High life
Café royal
Taki
I New York often wrote about Mortimer's, the brick-lined, dark-panelled restaurant that looks like the inside of a fireplace and is known as the in place of the trendies, during the days when I reported on the high life from the front lines — i.e. when I used to go out every single night and write about it. Now that I've become a sort of homebody, I only go to Mortimer's for lunch (well, dinner only twice a week) and as everyone knows, the only good thing that ever happens during lunch is if it is in preparation for a cinq ii sept assignation. Mortimer's is ten years old this year, as, incidentally, is my little daughter. Lolly was just born when a friend of mine took me to the opening of Mortimer's. The place was a mess, I thought, and I was ready to wager my little girl's dowry that it wouldn't last out the year. Thank God I had no takers.
Not only did the place survive, it has become an institution of sorts. Every big- gie and soi disant big cheese in the Big Apple is a regular there, which is probably the only thing I don't like about the place. Things I do like are the proprietor, the people who serve on the tables, the prep- pies who frequent it, the drinks, the location (four blocks from chez Taki) and the food. In that order. What I don't like, as I just mentioned, are some of the social climbers and stuffed mummies that Women's Wear takes seriously but who one day will be assigned by history to the rubbish bin that's marked Trivial with a capital T. You know the kind, the type who do social work among the rich, and consider Jerry Zipkin to be a wit on a par with Oscar Wilde.
But I guess it takes all kinds to make a place work, and Mortimer's works. What a cast it assembles each and every day. There is Jackie K. 0., always in dark glasses in case someone fails to recognise her; Zip- kin, always looking angry because the boys from the Brook Club who go there tend to consider him the moth that he is; and Kenneth J. Lane, the designer of false jewels, which are really very beautiful, but not as beautiful as the false British accent and aristocratic aplomb Kenny has per- fected over the years. There is also Louis Basualdo, looking for any heiress whose father might not have heard of him, the de rigueur British contingent of swells looking for someone to freeload off. The last Englishman to pick up a tab, was Claus Von Bulow. And ladies like Jane Wright- man, who looks down her nose at people, Speaks without opening her mouth, and is only seen in the company of the very rich and famous, but who despite all this has as yet been unable to obscure her rather humble origins.
Needless to say, there are nice people who go there too, but I shall not mention them because nice people don't like to be mentioned. Someone I will mention is the man who tried to take over Mortimer's in a manner that would be unacceptable even in Beirut. That was Stefanos, a country- man of mine (although no relation). Glenn Bernbaum, the owner of Mortimer's, and a hell of a nice man as well as a gent, picked the Greek up somewhere in the Aegean and brought him back to New York. Once ensconced in the city, Stefanos revealed the fact that he had a wife and children, and Glenn — ever the gentleman — paid for their trip over. That is when Stefanos got greedy. Glenn had left the place to him, and Stefanos, like many Greeks, insisted on instant gratification. He hired two hoods to bump Glenn off. But like many Greeks he got it wrong. The two hoods turned out to be FBI men, and instead of inheriting the numero uno Watering hole in New York, Stefanos Inherited a place in the hole, c'est tout. Glenn did not press charges, however, and the greasy Greek was simply deported as an undesirable.
The reason I bring up this old story is because I have decided to do my outmost to be adopted by Glenn in order that some day I can play Rick, and not in a hole like Casablanca either. When I first proposed it to Bernbaum he thought I was joking, but after I began to call him Baba — a Greek way of saying Daddy — the idea sounded less and less ludicrous. I now sign my cheques `Stefanos', and I've even stopped insulting the Women's Wear crowd in order to make myself popular. The first thing I Will do if I ever inherit the place is give a dinner for the staff and make some of the ladies I mentioned serve them. But Zipkin Will have to stay in the kitchen.
Previous page
