"Pino had to replace you," he said, trying to sound soothing on my behalf. "It was too much stress for you."
"Oh really?"
Jessie came swinging into the kitchen and stared at me with a look so cold that the pasta water stopped boiling: "You know, I really don't care about working here," she screamed. "I was trying to help you out. But you . . . you . . . you coward. You couldn't tell me yourself?"
"That's right," I said. "I couldn't do it. But what's important is I'd rather keep you as a wife than as an employee."
I guess I was losing my touch as a ladies' man, because she spun around in a rage and stomped out of the kitchen. But she was home that night when I got back from work, and though she didn't admit it right away, she was happier. We have three kids today and a good marriage, and it's all because I did the right thing and replaced her that night, sparing her any more indignities at the hands of my dear Hamptons customers.
2. Don't Hire Your Customers' Family
That first summer, while I was in New York City running II Cantinori during the week, I would get frantic calls from Mark, the chef, increasingly concerned by our lack of help. Our employment problems continued unabated and we were only getting busier and busier. If I had known what an ongoing headache this would be, I probably never would have opened the restaurant.
I was in a desperate situation, so when two of my regular customers (too ridiculously affluent and influential to name) asked me to give their home-from-college kids—we'll call them Mitch and Missy—summer jobs, I thought, Sure, why not? And I hired them as a busboy and busgirl.
Before we go any further, you have to understand that I come from an Italian family and that we pride ourselves on our work ethic. The idea that some people simply have no pride whatsoever was completely beyond me.
But I got a quick lesson.
The trouble started almost immediately, when Missy showed up for her first day at work in her BMW convertible and parked it in the lot next to the highway. Our innkeeper, a very serious, old Dominican, instructed her to park it out back—the front lot was for customers. "Oh, Chico," she said to him without breaking stride, her blond hair flowing behind her in the summer wind, "I am a customer."
Instead of showing up at five minutes to four, like the employees who needed the job, she and Mitch showed up at four thirty, fresh from the beach, unkempt, and smelling of the sea and sand.
"You, boy," I said to the young man. "Do you have a watch?"
"Yes, Mr. Luongo."
"What time are you supposed to be here?"
"Four o'clock."
"And what time is it?"
He looked down at his Rolex. "Four thirty."
"So?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Luongo. I fell asleep at the beach."
I looked at his unshaven face, his salt-caked hair. "What are you going to do about a shower?"
"Oh, I don't need a shower, Mr. Luongo. I'm just a busboy."
"Just a busboy? Look at these other people who are 'just busboys,'" I said, gesturing at the well-groomed crew, in freshly cleaned black slacks and white shirts: my proud, hardworking team.
"How many times have you come to my restaurant? Do the busboys look like this?" I pointed at him, to make sure he understood what this meant.
"You're right, Mr. Luongo. I'm sorry. It'll never happen again."
Once they got to work, things weren't much better. Missy had an aversion to soiled dishes, an unfortunate trait in a busgirl. When she approached an abandoned table, with its half-eaten pastas, napkins dropped in sauce, and cigarette butts in the wineglasses, she would scrunch up her face and hold her breath. Then, to avoid breaking a nail, she would only pick up one or two dishes at a time, scurry to the kitchen with them, and come back for the next puny load.
On a scale of one to ten, I'd say she was a minus ten.
As if I didn't have enough problems to deal with, every time I left the kitchen, I'd find these kids doing something unbelievable. Like the time I discovered them in the middle of Saturday-night service, passing a cigarette back and forth in the parking lot out behind the kitchen. Or when they took a break that same night to sit at the bar and have a cocktail.
When I saw that, I pulled them aside.
"Kids, listen. In Italy, we have an expression that if you look the other way three times, you are stupid. And I'm starting to feel like an idiot."
I presented them with a choice: "I'll give you one more chance. Be here at four o'clock tomorrow. Or else."
Mitch—he's probably a lawyer today—jumped right in. "Yes, Mr. Luongo. That's perfect. I feel like the past few days, we've just been breaking the ice."
"Listen," I said. "We're not breaking the ice. You're breaking my balls. Now get out of here."
The next day, with a fool's optimism, I pushed myself all morning and into the afternoon. I got my work done early so I could spend some time with Mitch and Missy when they arrived, show them how I expected them to work, turn them into the kind of proud workers I respected.
I had been a busboy in my life. I had done everything you could do in a restaurant, and that's part of why I resented them so much. I didn't care who their parents were; the fact that they thought they could disrespect my beautiful Sapore di Mare, the place I had built with my own sweat and hard work—that was the most offensive thing of all.
You already know what happened next. They didn't show up at four o'clock. They didn't even show up by four fifteen. When they finally did show up, at four thirty, I was sitting in the balcony overlooking the dining room. I watched them prance in through the front door, even though Chico—hardworking, proud Chico—told them not to every day. As always, they were fresh from the beach, with messy hair and that salty smell.
I don't know how much you know about the restaurant industry in New York, but if you read the papers here in the 1980s, then you might have heard I had a temper in those days. I'm not going to deny it. I had a massive temper. And this was the kind of thing that set it off.
"You two," I said as I stood up and charged down the stairs. They looked terrified, like they were about to be gored by a bull.
"You know what? That's it. You better get out of here. In fact, you better get out of here right now. Actually, you know what, GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. NOW!"
They didn't move.
"NOW!"
"But, Mr. Luongo," Mitch said. "What about our tips from last night?"
"Tips?" I actually laughed. "You want your tips? I'll give you a tip: you go home and tell your fathers that you are fired. You incompetent, spoiled, rich brats." They stood there for a second, in shock.
Mitch jerked his head in the direction of the bar, suggesting to Missy that they have a drink before leaving.
"Now!" I bellowed. "Get the fuck out of here, you little brats. Out, out, out," and I chased them right out the door.
Both Mitch's and Missy's fathers called me, outraged, vowing that they'd never come back to Sapore di Mare again.
But they did. They had to. They were friends of Pino's.
3. Teach Your Employees English
It's pretty common to have restaurant employees who don't speak English. It's so common that there's a pamphlet-sized book sold in certain industry supply shops called Kitchen Spanish. But if you ever open a restaurant in the Hamptons, teach your employees English. Or you might find yourself without a staff.
One summer day when I was working in the city as usual, Mark called me from Sapore and told me the following story:
It was a quiet weekday, and in the Hamptons, it gets so quiet that you can stand along the highway and hear the wind blow through the trees. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, five black sedans screeched into the Sapore di Mare parking lot and surrounded the building.
A group of federal agents marched into the place and began interrogating everybody on the staff. They didn't check for proof of citizenship or ask to see green cards. Any employees who didn't speak English were simply corralled and taken away in the cars, off to who-knows-w
here.
"Thank God I can still manage a Brooklyn accent or they might have taken me" Mark said.
I hung up the phone and looked around the kitchen. My crew was finishing their prep for that night's dinner. The mise en place containers—the little stainless-steel vessels in which prepared ingredients are held along the line—were full and, having been there since the early morning, the crew was winding down and thinking about going home for the day.
"Guys, listen up." I told them what had happened at Sapore, and that I needed them to go out to my car. I was going to drive them to the Hamptons, they would work a shift out there, and I'd have them back by morning.
"Pino, no, please no," they begged.
But I had no choice. We had to be ready for dinner at the beach. So we piled into the car, drove out to the Hamptons, and I assigned each of them to a station. They were real troupers, prepping and then cooking all night, only to pile back into my car at eleven forty-five that night for the return trip to Manhattan.
The next day, I got my Sapore staff back. They weren't happy, and neither was 1.1 suppose I could've sued the government, but I had other priorities, like replenishing my ever-dwindling reservoir of employees, a task that had become even harder that morning with the new prerequisite that they speak English.
4. All Rules Are Open to Interpretation
One of my favorite images from Sapore di Mare was Ralph Lauren.
Not the brand. The man.
Within a few months of Sapore's opening, the clientele began taking the summertime theme to extremes. They'd show up looking as though they had just come from the beach, which I'm
sure many of them had. There were wearing shorts, sandals, even bathing suits.
Many of our customers understood the spirit of Sapore, and would arrive in casual but elegant attire. The bathing-suiters, however, were rapidly becoming the majority.
So we made a new rule: no shorts. Just like at the Vatican.
And then one night, Ralph Lauren, driving home with his wife and a few friends, decided to drop in for dinner. The friends met our dress code, but Ralph was wearing shorts.
Ralph Lauren in shorts doesn't look like most people in shorts. I didn't see him when he came in, but I'm sure he was as fashionable as ever.
Nonetheless, Ariel didn't want to make any exceptions. We didn't keep any pants in the cloakroom the way some restaurants keep jackets. So my quick-thinking maitre d' ran into the kitchen and emerged with a pair of black-and-white checkered chef pants, presenting them to Ralph Lauren.
Ralph, gentleman that he is, disappeared good-naturedly into the men's room and emerged in his new outfit.
By the time I heard what had happened and caught up with Ralph, I was mortified. But Ralph is a sport. He said it was no big deal and that he was happy to comply.
And, you know what? He looked good. He looked so good that I'm surprised chef pants didn't become the next big fashion craze out there.
Even in the Hamptons, I guess, absurdity has its limitations.
5. Most Mistakes Can Be Corrected
Okay, after all this bad news, let me share a story with a happy ending.
Saturday afternoon at Sapore was the eye of the storm between Friday night and Saturday night. It was also a time when many of our celebrity customers came in for lunch, to enjoy the restaurant's patio away from the eyes of the masses.
One Saturday afternoon, we were hosting Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley, along with their little daughter Alexis, and another couple that have also since gone their separate ways, Alec Baldwin and Kim Basinger.
I was busy in the kitchen, getting ready for the evening service. The only management presence in the dining room was the current occupant of our revolving-door position of receptionist-hostess.
At about three o'clock, I began thinking about the dinner hour and went into the dining room to see if Ariel had shown up yet. There he was, the picture of Hamptons style, in a white linen suit with brown leather slip-on shoes.
With a list of that night's reservations in hand, we walked the floor together, determining who we'd seat where, a very political exercise at a hot spot like Sapore. We also personally greeted Alec and Kim and Billy and Christie, all of whom were regulars, and—I must say—absolutely charming.
As we made the rounds, I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, pedaling up to the entrance on a bicycle, a woman in her midsixties, or so I'd have guessed. It was tough to tell: she was wearing a straw hat and sunglasses so it was hard to see her face.
But something about her seemed familiar.
We couldn't hear the exchange that followed, but from the gestures—the woman spoke, the reservationist shook her head from side to side, the woman shrugged happily, hopped on her bike and left—we could tell that she had been denied a reservation.
My sixth sense was speaking to me, telling me that something wasn't right. I sent Ariel over to see what happened. He returned and informed me that she was looking for a table for four for eight o'clock.
"And?" I asked.
"The girl told her that we were fully—"
I realized who it was: "Jesus Christ, Ariel, that was Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis."
He considered that for a moment.
"Oh, my God, Pino! You're right!"
I pointed to the highway: "Go after her!"
Ariel's jaw dropped, but he didn't move.
"We cannot allow this to happen. Go!"
"Pino, she's gone down the highway."
"So go chase her down the fucking highway! This cannot happen. Not here!"
With a shrug, Ariel began walking toward the road.
"You're not going to get her if you walk. Run!"
Ariel began running in his immaculate white linen suit, slipping his jacket off as he started. Our driveway was covered with gravel, so he couldn't really pick up any speed until he got to the highway.
I went out to the edge of my property and looked down the sloping highway. I could see the former First Lady about half a mile down the road, stopped at an intersection, straddling her bike, and behind her, coming up fast, my own Latin Gatsby, running down the road after her to gallantly offer her a table.
She was about to start pedaling again, but he called out to her and she stopped and turned around. They spoke. She nodded and he waved good-bye.
Ariel returned to our parking lot, drenched in sweat. He reported his success. She had accepted the reservation and his apology.
I was so happy. I had always admired Jackie O. Not just her style, but also her strength after her husband was assassinated and all those stories about how she had raised her children, Caroline and John, Jr., to be humble and polite. She clearly lived those values herself. I mean, here she was in the Hamptons, where everyone wants you to know who they are, and she didn't even divulge her identity to get a table at a restaurant.
I had to compliment Ariel on his triumph: "I'm proud of you, Ariel. You did what the best maitre d' in the Hamptons should do, and you should feel good about it."
He nodded, still catching his breath and fanning himself off.
"Thanks, Pino."
I looked him up and down. Sweat was literally dripping off his suit.
"Now, go take a shower," I said. "You stink!"
I'm telling you, our work is never done.
Our Big Brake
MARY SUE MILLIKEN
AND SUSAN FENIGER
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger first came together at City Cafe in Los Angeles in 1981, and have been business partners for more than two decades. Today, they own the popular Border Grill restaurants in Santa Monica and Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay, and Ciudad restaurant in Downtown L.A. They have authored five cookbooks, taped 396 episodes of their television programs Too Hot Tamales and Tamales World Tour on Food Network, and host the show In the KFI Kitchen with Mary Sue and Susan on KFI 640AM Los Angeles. Milliken and Feniger also created the Border Girls brand of fresh prepared foods for Whole Foods Markets, and a line of pepper mills manufa
ctured by Vic Firth.
SO, IT WAS 1983 and the two of us were running our little City Cafe, near the corner of Melrose and Martel in Los Angeles. It was a small place we had opened two years earlier, about 900 square feet, with ten tables and eleven seats at the bar; the entire staff consisted of the two of us, with a dishwasher who doubled as a busboy and a waitress who dabbled in heroin addiction when she wasn't on duty.
Ah, those were the days.
In terms of our industry's culture, this was an era ago, because there was no such thing as a celebrity chef. Sure, there were television cooking teachers like the great Julia Child, but no fellow whisks had risen from the restaurant world to national prominence. To put things in perspective, Wolfgang Puck had just recently opened Spago, and not long before that, Alice Waters had launched Chez Panisse.
Because there was no such thing as a celebrity chef, it wasn't as common as it is today for folks who do what we do to participate in big-ticket charity events where for a couple hundred bucks you can sit down to four courses prepared by four different chefs, or maybe stroll around tasting signature dishes from up to fifty chefs at little food stations.
The idea was starting to catch on, however, and people like Wolfgang were at the forefront of the movement. We hadn't been a part of this new trend, so we were flattered when we were finally invited to participate in a benefit: the organizers for a prominent national food and wine group called and asked us to "do a course" for a dinner set to take place in the ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel, an art deco relic of Old Hollywood that was past its prime but still maintained a faint air of glamour and did a steady business in its ballroom, which was to be the site of this event.
Today, prepping and packing for a benefit are as innate to a chef as sharpening a knife or caramelizing onions. Young cooks learn this art at their first jobs and know what kind of containers to buy, the perfect-sized cooler, and how to seal everything so it travels without spilling so much as a drop. But we had never packed up our food for anything, much less cooked for 250 people, the number expected at the dinner.
We were charged with preparing the first course, and we settled on one of our most popular appetizers at the time, Seared Eggplant with Tomato Concasse and Hollandaise Glacage. We figured this to be a transport-friendly selection because we could sear the eggplant slices at City and bring along some buckets full of concasse (coarsely chopped, cooked tomatoes and herbs) and hollandaise. When we got to the Biltmore, all we'd have to do is lay out the eggplant on sheet pans, top them with concasse , whip some cream and fold it with the Parmesan into the warm hollandaise, nap it on, and flash it under the broiler. Easy.
Don't Try This at Home Page 18
