What did the egg yolk omelette taste like though?
The egg yolk omelette was yummier than the egg white omelette. But definitely not worth dying for.
That’s nothing to do with the skills of the Floriditas kitchen. Because after I had some egg yolk omelette and egg white omelette I had a poached egg. And it was so good. Possibly not good enough to end up in hospital for, but it was very good.
So the egg allergy was just an excuse to yell at someone?
It’s almost like you’re in my brain! Julie says overwhelmingly New Zealanders are nice to servers. But there’s definitely a few bad eggs.
“Sometimes people are downright rude and there’s nothing you can do and sometimes people are just hangry. And we’re quite good at recognising which one it is because as soon as you’ve given them food they’re fine. But some people, you just can’t please them and you wonder why they even walked in the door that day.”
The egg request isn’t a reasonable one, Julie says: “No egg white residue on the egg yolk – that would frighten me, I just wouldn’t do it. I would be too worried about somebody, just a trace of egg white making them sick – it gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it.”
While Floriditas has never had to ban any British comedians, they’ve had their share of egg controversies over the years.
“Everyone likes their eggs done differently. Some like their eggs to be really runny which is our speciality but some people want hard eggs or less runny. We will always make it the way they want it. We will always make it right and cook the egg again.”
Did you abuse a staff member in a British accent?
I am a serious reporter writer, so of course I wanted to be authentic. I used to work in hospo, so the idea of doing this was horrendous. But I did it.
My attempts at yelling at Laura, the daytime restaurant manager at Floriditas, were a complete failure. As in I couldn’t look her in the eye, apologised profusely and almost vomited. She found it quite entertaining at least.
Looking at my clean plate, I asked Laura if she ever says to people “if you didn’t like the meal, how come you ate it all?” She got straight to the point: “We cannot say what we really think.”
When a complaining customer has no reason to be angry, Laura takes it in her stride. “We don’t know what people go through during their day. They might be having a bad day for a lot of reasons. Their cat might have died. Hospitality means that you have to make people feel comfortable regardless.”
“You can’t please everyone, but we want to acknowledge if they’re not happy and do something to fix it.”
Verdict, then?
Egg yolk omelettes are not worth dying for. But making an egg yolk omelette for a person with an allergy is not a good, idea even if they’re rich and annoying and British.