The insider told Page Six: “[She] asked the people at Locanda Verde to have the entire inner outdoor courtyard – which seats 50 – for herself and four people, including Prince Harry.
“The owners told her it had been reserved for a birthday party for 15 people and refused to bounce the party out of the space … they told her she’d need to sit inside, which she did.”
The source added that while there was “lots and lots of security all throughout the restaurant”, the Sussexes were not in a private room.
The insider said: “[They were] seated in the middle of the busy restaurant.”
Other diners reportedly received warnings from Harry and Meghan’s security staff not to try to take pictures of the couple or they would be “asked to leave.”
The Sussexes, who are currently residing in California after resigning from their royal duties in 2020, had a busy day before the evening out.
At the UN General Assembly, Harry spoke to commemorate Nelson Mandela International Day.
In his speech at the UN, The Duke criticized a “global assault on democracy and freedom.”
He warned of climate change, the coronavirus pandemic, “weaponizing lies and disinformation”, the war in Ukraine, and abortion laws in the US.
Harry said: “This has been a painful year in a painful decade.
“We’re living through a pandemic that continues to ravage communities in every corner of the globe; climate change wreaking havoc on our planet, with the most vulnerable suffering most of all; the few, weaponizing lies and disinformation at the expense of the many; and from the horrific war in Ukraine to the rolling back of constitutional rights here in the United States.
“We are witnessing a global assault on democracy and freedom – the cause of Mandela’s life.”
He also discussed the March 1997 meeting between the former South African president and his late mother Princess Diana.
And Harry said he has “always found hope” in Africa, a continent where he “found peace and healing”.
He added: “It’s where I’ve felt closest to my mother and sought solace after she died, and where I knew I had found a soulmate in my wife.”
As they reached the UN building, Harry and Meghan walked hand in hand.
They ignored a question from a US reporter on the recent, explosive book Revenge: Meghan, Harry, And The War Between The Windsors by biographer Tom Bower.
Additionally, Meghan was seen leaving the Crosby Hotel in Soho with political activist Gloria Steinem.