Don't Try This at Home

by Andrew Friedman

  "Ah, Joe, he's not coming," I said, shaking my head.

  "Not to worry, my boy," Joe said. "He'll be here."

  As reassuring as Joe could often be, I wasn't convinced. Neither, it seemed, were our guests, who began to cast sideways glances at the door, searching for the great tenor. They were also nursing their drinks and taking smaller nibbles out of the hors d'oeuvres, stalling for time, in order to avoid being seated.

  That magical aura was beginning to fade and the air was fast going out of the evening. Soon, I heard the feared question surface throughout the room, "Where is the maestro? Where is Pavarotti?"

  At about a quarter past twelve, an air of resignation had settled over the Bar Room. Masking their dejection as best as they could, the party took their seats and ordered dinner.

  In the kitchen, my skeleton crew and I were going about our work, preparing oysters, smoked salmon, salads, and other first courses. But we did it silently, with very little enthusiasm.

  We were supposed to be cooking for Pavarotti. Now we were just cooking for a bunch of people who only had a table because they said Pavarotti would be there.

  In those days, you entered the kitchen at '21' though two swinging doors with huge glass panes set in their centers. You could stand at the salad station and look right though those doors to the restaurant's front door. As I helped prepare food for Pavarotti's crowd, I kept glancing up to see if he had finally arrived.

  He didn't, and the first courses were served to the Pavarotti-less gathering.

  Human beings are resilient organisms, so it's no wonder that the party, with time to adjust to the situation and replenished by the first bites of their first courses, had regained its rhythm and was again emitting the happy sounds of an opening-night feast.

  I made a few perfunctory rounds, checking in on the party and making sure everything was to their liking. I smiled. I shook hands. I laughed at jokes. But I had my own little internal production of Pagliacci running in my head, because Pavarotti was still nowhere in sight.

  At about twelve twenty-five, I was back in the kitchen. More out of habit than hope, I stole a peek through the looking-glass doors.

  But this time, I saw a large, bearded man, dressed in a theatrical manner, floating in as though on a parade float.

  I squinted. Could it be?

  Another look confirmed that it was unmistakably Luciano Pavarotti, still in his costume from Un Ballo in Maschera. Done up as Riccardo, the governor of the opera's town, he was wearing a blue brocade jacket with a billowy white shirt, and a scarf tied extravagantly around his neck. Below the waist, huge, puffy pantaloons stopped at the knee, where they met bright white stockings that flowed into shoes with big brass buckles. The image was topped off by a black wig with a knot in the back.

  Larger than life, indeed.

  Word trickled ahead of Pavarotti and broke across the Bar Room. "The maestro has arrived. The maestro has arrived." Waiters, managers, and diners were craning their heads to get a look at the operatic superstar.

  Finally, he made it to the party: Pavarotti stood in the entrance to the Bar Room. His dinner companions and the rest of the diners—many of whom had also been to the opera—rose to their feet. "Bravo, maestro. Bravo!" they shouted.

  Pavarotti took a huge, sweeping bow and with a broad smile joined the party, seated at the head of the table.

  He was remarkably attentive to his companions, accepting their compliments with graciousness and what appeared to be genuine enthusiasm and warmth, feeding off their excitement. But excitement isn't enough to sustain you, especially when you've just come off the stage at the Metropolitan. Gradually his eyes went from the patrons to their plates, until he was focused on nothing but their food.

  Watching this from the kitchen, I knew that he must be ravenous. Even in my limited acting career, I learned how the physical and emotional exertion required for a performance could leave you starving. Just imagine how hungry the great Pavarotti must be.

  As this thought crystallized in my head, Pavarotti's hunger peaked. He picked up his fork and began spearing the food on other people's plates.

  Before too long, it became clear to the others at the table that the way to get Pavarotti's attention was to share your food with him.

  "Maestro, try my soup!"

  "Signor Pavarotti, try my salad!"

  Within minutes, it looked as though some force of nature had upended the table and all of the plates had slid down to Pavarotti's end. He had before him a sampling of just about every dish on the menu.

  Quickly, Joe took me by the elbow, escorted me to the table, and introduced me to Pavarotti. "Maestro, this is our chef. Michael Lomonaco."

  "Ah, Lomonaco," said Pavarotti, taking my hand. His voice was full of enthusiasm. A paesano in the kitchen.

  I tried to welcome him in my meager Italian, but he was quite comfortable in English and spared me the trouble.

  "I don't want too much," he said. "Just a little bit. Maybe a little smoked salmon." He pinched an inch of space between his thumb and forefinger to demonstrate his modest appetite.

  "Very good, maestro."

  I began to turn away, but he stopped me by putting up his hand. He glanced disapprovingly at the portion of smoked salmon before the woman next to him. "But more than that, please."

  I turned again, to go fetch Signor Pavarotti his double portion of salmon, but he grabbed my arm, stopping me.

  "And maybe some pasta."

  "Pasta, of course," I said, trying to mask my excitement.

  Cooking pasta for Pavarotti. My family was going to be so proud.

  "What kind?"

  "You decide."

  My mind's eye flashed back to those mushrooms. "We have some beautiful wild mushrooms. And some black truffles."

  "Bravo. Perfecto. But just a little. I'm really not that hungry."

  So, at one thirty in the morning, I went into the kitchen and made Pavarotti's dinner, slicing the finest of our mushrooms—chanterelles and porcini—sauteing them in butter, finishing them with some chicken stock, butter, and cream, and tossing them with freshly cooked fettuccine. I plated the pasta, finished it with a scattering of minced chives, and shaved a generous amount of black truffle over it.

  When it was finally served to him, it went fast.

  A few minutes later, I stuck my head out of the kitchen.

  Pavarotti was again being subjected to a barrage of food, this time desserts.

  "Maestro, try my fruit soup!"

  "Maestro, try my poached pear."

  Those who weren't offering him food were posing for pictures with him. If Pavarotti wasn't chewing, he was saying "Cheese,"

  and all this after a three-hour performance.

  I recognized this as my chance. Not only would I grant him a break, but I would amaze Pavarotti with a dessert created just for him. I approached the table and asked him what he'd like.

  He shook his head: "Not much. I'm not so hungry. Maybe just some sorbetto. Do you have sorbettoV "Yes, of course, we have coconut, raspberry, and"—I delayed the last one for effect, knowing it would appeal to his Italian soul—"and grapefruit-Campari."

  "Ah, bene" he said. "Tutto" Which means all.

  Then he smiled, and added, "But not too much."

  I returned to the kitchen and fixed Pavarotti a beautiful bowl of sorbet, double portions of all three, along with some berries and a sprig of mint. I presented it myself. It wasn't cooking on the edge, but it was a thrill, to be sure.

  At about two thirty in the morning, the last morsel of food had been eaten, the last drop of wine drained from the last glass, the last photograph had been taken, and it dawned on the party that the evening had reached its end.

  Pavarotti, his host, and the other twenty or so guests stood up en masse and walked through the rooms of ' 2 1 . '

  In their costumes—Pavarotti's extravagant getup and the others' black ties and evening dresses—they looked like the cast of an opera themselves, making a grand exit, never to re
turn, a theatrical mirage that appeared in our dining room all too briefly, then vanished.

  My crew took off for the night. The porters and cleanup guys were finally able to begin their jobs, which wouldn't be over until sunup. God bless 'em.

  I had a long way to go to get home, because in those days my wife, Diane, and I still lived in Brooklyn. But I lingered for a few more minutes, strolling around the kitchen, letting the echoes of the evening die down in my head.

  I paused at the door, taking in the room. And then I turned out the lights, closing down my theater for the evening, and went home to get some rest before tomorrow's performance in this most unique of all restaurants, this living dream on West Fifty-second Street.

  A User's Guide to

  Opening a Hamptons Restaurant

  PINO LUONGO

  A native of Tuscany, Pino Luongo is the unstoppable force behind some of New York City's most influential Italian restaurants, including the groundbreaking II Cantinori, which he opened in 1983. Other Luongo classics include Coco Pazzo and Centolire. The author of four cookbooks, Luongo was also the subject of a memorable chapter in Anthony Bourdain s Kitchen Confidential. Some of Luongo9 s restaurants, like Sapor e di Mare, Mad 61, and Le Madri, have faded into history, but still conjure fond memories for those who dined there.

  I GREW UP IN Tuscany, and some of my happiest recollections are of summers at the beach in Porto Ecole and Porto Santo Stefano, where the sun shone brightly all day and my friends and I spent months splashing in the surf, cruising around in our convertibles, and eating by the shore. Music from those long-ago days still echoes in my mind, like Mungo Jerry's "In the Summertime" or those opening piano blasts of the Beatles' "The Long and Winding Road," taking me right back to 1971.

  I came to New York City in 1980, and three years later, I opened my first restaurant, II Cantinori, a menuless trattoria on East Tenth Street where we served different dishes every night based on the market and my mood. It was a sensation and, though I haven't been a part of it for a long time, still does a solid business.

  As much as I loved living in New York City (and still do), I had come to miss the ocean. Manhattan is surrounded by water, of course, but we're talking rivers—sluggish, filthy rivers that separate it from New Jersey and the outer boroughs. So in the fall of 1986,1 decided to spend some time by the beach, in the fabled Hamptons.

  If you don't know, the Hamptons are a weekend playground for the rich and famous, about two hours east of the city, or four hours on a summer Friday when the Long Island Expressway is jammed beyond belief.

  The Hamptons are where everyone from Puff Daddy to Steven Spielberg go to relax, be seen, and luxuriate in their palatial homes. They have been fashionable forever; The Great Gatsby takes place in the Hamptons, even though F. Scott Fitzgerald made up different names for them.

  I never cared one way or another about the scene out there. What I loved was being near the ocean. It just makes me feel good—so good that I didn't even care if it was summer or not; the first time I rented in the Hamptons was in the off season, from Labor Day through Memorial Day, instead of the other way around.

  I was newly married and my wife, Jessie, and I took a house that wasn't winterized. It was chilly and drafty and the toilet water froze, but it was near the Napeague Bay, not far from Montauk, so I was happy to be there.

  I remember driving around the Hamptons in those dark, winter days and thinking to myself how few restaurants there were in the towns along 27, the Montauk Highway, which connects the dots on the Hamptons map, from Southampton to Bridgehampton to East Hampton and on out to Montauk.

  There's so little action, I thought, in the summer this place must be magic.

  Inspired by the proximity to water and by a fierce longing for summer, I began to envision a restaurant that would capture all the charm of Porto Ecole and Porto Santo Stefano, a restaurant that could re-create those long-ago days—that sense of summer, salt, sand, tanned skin, and the simple food that brought each day to a perfect close.

  I started tapping the steering wheel, singing "In the summertime, when the sun goes down . . ."

  Later that winter, I was driving along 27, about to round the bend into East Hampton, when I passed what looked like a haunted house. Formerly the home of Charlotte's The Hidden Pond restaurant, and before that the home of a state senator, the property was available and the owners had gone into bankruptcy, explained a sign.

  The place was an eyesore: a Tudor-style English house with a dark wooden frame and a sad, gray tint to the stucco. It was in merciless disrepair, with huge nicks in the walls and cracks in the wood.

  But I saw potential in it, and I loved that it was situated at the end of one of the splits of Georgica Pond, which flows alongside 27 where Bridgehampton and East Hampton meet. Plus, I fancy myself the Bob Vila of the restaurant industry, able to turn "This Old Restaurant" into something shiny and new.

  So it was that in February 1987,1 assumed ownership of the space and went to work transforming it into a spot-on replica of a Mediterranean villa, with tile floors, terra-cotta accents, and lots of wide open spaces through which the summer breeze could blow, carrying that precious scent of the sea right through the dining room.

  I named my new pet project Sapore di Mare, meaning "taste of the sea," and we opened on May 23, 1987. The restaurant exceeded my wildest hopes: it was an instant success. Friends and customers from the city, many of whom had weekend homes in the Hamptons, showed up in our first days and weeks, and their reaction was a unanimous "wow."

  But I'll tell you something: I was banging out the wrong song on my steering wheel the fateful day that I spotted this space. I should've picked "The Long and Winding Road," because that's what it was like operating a restaurant out there. Really long, and really fucking winding.

  We had a good run at Sapore di Mare, but we also had our challenges. And many of them were challenges unique to this kind of moneyed, resort community. So, for anyone out there interested in opening a restaurant in the Hamptons, here's my hard-earned advice:

  1. Don't Hire Your Own Family

  A constant struggle in the early days of Sapore di Mare was that the Hamptons' supply of seasoned hospitality professionals was very poor.

  I was blessed with a great chef, an American named Mark Strausman who cooks with the soul of an Italian and later became my chef at Coco Pazzo; and a maitre d' named Ariel Lacayo, a sharply dressed, smooth-tongued Latin American who works with me today at Centolire, where people still remember him from those days at the beach.

  But we had big problems finding support in the kitchen or the dining room. It quickly became apparent to me that no matter how many ads we ran in the paper, and no matter how many phone calls I made, we were going to have trouble filling all the positions. As for the few employees that we did manage to find—locals who had worked in diners and greasy-spoon joints—they could barely handle the pressure. Most of them stopped showing up for work after a few days, never to be heard from again.

  I was able to both cook and work the dining room, but you can only do so much at once. So, when we opened, I told Ariel to keep the crowd to a manageable size, even turning away business if necessary. And to make sure that he didn't cave into the pressure of clamoring customers, I asked Jessie, then five months pregnant, to work the door with him.

  This was a sound enough plan, but the Hamptons in the summer are populated with everyone who ever set foot in II Cantinori, or so it seemed. So, as the hour approached eight o'clock each evening, the phone began to ring off the hook. Jessie would dutifully tell all comers that we were fully booked. In most towns, that would have been the end of the discussion.

  But not in the Hamptons.

  In fact, there was no discussion. A typical exchange went like this:

  Ring. Ring.

  JESSIE: Hello?

  CUSTOMER: This is Ms. So-and-So. Do you have a table available at nine p.m.?

  JESSIE: No, I'm sorry, we're fully booked.

  C
USTOMER: Just tell Pino we're coming over.

  JESSIE: But . . .

  Click. Dial tone. Sound of Jessie slamming down the phone.

  "Tell Pino we're coming over" was the most-uttered phrase in the Hamptons that summer, along with "I'm a friend of Pino's," favored by guests who didn't even bother to call, and instead just showed up, their version of "Open Sesame."

  About once a night, poor Jessie would come swinging through the door to the kitchen, which opened right onto the pasta station, where I usually cooked. She would tell me of the latest inhuman treatment she had received, and then sulk back to the dining room.

  It breaks a man's heart to see his wife look so sad, especially when she's trying to help him out. But what could I do? I needed somebody I could trust minding the store.

  And so it went in those early days, the rousing success marred only by my wife's misery.

  One night, I was going about my business at the pasta station when I had that sixth-sense intuition, unique to chefs and restaurateurs, that I had better go check on the dining room. I did: everything was fine. But my radar wasn't totally busted. Sitting on the reservation desk was Jessie, staring off into space, shell-shocked.

  It was clear that this couldn't continue. All that lay ahead for me was trouble: a series of tense battles on the home front, the evil product of seeds planted in the restaurant. Moments later, as I watched my dear wife withstand an earful of abuse from yet another unannounced group, I decided that I had no choice. I had to get rid of her.

  But I couldn't bring myself to fire her.

  At the end of the night, I pulled Ariel aside and told him, "Tomorrow morning, the moment you get up, find me a new hostess. Don't go to the beach. Don't come in here. Get on the phone and find me someone and have her here by three thirty,"—an hour before Jessie's scheduled arrival.

  The next day, Ariel had a new hostess installed, as directed. When Jessie showed up, she jerked a thumb in the girl's direction and asked Ariel what was going on.