A wealthy philanthropist and former wife of an energy tycoon, has been accused of telling an African-American chef she hired that she wanted him to only prepare “black people food”.

A federal lawsuit accusing Madeleine Pickens of racial discrimination alleges that she told chef Armand Appling that she wanted him to prepare fried chicken, BBQ ribs and corn bread, at the dude ranch she runs for tourists in Nevada. She allegedly told Mr Appling, whom she recruited from her country club in southern California, she did not want “white people food”.

The Associated Press said Mr Appling claims he was fired 2014 in retaliation for complaining about a hostile work environment. He said Ms Pickens’ stereotypical references were commonplace at the Elko County ranch, stretching across 900 square miles on the edge of the Ruby Mountains. Tourists pay around nearly $2,000 a night to stay in plush cottages there.

Tourists pay around nearly $2,000 a night to stay in plush cottages at the Mustang Monument Eco-Resort

He also claimed that Ms Pickens, who is white and the former wife of Oklahoma energy tycoon T Boone Pickens, told him to fire two other black kitchen employees - one whom she referred to as her “bull” or “ox” and another who had “too much personality”.

He said she told him they didn’t “look like people we have working at the country club” and did not “fit the image” of the staff she wanted at the ranch.

Ms Pickens’ lawyers have said they even if the allegations were true, none of her comments were racially motivated. The lawyers said that at the very worst, Ms Pickens’ remarks reflected “a non-racial personality conflict and amount to discourtesy, rudeness or lack of sensitivity”.

The AP said that US District Judge Miranda Du said during a hearing in Reno last week that Mr Appling’s lawyers had so far failed to prove the sort of racial hostility needed to win such a civil rights claim.

She dismissed the original lawsuit that was filed in February but gave the lawyers until January 13 to file an amended complaint seeking unspecified damages from Ms Pickens’ nonprofit, Save America’s Mustangs.