Woman Accuses Central Park Restaurant Of Serving Her Fish With A Hook In It

Woman Accuses Central Park Restaurant Of Serving Her Fish With A Hook In It

A New York woman is either scamming a Manhattan restaurant or nearly died after chomping into a piece of fish that had a 2-inch hook in it.

The New York Daily News reports:

A Manhattan woman claims the “whole cooked” branzino fish she ordered at Villagio on Central Park South last August came garnished with a fishing hook — and she cut her mouth when she bit down on it.

But a Miami-based partner in Villagio accused her of planting the hook on the fish in order to shake the restaurant down for thousands of dollars.

“First, the hook was 3 inches long. How does that go in your mouth and you don’t notice it?” said Alexander Kalas.

Also, the branzino was from a fish farm and not “some isolated renegade from the ocean.”

“It was farmed and farmed fish are always caught in nets,” he said.

In court papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, Aliona Russo said neither she nor her husband, Vincent, noticed the fishhook until she took a bite and “felt something unusual.”

“Removing the remnants of the piece of fish from her mouth, she was shocked” to discover the hook, the papers state.

“As other guests at the table looked on in awe, they documented the fact that the fish had been prepared and served with a large hook inside of it.”

The couple took a picture of the fish — whole grilled with lemon, olive oil and capers for $42 — and the hook and included both in the court filing.

Aliona Russo was “injured, both physically and psychologically,” the papers state.

So now the couple is seeking unspecified damages from the restaurant.

“This is not a little fishhook,” her lawyer, Jay Dankner, insisted. “It’s at least two inches long — longer with the string.”

Dankner said his fish-loving client now has nightmares about biting into another hook.

“She said she likes to suck the meat off the bones in the neck and then (de)bone the rest,” he said. “She never got that far.”

Kalas — whose swanky restaurant took over the space formerly occupied by Mickey Mantle’s Restaurant & Sports Bar — said Vincent Russo told staff right after the alleged incident that he would be willing to settle the case for $50,000.

“That’s extortion,” he said. “We’re filing a countersuit. We don’t think the fishhook was there.”

Hmmmmm…what do YOU think???? Did she really find a fish hook or is she just trying to get a come up????