THE loose cannon of the Royal Family has fired another embarrassing salvo, this time at a group of noisy black diners in an upmarket New York restaurant.

But Princess Michael of Kent, no stranger to controversy, strenuously denied last night that she had uttered racist remarks during a fracas with fellow customers at Da Silvano, a trendy West Village venue at Sixth Avenue and Houston Street, on Monday.

The breathtaken but influential diners think otherwise, and have told the New York Post that the Princess, 59, gravely insulted them by demanding that they cut the noise level and suggesting they “go back to the colonies”.

Nicole Young, a television fashion correspondent, public relations consultant and one of the five diners at the table next to the Princess, told the Post: “I was stupefied; I have never experienced anything like that in my life.”

Simon Astaire, the Princess’s spokesman at Kensington Palace, said last night that he had spoken to the Princess, who is in the US to attend the graduation of her daughter, Lady Gabriella Windsor. “The report is simply untrue,” Mr Astaire said.

“Princess Michael went with two male friends for dinner after the cinema. She sat down; the table next to her was very loud and abusive, loud comments to the extent that the host (one of the Princess’s companions) complained to the manager. It continued over the evening,” Mr Astaire said. “The host complained and asked them to quieten down, which they did not. Then the host suggested they move tables. Any suggestion that she made a racist comment is simply untrue. She did not make a racist comment.”

According to the Post, Ms Young was dining with Merv Matheson, an investment banker, Philmore Anderson, a music mogul, A. J. Callaway, a reporter, and Tamara Reynolds, an entertainment lawyer. They had been in the fashionable Tuscan restaurant for some two hours when Princess Michael arrived with her friends at 10pm and was seated at the next table.

In Ms Young’s version of events, the Princess had been seated for ten minutes when she slammed her open palm on the black diners’ table so hard that the table shook and glasses moved. She then said: “Enough already! You need to quiet down.”

According to the Post, the black diners were stunned into several minutes of silence. Mr Matheson said it was “like being in a school classroom”.

The diners recovered their composure, ignored the royal decree and turned up the volume of their conversation. The Princess demanded a new table. As she got up she circled the offending commoners, leant towards one of them, pumping her fist, and is reported to have said: “You need to go back to the colonies.”

Confronted by an infuriated Ms Young, the Princess made an instant correction. “I did not say ‘back to the colonies’. I said ‘you should remember the colonies’. Back in the days of the colonies there were rules that were very good. You think about it. Just think about it.”

The dumbstruck diners were left wondering whether the Princess was referring to British imperial domination of Africa and India, or to the days before 1776 when the American colonies lived under the rule of the Crown.

“I honestly couldn’t believe something like this could happen in New York City. It was ridiculous,” Mr Callaway told the Post.

No one was more upset than Silvano Marchetto, the restaurant owner, who confirmed that there had been a rumpus between customers.

“I felt awkward and uncomfortable, upset that someone would make an inappropriate comment to other customers. I tried to mediate the situation, and was happy it didn’t get uglier,” Mr Marchetto said, adding: “She obviously thinks she’s in her country; well, this is our restaurant, not hers.

“Princess Michael came in with Douglas Kramer, who is a regular here, and another man who I didn’t recognise. She was sat next to the five black people who had been there for some time. They were all laughing,” he said.

“Then Nicole Young came up to me and said, ‘That woman told us to be quiet.’ I told her, ‘You do what you like.’ Then Ms Young said the Princess had told them to get back to our colony.

“I didn’t hear it myself, that is just what she said. They asked me to move her to another table, so I showed her to the other room. Nicole Young went over to the table and spoke to her, then I was called over. So I went over to the Princess’s table to make sure that nothing was going to happen. And after that it was all quiet. I don’t know exactly what happened. I read about it in the Post.”

When she joined the Royal Family, the Princess quickly earned herself the sobriquet “Princess Pushy”.

A profile of the Da Silvano restaurant and an interview with its founder will appear in The Times magazine this Saturday.

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