High life
Opening night
New York The piece de resistance among social events during a very social and busy week was the °Pening of Claret's, the first evening wine bar of New York. Everyone who is anyone in this town full of snobs was there, including a large British c°ntingent. The prettiest girl in a room full °f beauties was Rachel Ward, unfortunately Laccompanied by her father and on good 11aviour. There was also a very sun-tanned dike Morley having flown up from Miami each and still wearing a Yamulka. good for business down there,' he told the ecrowd. Robert Millborne and Michael Dox,'°rd, both English and very drunk, for'unately, passed out quite early during the evening, thus providing an about-to-be-rich English scribbler with an excuse to join hem. Most Americans were aghast. 'I otight the English were gentlemen,' inssed a recent recruit to the silicone set, and her social-climbing friends agreed. Despite the behaviour of a few, the party Was a great success. The three English Partners, Richard Beamish, Anthony Sargent and Nick Seminick, were ample proof that private initiative and British entrepreneurial talents are doing fine. As long as they are out of Britain. Seminick convinced an Arab to put up the money, £150,000, in return for some beads he collected on a Jamaican beach.
Claret's would have opened last autumn and cashed in on the winter season, but for the unfortunate selection of Anthony Haden-Guest to write the promotional literature. Haden-Guest proposed to name the place Chez Guevara, to attract the attention of the radical chic. He also wanted to rename the Pâté de foie gras, Pâté Hearst.
Needless to say, cooler and less punminded heads prevailed and the place is aptly called Claret's. On opening night, America's foremost writer, Tom Wolfe, decided to accept the invitation in order to help out the Brits. The photographers outside went wild but once inside Wolfe was kept waiting for two hours.
When finally given a table, it was next to the kitchen. Every time an Italian waiter opened the door, he would slam it against our table and our food would fly off. Wolfe, a gentleman if there ever was one, said nothing.
The interior is on three levels and done up like Swabb's Drugstore, Hollywoodstyle. One almost expected Lana Turner to come through any moment and be discovered. But the only discovery of the night turned out to be two Italians, who posed as Irish peers, ate an enormous amount, drank even more, made terrible noises with their mouths while digesting and then left without thanking anyone. At 2 a.m they returned, smiled through the windows and inexplicably waited outside. When some of the late revellers began leaving, the two Italian gentlemen, who turned out to be Puerto Rican, mugged them systematically.
As the party was by invitation and on the house, they didn't get much. The owners had collected nothing and the guests were mostly English and broke. The Puerto Ricans got very annoyed. They grabbed Seminick and tried to undress him. He resisted valiantly, finally producing a sharp comb and putting them to flight. Then the police arrived and beat him up because he looked suspicious. Beamish, who is a Wykehamist as well as an ex-guest of Her Majesty for a very brief period, was understandably outraged. He forced the cops to carry Haden-Guest out from the table under which he was lying.
Claret's is the umpteenth restaurant to open on the chic East Side, but because of its wine cellar it is guaranteed to be an enormous success. This will make two restaurants that have become de rigueur stop-overs for all English people: Sunday lunch at Mortimer's now resembles San Lorenzo. Already Beamish has made a terrible mistake and extended credit to friends from the old country.
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