While Keith Mcnally says business is booming at Balthazar, insiders at his other famed French eatery, Pastis, are distancing themselves from the controversial restaurateur.

Several sources insist that McNally is not an owner at Pastis in NYC’s Meatpacking District, and is a consultant since the restaurant’s relaunch.

One source familiar with the situation told us, “McNally has never been an owner of Pastis since it reopened in 2019. They had a consulting agreement.”

The source said the same applies for the eatery’s Miami, Fla., location.

“He has a consulting agreement where he is primarily responsible for the design aspect of the restaurant,” they said.

Another source told us McNally “doesn’t sign the checks. Stephen Starr does.”

Starr — who is also behind hot restaurants including Upland and Le Coucou — has wanted no part of McNally’s controversy, after McNally posted an incendiary remark about the Hamas attacks on Israel — then made a brand new set of even more incendiary remarks that somehow made the whole thing worse.

On Monday, after we reported on McNally’s post encouraging his followers to “listen to the other side,” after the Israel attacks, Starr posted: “The horrific acts carried out by Hamas against the Israeli and all Jewish people are indefensible and barbaric. This was a terrorist attack. Starr Restaurants and Pastis do not in any way share the opinions expressed today by Keith McNally.”

McNally apologized and deleted his post, explaining, “I have never once in my life recognized nor supported Hamas. It is a terrorist organization comprising of murderers and thugs.”

He then inexplicably, reposted his first message, and whined about how he’s “lost a big chunk” of business due to online hate messages and “lies… spread about me on social media.”

Starr posted on Pastis’ Instagram page, “there is no grey area. The topic is black and white. The acts against Israelis and the Jewish people are beyond my definition of pure evil. My heart and the hearts of all decent people are breaking as we hear more of this savagery. There are no words to describe this non-human behavior and I denounce any rhetoric that describes these acts as anything but terrorism.”

He added: “I stand, and we should all stand, united in solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people.”

This time he signed off, “Stephen Starr, Owner of Pastis,” and there was no mention of McNally.

Another source previously told us, “to my understanding Keith no longer has involvement in Pastis.”

But McNally fired back, “I’m still very involved,” and claimed he is “designing and building” further locations in Washington D.C., Nashville and Philadelphia.

Despite initially saying he lost business at Balthazar, McNally on Friday posted a dinner report taken by one of his staffers that read: “A very solid night. 550 covers… We had a Huge late rush! The bar was simply packed all night long and there was a bit of a wait throughout the night for seats at the bar for dinner. We offered some tables to guests who didn’t wish to wait for the stools.”

On Sunday morning, McNally posted another report from Balthazar that read it had been “a very busy and rainy Saturday brunch!”

Spies told Page Six that over at his Minetta Tavern at the end of the week, there were “11 empty seats at the bar and half the dining tables [were] empty,” at lunch on Friday. 

McNally did not get back to us.

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