Red-faced Romanian restaurateur Nello Balan blamed his accountants yesterday for the short-lived padlocking of his eponymous Upper East Side eatery by the state for failure to pay $1.8 million in taxes.
“There was some misunderstanding and miscalculations. I have fired my accountants,” he said while sipping wine and munching scalloped truffles over angel-hair pasta at Nello at Madison Avenue and East 63rd Street. “We rely on other people to take care of stuff, and sometimes you really can’t do that. I am happy to be open in this economy and to have 35 families working for me.”
Officials with the state Department of Taxation and Finance would not reveal how big a check Balan handed over Tuesday after they changed the locks and slapped a bright-orange “SEIZED” sign on his front door, but said it was enough to satisfy them.