32 - Margaret at Le Cirque, encounter with a bully!

THE MAYFAIR REGENT, New York City

(and LA COTE ST JACQUES, Joigny, France)

Solange, Mayfair Regent 1988

My friend Michel Lorain inherited an inn in the little town of Joigny which he eventually turned into an internationally acclaimed Michelin three-star restaurant and luxury hotel, La Cote St. Jacques.  I started going there over thirty years ago when it was still a country inn, though already with an award-winning restaurant. 

Boulud today (Google photo)

When Daniel Boulud, the French chef who became a culinary star in New York City, first began garnering media attention, I learned he had been mentored by Lorain.  Early in his career, Boulud became chef of the New York celebrity restaurant Le Cirque, and he transformed it briefly from a kind of neo-Stork Club to New York’s premier eatery.   

The Gault-Millau guide was publishing its first English language edition rating New York restaurants (and awarding its top accolade to Le Cirque), and Lorain was invited to assist Boulud in a week of media-oriented festivities to publicize both the guidebook and the restaurant at the Mayfair Regent Hotel just off Park Avenue.    

Lorain at work 1984

 I happened to be at La Cote St Jacques soon afterwards, and Lorain was chattering away about his first contact with New York City. Whereas he saw the culinary arts as something approaching a religion, he was amazed to see Le Cirque filled with society matrons in elaborate hats, ordering mini-lunches of martinis and salad.  He recounted his adventure as though he had unexpectedly landed on another planet.  He had been particularly taken with appearances by Kitty Carlyle and Bess Myerson.

Lorain urged me to give Daniel’s food a try if I found myself in New York.  I explained that French food in New York was  too expensive and never quite as good as in France, and at any rate Le Cirque had become too “in” for me to even manage a reservation.

“Nonsense,” he retorted.   “I’ll write you a note, and tell Daniel what a serious lover of fine food you are.  He’ll be delighted to meet you.”

Breakfast! (Photo M.Page)

Margaret at the Mayfair Regent

  So some time later I found myself with my childhood friend, Margaret, settled into a special promotional weekend at the Mayfair Regent, then one of New York’s better hotels (It has since bit the dust, but at the time housed the aforementioned Le Cirque restaurant, as well as guests the likes of Sophia Loren and the King of Spain).

The reason this story has remained such a vivid memory almost 25 years later is that it gave me an unexpected example of the very best and the very worst of a New York celebrity restaurant.  

Margaret a few years earlier

Having sent Lorain’s letter along with one of my own to Daniel, I explained we would be staying at the Mayfair and requested a reservation in his restaurant for one of our evenings.  Upon arrival, a note from the young chef awaited,  proposing the day and the hour of our culinary rendez-vous.

Me again in Suite 318, The Mayfair Regent  (photo Margaret Page)

 Margaret and I arrived at Le Cirque in all our appropriate finery.  We were met by the host-maitre d’hotel, who unlike his equivalent in Parisian restaurants, seemed fairly disconnected from either the kitchen or the wait staff.  His job appeared to have more to do with spotting recognizable faces, blowing air kisses about the room, and having great jovial conversations with some of his favorites.  It was immediately clear that Margaret and I were not to be among that happy few.

We were met with an absolute scowl, and told in a decidedly brusque manner to stand away from the door, that nothing was yet available.

After a few awkward minutes the same gentleman showed us to a faraway table, almost in the kitchen, pushed menus at us, and with no preliminary niceties, pulled out his pad to take our order.   He really seemed to find us somehow unworthy.   I have to say I was intimidated, as was Margaret.  We ordered too quickly without quite knowing what we were getting.

That was fortunately the last we ever saw of the host.  I never understood what had so displeased him or exactly who he was. 

A young French waiter soon came over with our first course.  He kept staring, as though something were bothering him.  “Excuse me, but you are not Monsieur Lorain, by any chance?” he queried.  The question didn’t even seem strange, given the overall surreal happenings heretofore.  “No,” I said.  But I do know him well.”

With that, he called over a colleague, who asked if I might possibly then be Monsieur Pleasants.  As we finally straightened out who I was, they began excitedly chattering away in French, leaving my friend Margaret bewildered, though she surely surmised that things were on the up and up.

Our table was soon surrounded by Daniel’s team, who explained they had not been informed of our arrival, but had in fact been waiting with a special meal prepared in our honor.  From that moment on, it was like a flock of nimble birds flying around us, whisking our poorly chosen first course out of sight and replacing it with a procession of mouth-watering delicacies.  We couldn’t have been more spoiled.  Daniel, himself, soon came out to wish us well.

There is no moral to this story, as we never understood what had happened --neither why our visit turned out to be quite so appreciated, nor why we had initially been so rejected.  It was a lesson in two absolute extremes. 

I do think attitudes have changed in the intervening years.  As always was the case in France, the cook has now become the star and often the owner.  I think the staff of really top restaurants in New York today are taught, as they are in Paris, to expend maximum energy making every client feel important and comfortable.  At least I hope so.

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN --The ex-Mayfair Regent is now a luxury apartment building.

 Boulud (who today owns 12 restaurants) bought much of the ground floor of the
1925 structure to house his 3-star Michelin restaurant Daniel's (Google photo).

SIDEBAR:  Ruth Reichl and Sirio Maccione at Le Cirque

 

Undated portrait of Sirio Maccioni (Google photo)

Just as I was putting the finishing touches to the above posting, I made a startling discovery.

I had long suspected and kept locked in a little corner at the back of my mind that our unfriendly greeter at Le Cirque that night might well have been none other than its controversial owner Sirio Maccioni.

While doing some google researching for photos of the old Mayfair Regent Hotel, I came upon one of Maccioni, and it definitely started ringing a few bells.

Then I uncovered several articles of the period. One referred to the Italian owner-host and former waiter's «notorious snobbery.»

An old New York Times piece reminded me of Maccioni's «talent for letting unimportant guests know exactly where on the social ladder they stood.»  Ouch!

Ruth Reichl 2011 (Ad World photo)

 Ruth Reichl, one of New York's star food critics, created a huge buzz at the beginning of her career when she famously reviewed Le Cirque in the early 1990's from two vantage points: 1) as a society/celebrity insider «coddled with foie gras and majestically attentive service» and 2) as the nobody-diner (Margaret and I) «shunted into the smoking section and treated with indifference bordering on contempt.»

Her description of Maccioni's intimidating reception on her first visit left little doubt to the identity of my own «aggressor» when I had been there with Margaret a few years before.  Asked if she had a reservation, «it was said so challengingly, I instantly felt as if I were an unwelcome intruder who had wandered into the wrong restaurant.»

So now I know, the culprit was Maccioni.  He was, in fact, a famous snob and bully, and I somehow breathed a sigh of relief in discovering his identity. 

 It's a little like closure.

Your input is welcomed:  hotel-musings@hotmail.fr

Next Friday:  "Breakfasts in the 1970's ... lunch a few years later"

  [Photos are mine, unless otherwise credited]