President-elect Donald Trump makes surprise visit to New York restaurant

Donald Trump has broken protocol and ditched the press to make an impromptu visit to a Manhattan restaurant, causing alarm from the public and the White House.

Diners were speechless when the President-elect wandered into to the 21 Club with his family last night and told patrons, “We'll get your taxes down, don't worry about it”.

Under White House protocol, all US presidents and president-elects are required to inform their protective press pool of their movements to ensure the public is kept apprised of where and what their elected leader is doing.

Yesterday Trump’s spokeswoman, Hope Hicks, told the pool the billionaire was going to be calling it a night and that they should head home, BBC reports.

Almost 45 minutes later, the president elect’s motorcade left Trump Tower with an entourage of ambulances and headed to the upscale restaurant.

Bloomberg reporter, Taylor Riggs, was dining there at the time and posted a tweet about the surprise arrival.

Trump’s protective press pool scrambled and raced to the venue where they were denied entry.

Despite Hicks apologising for the mix-up, the White House Correspondents' Association lambasted the event as “unacceptable”.

It said “for the next president of the United States to travel without a regular pool to record his movements and inform the public about his whereabouts" was out of line.

During the presidential race both Trump and Clinton refused to allow a protective press pool to follow them on their campaign trails with the president elect going one step further and banning certain news outlets press credentials.