Before she left West Village restaurant Centro Vinoteca to embrace her new life as a Food Network star, Anne Burrell spent her days toiling in the kitchen, making killer meatball sandwiches, pasta, and offensive insults about the female front-of-house staff, a lawsuit alleges. The suit, filed in March, accuses Burrell of repeatedly harassing employees with offensive slurs, and claims that after they complained to the restaurant's owners, they were terminated. A bartender says Burrell called her a "ho" and told her she had "saggy boobs," while others were constantly called whores by Burrell, who once allegedly told a waitress, "You must be tired today from f--king all night."
"The male employees were not treated in the same or similar manner and the plaintiffs were treated in this manner because of their sex," the lawsuit alleges. Owner Sasha Muniak, who entered Centro into bankruptcy proceedings last month, is named in the suit, which came to light via his wife's website "PX This." The whole pdf is being hosted by Grub Street, which notes that Centro allegedly accused one of the plaintiffs of faking an ovarian cyst when she was out sick to justify firing her. The restaurant is still open, but this just made us lose our appetites.
