Inside Studio 54

by Mark Fleischman

  Chapter Thirty-One:

  Tatou

  When I returned to New York I felt like a new human being. I swore that I would not have a sip of wine or puff of a joint until I hit “it” out of the park—whatever “it” happened to be. I still didn’t know what my next project was going to be, so I scoured New York City trying to figure out what was missing. What was there a need for, an absence of—what was Manhattan lacking at night? If I could figure that out, I could then fill that void and make a real score. I went to all the happening restaurants, frequently bumping into people I knew from Studio 54 days. The one take I heard, repeatedly, was how tired people were of the current loud club scene and how even though nothing had been as much fun as Studio 54, they longed for a place to party at night that wasn’t as loud, was more intimate, played good music, and served fine cuisine, but still was good for dancing.

  Before I knew it, the idea percolated in my head for a new kind of restaurant/nightclub in midtown Manhattan, a place that would combine the sophistication of the old-time supper clubs of the 1930s and ’40s like the famed Stork Club and El Morocco in Manhattan and the Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood, with the magic of Studio 54—taken down a notch, of course. I envisioned an elegantly dressed host that would greet patrons at the door and maintain a dress code. Every night would have the atmosphere of New Year’s Eve but with fine dining, cocktails, and dancing, all under one roof. VIP raised dining platforms with plush booths would be designed and placed to overlook the main floor, which would begin each night as a formal dining room with white tablecloths, candles with elegant shades, and gold brocade upholstered chairs, while a live band played blues or blues-oriented jazz on the main stage from 7:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. As the evening progressed, the computerized lights would gradually begin to dim as the live music ever so subtly became louder while evolving into a sensuous dance beat. Some of our guests would then call it an evening and retire to their homes and others would stay and join in as a younger, upscale crowd arrived for dancing, drinks, or late supper. By 11:00 p.m., all tables in the center would be cleared. The blues band would call it a night, and guests would dance to music by current DJs, accented by soft pulsating lights hidden in the soffits, while late-night diners watched from platforms on both sides. The entire concept of the modern-day supper club came to me at once as if in a dream.

  I had the perfect name for the place: Tatou, an homage to my days as a Naval officer in the early 1960s, when I ran the officers’ club at Naval Air Engineering Station Lakehurst. “Tattoo” was the name given to the musical military parade at sunset in the British military and the name of the US military bugle call at the end of the day (call to the bar), and I loved the sound of the word. However, I was worried Tattoo might be misconstrued and a turnoff to fine diners, mistaken for an ink parlor, so I gave it a French spelling, Tatou. My plan was to usher in the dawn of a new experience for New Yorkers with a twist on a bygone era: the 1940s club scene. A sophisticated night out on the town. It was exactly what my formal training at the Cornell Hotel School, together with my experiences at Studio 54, had taught me how to do very well. I had pulled off components of this scene many times before. This time, with a clear head, I could actually visualize it a year before I would make it happen.

  I searched Manhattan for the right location and a few months later I found it. The perfect building with a shuttered restaurant in midtown on East Fiftieth Street between Lexington and Third Avenues. Talk about history and aura—this place had it. In the 1940s it was known as Club Versailles where Edith Piaf and Judy Garland performed, and Desi Arnaz conducted the house band. In 1958 Morris Levy took it over and it became a jazz/comedy club known as the Round Table. Singer Pearl Williams opened but was shut down by the police after only a few weeks for her foul-mouthed routine, but not before Sinatra and the Rat Pack had their chance to howl with laughter at her shtick. It became a favorite late-night hang out. The joint had character and charisma. The space boasted high ceilings and a private upstairs space; it was exactly what I had in mind for the type of innovative nightspot I wanted to create, and it appeared to be waiting for the right concept, and me.

  I raised the $1.5 million that I needed from my personal funds, family, and investors, including model Oren Stevens who I worked with on the McGovern campaign in ’72, and I convinced Deszo “Desi” Szonntagh, the chef from the popular restaurant Provence in Greenwich Village, to join me as chef/partner to create an innovative menu. Couri Hay, my buddy from the Studio 54 days, became a partner and managed our press. Once again, my brother Alan became my key business partner. I went to Chicago and spent a few days visiting the numerous blues clubs in the Rush Street–area, in order to personally experience “the blues” in a restaurant setting. I was particularly impressed by Buddy Guy’s place, where he held court playing music that sounded like it just came up the Mississippi from Baton Rouge. Chicago was full of great blues performers, but I came to realize that New York was more jazz-oriented, and so I began a new search for music that would complement my vision of the club.

  One evening, I headed up to a club in Harlem to hear an eighty-three-year-old pianist and singer named Sammy Price, who was known as the King of Boogie Woogie. He was playing at a funky club in Harlem, and, unlike in my teenage days, this time I had a car and driver wait out front for me. Sammy Price blew me away. He looked and sang like Louis Armstrong, and his old-time boogie-woogie piano playing made my toes curl. Afterward, I went up to him and tried to start a conversation.

  Sammy was surrounded by people, and I knew I had to talk fast—and be covert about it, as the club’s owner was standing nearby. Almost any entertainer would want to go from a small club in Harlem to a major venue in midtown. Chances are the money would be better and an artist would get more exposure and recognition. I gave it to him straight: “Sammy, I’m opening a large, elegant, old-time thirties supper club in midtown on the east side, and we’re going to feature blues music with classical three-star cuisine.”

  He lit up and said in his raspy Louis Armstrong-like voice: “You’re gonna open what?”

  I asked, “Would you be interested in joining us?”

  “Would I be interested?” he exclaimed while grabbing my hand with a big smile.

  He was a brilliant talent and very excited as he searched his bag to give me a cassette of his music before I left. I listened to it in the car on my way back downtown and was convinced I’d found the piano man to complete my vision for Tatou.

  I put together all my ideas and plans and met with David Rockwell, who at the time was still in the early stages of what would become a brilliant career as a restaurant and hotel designer. When I told David my idea, he acted as if I’d lost my mind. “Mark, you’re asking me to create the impossible,” he said. “No restaurant has ever been successful as a discotheque. It’s a marriage that is doomed to fail.”

  “Not if we do it this way,” I explained. I then took pen and paper and drew a rough version of the basic layout I had in mind, showing him exactly how, with hidden state-of-the-art sound and lighting systems, we could transform the atmosphere of the main floor from that of a posh restaurant into a fashionable dance club, with platforms on the sides becoming a late-night dining area for sophisticated guests. David still looked at me askance, but I could tell I’d made some progress and he wanted to do the project. “Mark, I admire your passion and creativity,” he said. “Let me see what I can do.”

  David Rockwell took my concept and brought it to life, creating an elegant mahogany dining room draped with rich fabrics that called to mind the “jewel box” theatres of nineteenth-century New Orleans. Our stage had a hand-painted 1920s roll-down curtain and a thirty-five-foot-high painted dome ceiling with three-tiered chandeliers. Gilded plaster Mephistophelian heads sprouted from the lamps that lit up the dance floor, while a red velvet Arabian Nights–boudoir feeling emanated from the VIP club upstairs. It had intimate booths and was decadent, classic, yet modern—just a
s I had envisioned. David went on to design the first Planet Hollywood (after showing Tatou to the principals), then the W Hotels, the Kodak Theatre (now Dolby Theatre) in Hollywood, the Nobu restaurants, and the redesign of the Hotel Bel-Air, just to name a few.

  Tatou opened in mid-1990 during one of New York City’s periodic financial meltdowns. It took a few weeks for patrons to comprehend what Tatou was all about. When we cleared the tables on the dance floor at 10:30 p.m., people didn’t immediately understand that was the cue to dance. Those first few nights, I’d grab a lady or two and start the dancing. Before the song was over, I’d look around and the dance floor was full. I marveled at how well it all went over. I was able to bring back Frank Corr from Crisco and Studio 54 to play on occasion and DJ Kevin Doyle settled in as my resident DJ playing whatever kept the crowd happy. Diversity in sound has always been a hallmark of my clubs.

  Profitable almost from the very outset, Tatou became the most popular watering hole in New York for many years. It took two weeks to get a dinner reservation and there were lines to get into the nightclub. As if that weren’t exciting enough, legendary food critic Gael Greene reviewed Tatou soon after opening. You must understand that when it came to restaurant reviews, at that time in New York City, Gael Greene was the voice you listened to. She was a passionate, early foodie who wrote with such vibrancy that she gave New Yorkers a new way to think about eating out—as theatre, as seduction, as art. When Gael Greene wrote a positive review, your restaurant could become an overnight sensation, making it impossible for anyone to get a reservation that wasn’t weeks out. What follows is an excerpt from Gael Greene’s column in New York magazine (quoted with her permission) on October 1, 1990, titled “Tatou Parlor,” which I believe captured the essence of Tatou:

  Is it optimism or innocence, transcendent savvy or uniformed leap into a nighttime void? What has possessed a seasoned man-about-town like Mark Fleischman to choose this moment for a supper club with the feel of 1850 New Orleans? With a disco. And a private club. And lunch. And the eighty-two-year-old King of Boogie Woogie tinkling the blues.

  What can possibly come next except Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy? Welcome Tatou. Yes, that’s French for “tattoo,” but Fleischman fell in love with the sound of the word, and he doesn’t want to invoke images of tattoo parlors. Think of tattoo as the call of the bugle, a summons to quarters before taps. That’s why Tatou’s painted cherubs and the logo’s angel all brandish a bugle.

  Fleischman couldn’t resist…he’s built a hybrid dream, a disco for grown-ups, like Au Bar. A real restaurant with good food, a private club in the mirrored Moroccan Victoriana upstairs. And don’t forget the blues. A crazy quilt of make-believe, something for everyone. He hopes. Heaven knows this town could use a hit of innocent fantasy.

  It does feel odd, escaping the 1990-reality of East Fiftieth Street to lunch in the charming, old-fashioned stage set David Rockwell has created, with colorful swags of fabric and chairs shrouded in brocade, the mullioned windows ever so slightly over-antiqued with faux mildew, the cast-plaster satyrs gilded and aged with lamps on their heads, the bugle-toting cherubs on the stage drop. A live woman, six foot two, got molded in plaster to create the bronzelike Amazons hoisting fringed lamps that flank the stage. If you’re not too jaded, you can easily just go with it.

  …Chef-partner Deszo Szonntagh (Hungarian-born, Philadelphia-bred) cooked with a French accent for Michel Jean at Provence… Everything gets filtered through his imagination anyways, so nothing is what you’d expect. But most of it is good, even very good. And the desserts by his wife, Phyllis, are dangerously delicious.

  The boogie-and-blues king, Sammy Price, and his trio swing. The serving crew, mostly good-looking young people in Art Deco cravats earning their way to somewhere else, serve efficiently without attitude. And the pâtissière (who longs to open her own light-dessert shop someday) proves she is master of all the classic American indulgences…

  I can’t begin to guess who will love it, who will laugh at it or with it.

  “Victorian bordello,” one guest summed it up.

  Who knows what the first brisk chill of fall will bring? Last week’s party for Susan Anton could entice the young men in couturier suspenders to return. A benefit the other night (with Princess Stephanie as host) landed pretty people in Lycra Band-Aids and other migratory birds who might roost awhile. Tatou sounds a clarion call. Let’s see who answers.”

  After that review, Tatou became the undisputed hottest restaurant, bar, and club in Manhattan for many years. In addition to the crowds of New Yorkers and tourists, Tatou attracted a diverse group of celebrities such as Ice-T, Mickey Rourke, Grace Jones, Leroy Neiman, Anthony Quinn and his well-known sons, John Kennedy Jr., Michelle Pfeiffer, Prince Albert and his sister Princess Stephanie of Monaco, Bret Easton Ellis, Tama Janowitz and Jay McInerney, Donald Trump and Ivana Trump (separately), Armand Assante, Pelé, and Liza Minnelli—she held her forty-fifth birthday party in the upstairs VIP club. Joan Rivers often reserved the VIP room to try out her comedy routines. Ian Schrager raved when he stopped in for dinner with Calvin Klein after hearing all the hullaballoo about Tatou.

  A caricature drawn by one of the waiters at Tatou New York depicting the crowd at Tatou: Grace Jones, Tony Bennett, Jackie Mason, Robin Leach, Liza Minnelli, Sophia Loren, and Mickey Rourke. Tatou had a six-week wait for reservations.

  We hosted many major events over the years, including a performance by Mariah Carey, serving as her introduction to Sony Music executives visiting from Japan; Tony Bennett’s fortieth anniversary celebration with Columbia Records; the party for Whitney Houston’s “I’m Your Baby Tonight” video which was shot at Tatou; Robin Leach’s absolutely packed fiftieth birthday party; and many of the key political social parties during the 1992 Democratic National Convention, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver at the George McGovern Reunion celebration with her father Sargent Shriver who ran for vice president on the McGovern ticket. Other fundraisers included Peggy Kerry and me hosting a fundraiser for John Kerry’s Senatorial campaign and I agreed to host a Republican fundraiser for John McCain.

  The most spectacular event of all was a fundraiser for then-presidential candidate Bill Clinton, where he played saxophone for a live audience for the first time since high school with a rented sax and his own mouthpiece. It was quite a thrill to watch him practice in my office, then step onto the stage to perform. We had a backup saxophonist but didn’t need him because Clinton was so good. Fifty press members lined the edges of the room as an elite crowd enjoyed the performance. The bursting light from the flash bulbs created an almost strobe-light atmosphere to the performance. Couri Hay later dropped a piece in Page Six that said I had recorded the evening on CD and was going to market Bill Clinton Live at Tatou—a misunderstanding, but an amusing story nonetheless.

  Tatou was such a hit that one magazine dubbed me “the father of the modern American supper club.” It was so successful, I got offers to open clubs in Moscow (which was too scary) and Tokyo.

  The dark, decadent “Upstairs at Tatou” became a very popular night spot for late-night dancing, drinks, and our specialty—a grilled chicken sandwich with roasted peppers and pesto mayonnaise on toasted Artisan bread. The upstairs VIP Lounge attracted musical artists after their concert performances, including Mick Jagger, Jerry Hall, Robert De Niro, and Jackie Mason who always cracked everyone up with his one-liners, while making the rounds looking for hot middle-aged women to screw. There were also late-night decadent scenes reminiscent of nights at Studio 54. An image of Robin Leach comes to mind, of him drinking champagne from a woman’s high-heeled shoe and having crème brûlée fed to him in some unique ways by an ever-changing assortment of bombshell blondes and brunettes while lounging on a couch behind a low cocktail table in a dark alcove. The girls would bend over and anybody who spotted the tastes of temptation found Robin laughing, wiping the crème off his face.

  Tatou w
as critically acclaimed for its cuisine by The New York Times, New York magazine, and almost every other publication in town. The club was featured on NBC, FOX, and the local TV stations as a new kind of late-night phenomenon, almost to the level of Studio 54. CNN did a national piece on how I was able to successfully open Tatou during the recession of the early 1990s (for a ten-year run), just as I had reopened Studio 54 during the recession of the early 1980s. We were also in the columns regularly orchestrated by Couri.

  I’ve told you about Fred Rothbell Mista, guardian of the VIP area at Crisco Disco in the early 1980s. Well, in 1991, to the delight of our crowd, Fred began performing once a week at Tatou on Sammy’s night off, impersonating a Frank Sinatra-type character, spoofing a Las Vegas lounge singer and calling himself Rocco Primavera—wearing his hair in a pompadour and draped with gold chains. He was accompanied by a three-girl group of his own creation, the New Jersey Nightingales. It was a hoot and he became quite popular in his new role.