NELLO Balan is accustomed to cooking for celebrities and folks whose IQ digits can’t keep pace with the price of one of his entrees. But yesterday, the chef-to-the-stars did none of these things.
He cooked for me.
This unprecedented event took place a day after the owner of scandalously overpriced restaurant Nello’s – who claims to descend from Vlad the Impaler – spent the night in police custody, accused of dishing out a vicious beating to his live-in girlfriend, Heather Payne.
Balan allegedly threw Payne to the floor of the East 62nd Street apartment they share, kneed her in the throat, put a pillow over her face and dug his fingernails into her eyes – then offered her $50,000 to shut up.
Bleary-eyed from a long night in the can, Balan – whose skin nonetheless exudes a rich-guy glow that my mom says makes a man look “like a freshly peeled egg” – extended a powerful paw in my direction.
“It’s just a misunderstanding,” Balan insisted to me.
“Things happen. In New York, everything gets blown up.”
Balan says his girlfriend simply “got emotional.” He said he hopes he can sort things out with her.
Payne, 33, who says she’s hiding, sounded yesterday as if she’s in a forgiving mood.
“I feel for him,” Payne told The Post’s Todd Venezia. “He has problems.” Asked if she still loves him, Payne replied, “Of course I do. That doesn’t mean it’s healthy.”
I wonder if it’s healthy to allow such a man to approach me with cooking utensils. I’m about to find out.
“You like lobster? I can make it for you,” Balan sang as he ran off into the kitchen of Nello’s. He didn’t tell me how much.
His cooking my lunch made sure of two things: It forced me to consume the midday meal seated and with a knife and a fork.
Plus, it gave Balan a handy excuse to disappear. With the knives. I would have to take that chance.
Balan and Payne, it seems, have a stormy and allegedly violent history that seems rife with something the pop-psych books call co-dependence. I call it twisted. She still loves him, you see.
Last Sept. 19, Balan was arrested for assault, accused of kicking Payne in her genitals, sending her, bleeding, to the hospital.
But she forgave him. Balan was released on a conditional discharge – meaning that if he stays out of trouble for six months, his record is wiped clean. And the couple, who became a pair shortly before Balan’s wife gave birth to their second child, continued to live together.
Now, Balan could face a year in jail in the earlier case. Balan’s lawyer, Jeffrey Cylkowski, suggested that his client tussled with Payne while trying to keep her from jumping out a window after she ingested booze and antidepressants.
Payne responded, “That’s disgusting! That’s outrageous.”
But then, she struck a more conciliatory tone.
“I guess it’s more important for him to be Mr. Cool than to be nice to the person who loves him more than anyone else.”
She was asked if she would leave Balan for good.
Her answer: “I hope so.”
It will take a lot more than ravioli in cream sauce to settle this. But I can safely say that the only abuse that occurred at Nello’s yesterday was leveled against my expense account.
Fifty-five dollars for lobster ravioli. And $27 for asparagus. Coffee was a bargain at $6.
Shameless. On all counts.