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New York eateries
THE streets of New York may not be paved with gold American Express cards, but they do provide a sterling shop-front on the consumer society, in the literal sense. Restaurants (outnumbered only by manicure parlours) exist in such prolifera- tion that you begin to wonder whether anyone ever eats at home. Later you realise that few seem to and; when they do, they 'get something in'. And bear in mind that these restaurants are not merely eating-places but alas the area for frenzied and fervent social activity. You are where you eat, is the creed of most New Yorkers; though whether the frequenting of these often only fleetingly fashionable places signifies entrance to the desired society or the society itself is open to speculation.
The doyenne of fashionable eateries is Elaine, a large and somewhat forbidding figure on the 'scene'. A good table at her restaurant, Elaine's, on Second Avenue near 88th Street, is a prize longed for by many, granted to few. Her equally fashion- able detractors may rail against the bad food and unworthiness of her status, but status she has and, anyway, those of us used to English Italian food may be slower to sneer. At least the linguine with clam sauce, if clammy in the wrong sense, is tomatoless and the veal scaloppine is as it should be, if not how it could be. But what you come here for is to see the famous. What the Deux Magots was to Sartre, Elaine's is to Woody Allen, and the air is sanctified by time-honoured association with genius, made good. Your small share in history doesn't come cheap: a meal in this much-muralled, dimly lit, bustling little restaurant can cost around $90 for two. This includes tip (which you can reckon by doubling the tax already added to the bottom of your bill) and is about what you will have to get used to paying on your circuit of the S&S (See and be Seen) scene.
Next stop is Elio's, a little further down Second Avenue (by 84th Street), itself a breakaway from Elaine's. The mood here is ostensibly more expensive. A glossy and magisterial bar occupies most of the left hand side, white-napped tables set against a white and wood-panelled wall the other. Still, unless you are singularly persuasive or claim acquaintance with Anne or Elio you may not find yourself particularly well-seated. I preferred the would-be Bohemian mustiness of Elaine's to the Manhattan chic of Elio's, but the food is undoubtedly better here: a subtly toned and generous seafood salad and fabulous grilled fish.
Indochine is arguably (and in this city there is much argument on the subject) the `hottest' restaurant at the moment. This applies as much to the cuisine as to its standing, and you must bear in mind an earlier warning of mine about Thai food when faced with this fine Indochinese menu. Good food and fashionableness seldom partner one another, but you do eat well here. Against an elegantly exotic backdrop — succulent foliage, buttermilk walls and skinny (for this is New York) pillars — unwind over a bowl of coriander- scented soup of beef, bean sprouts and noodles, brochette of fatly curlicuing prawns and roast chicken in a crisp, faintly sweet batter, spruced and sharpened with lemongrass. The setting for all this is the Village (Indochine is on Lafayette Street between Astor Place and E 4th) so you might expect a more arty clientele. None of it: if anything, Indochine boasts a higher percentage of Florida tans and cashmere slipovers than anywhere on the Upper Eastside.
Odeon, down in TriBeCa (a term coined some 13 years ago to designate the area from Canal street south of Chambers and from Broadway to the Hudson river) is less richly glitzy, though not much less trendy. The coolly retro, artsy atmosphere is fed by a constant, and delightful, battery of old songs, not-too-serious Eighties-Thirties de- cor and a team of waitresses and waiters who are just longing to put a show on right here in the barn. The food is cheaper than any of the above restaurants (about $30 a head) and if anything better: poached eggs with hollandaise in brioche, paillard of chicken with pepper butter and waffle potatoes, devastating salads and much- famed steak and chips. It's also not too far from the World Trade Center. Avoid the high-rise, high-priced restaurant there and eat here first before ascending for your panoramic view of New York and en- virons.
In an earlier age, these sorts of res- taurants, where, it is hoped writers and artists would meet and talk (even if only to discuss movie rights and lawyers' fees), might have circumscribed what was fashionable and kept it for themselves. Now money speaks louder than words, and Mortimer's, on Lexington Avenue by 75th, is a perfect show for Manhattan's bon chic, bon genre. You don't have to be an investment banker to eat here but, as the saying goes, it helps. Otherwise it's the rich and famous, famous and rich, in any permutation. You can't book, so there's the dubious frisson of waiting to see if you'll be deemed worthy of a table. But if you can face the wait and the wade through wall-to-wall Ralph Lauren, you'll eat well (the American equivalent of nursery food) croquettes, chocolate bread-pudding; $30ish a head.
If Mortimer's won't have you, trip down the road to Jim Mc Mullen's which must do a good trade on Mortimer's fall-out. This is a restaurant for the hungry but undiscrimi- nating. The style is gargantuan portions of indifferent food in a setting — brick walls, art deco plaques — that would be pleasing if it weren't so noisy. That the noise is made by city slickers and boisterous mod- els doesn't help. Still, it's food — and very American.
And if it is food you're after, New York does have ravishing proper good res- taurants: Lutece and Chanterelle vie for first place; in the two weeks I was there I couldn't get a table, but if you're prepared to spend around $90 a head, you can test them out yourself. The flashily new Au- rora, in E49th Street, from the stable of the Four Seasons (where such luminaries as Henry Kissinger and Jackie 0. feed) is straining to belong to the big league. Price-wise it's right up there, though it could never be taken seriously. Lit by a cluster of pastelly multi-coloured lights which look like illuminated toadstools sus- pended upside down from the ceiling, the banquettes are placed at a discreet distance from one another. You sit, then, or are rather enclosed in one of these dangerously yielding banquettes and are seen to by any number of low-voices well-oiled waiters. When you get to the food, you find that it's actually not bad at all — asparagus with cigar-shaped fritters of pungently fresh herbs, veal medallions topped with a julienne of vegetables and parma ham but by that time the numbing, bland super-comfort of your surroundings will almost have prevented you from noticing. The cracked champagne glass, however, made its mark.
Ethnic food is, of course, one of New York's sources of pride. I think Mexican `Let me through, I'm a doctor. But I must warn you I've been struck off.' food greatly overrated. Lovely in Mexico I'm sure, but why bother in Manhattan? Chinatown has many splendours, none of which I can report on, but Japanese cuisine remains the star turn. Hatsuhana is meant to be the best, but I was obscenely put off by their speciality of 'live crayfish sushi'. Less decadent is Nishi, in Amsterdam Avenue, where you sit in high-tech black and lacquer red surrounds, lit up by pink-tinted spotlights imitating candlelight. The special sushi preceded by steamed dumpling will cost around $20.
Although most of the hot spots serve something amounting to Italian food, the best place to eat real Italian, according to the greatest number of New Yorkers, is Patsy's, an old-fashioned, lushly-furnished little place on W56th between Broadway and 8th. Downstairs is Atlantis — sea greens and blues a shimmer with the glass hangings, engraved, I was informed, 'in the Lalique mode'; upstairs is coloured a sumptuous reddish salmon, with mirrored panelling and pastoral mural. Food is real enough — springy mozzarella in carozza, spaghetti with a garlicky bone-white clam sauce, parsley-speckled, brains in a num- ber of ways — not quite as in Rome, but rousing all the same. ($40ish a head).
If I had to say which three restaurants you really should try to go to in New York, they'd have to be the Russian Tea Room, the River Café and the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Station. The Russian Tea Room (W57th) is a real reminder of Old New York: red plush, café-society chatter and determined grandeur. The beef stroga- noff is the real thing and should not be missed. Your neighbours' conversation should not disappoint either.
Everyone will tell you that you have to walk across Brooklyn Bridge. If you do, be sure first to book a window table at the River Café, where you can sit and gaze over the water at the Manhattan skyline. The food is good — nouvelle cuisine (just) by way of the American respect for tradi- tion — and appetite: salmon and blinis, scallops with onion rings and lemon confit, red snapper with shredded leeks. The whole thing is, as they say in America, an experience.
At Grand Central Station I sat down and ate. Tables and tables are spread out in front of you beneath a light-traced groin- vaulted ceiling. Lose yourself here in a stew of Ipswich clams, the fragrant, fleshy pieces submerged in a thick, winy, gorgeously, fatally creamy soup, and a bottle of Californian chardonnay. But re- member, this is an expensive city, and at none of these three restaurants can you seriously hope to spend under $35 a head. Of course there are cheap places, and New York's diners and delis (far, far too many to list, but start with Katz's, Carnegie or The Bagel) offer a whole world of pleasure of their own. So go. Eat. And enjoy.
Nigella Lawson
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