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Chef Ryan Skeen Already Overheating in Latest New Job
By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 26, 2010
Modified Mar 26, 2010
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By
John Del Signore
Published Mar 26, 2010
Modified Mar 26, 2010
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Chef Ryan Skeen, who's developed quite the reputation in the NYC dining industry as a temperamental reactionary who's burned through four jobs in as many years (Resto, Irving Mill, The General Greene, Allen & Delancey), says he got assaulted by the general manager at his new gig Wednesday night. Details are scant, but the end result of their altercation is that the manager, Gwen Butler, quit, as did the entire front of house staff at the newly opened Harlem restaurant 5 & Diamond. Skeen tells Grub Street, "She assaulted me. In my opinion, it’s a woman kind of attacking me — in my mind, it’s not like me and a guy throwing punches with each other." Grub Street hears he got punched in the face, and she didn't exactly deny it.
"Maybe I'm too street, but I respond in kind to someone putting their hands on me," says Butler. Skeen claims, "The front of house was kind of a mess." But Butler fires back, "For him to insinuate I did anything less than a stellar job — in a fraction of the usual time and money it takes — conceptualizing, physically building and developing this project is delusional and insulting." And so on and so forth. The only thing we don't understand is why, with all the shows churned out by Bravo and the Food Network, Skeen still doesn't have his own reality show. We're also amazed at his restrain in not venting on Twitter (yet), like that time he parted ways with Allen & Delancey.
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John Del Signore
Originally from the Albany area, John Del Signore has called NYC home since 1995. In addition to his thousands of meticulously-crafted bespoke blog posts for Gothamist, his writing has also been published in The Awl, Deadspin, The Nervous Breakdown, and performed at The Brick Theater in Brooklyn.
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