As time went by, my English improved, and before I knew it, I was actually conversing with those customers who had seemed unapproachable a short while earlier. I got to know John Cassavetes very well. He was a font of cinematic knowledge, even of Italian film. He loved Fellini’s Amarcord, also a favorite of mine, and could name all the most prominent Italian cinematographers. I often forgot he was a legend himself as I got caught up in our dialogues, two film geeks just shooting the breeze.
I also became close with Steve Tzolis and Nicola Kotsoni, budding restaurateurs who were Silvano regulars. He was a Greek immigrant who had moved to America seven or eight years before me. She was a Greek raised in England. In his forties, with salt-and-pepper hair, Steve was somebody I could relate to and also something of a role model for me: he had begun his life here mopping floors in diners, all the while squirreling away enough money to buy himself a brownstone in the 1970s. He had also studied the business enough to open a restaurant, La Gauloise. Nicola was a very slim, very fashionable woman who reminded me of a porcelain doll. They were an odd couple—he was like a bull in a china shop, and she was like china—but they worked. We became friendly, and I always enjoyed talking with them: he was very charming in his forward, Greek manner, while she was more demure. It was easy for us to converse, because socially speaking, it’s a small leap from Greece to Italy. I got to know Steve and Nicola’s restaurant, La Gauloise, and also spent a lot of time at One Fifth, Raoul’s, and John’s Pizza—rarely venturing outside the Village. With the exception of my apartment, my Manhattan ended at Fourteenth Street.
Over the rest of that winter, a sort of symbiotic bond developed between me and Silvano, partly because of the long hours we shared and partly because of our common Italian heritage. In time, we could communicate a lot with just a look, or a word. We knew that when we spoke Italian to each other our customers just tuned us out, so that’s how we would talk about the less favorable ones. There was one guy, this garmento who was a real cheapskate: he’d tell us he’d seen a wine for thirty dollars less just yesterday at another restaurant, and insist that we sell it to him for the lower price. His worst offense was that when he ordered specials featuring truffles, he’d manipulate your hand as you sliced them, forcing you to give him extra. As a result, Sil-vano and I omitted any truffle specials when we announced the day’s offerings at his table. We longed to have some fun at his expense, and to talk about him right in front of his face. But the Italian word for cheap, tirchio, wasn’t amusing enough, so we took the word cheap and Italianized it, saying cippone right in front of him. Or this old dandy who used to come in with this young, flirtatious girl. We knew that there was no way, beyond the financial, that he could possibly please her, so we’d refer to him as the cornuto, which means “cuckold.” One night, the girl heard us talking and in her perky little voice, she tugged on Silvano’s vest and said, “What does cornuto mean?”
Silvano didn’t miss a beat: he stole a quick glance at me, winked, and looked back at her, taking her hand in his. “It means you, darling,” he said, resting her hand back on the table as we all laughed.
By that spring, Silvano and I were like partners, or brothers even. We did everything together. He was as obsessive about his work as I was about the restaurant. In the morning, I’d be there early, checking on the kitchen and getting the dining room ready for lunch, and he’d come in with beautiful flowers from the market. We’d go over every last detail together: what deliveries had come in and hadn’t, who was going to sit at which table, and on and on.
To be honest, it wasn’t just the two of us. There was a third participant in our mornings: a bottle. At first, we’d uncork a bottle of Brunello around eleven o’clock and polish off half of it by lunch, then we’d knock back some espressos for a jolt of energy. In time, we upgraded to a bottle of Delamain Pale and Dry cognac, sometimes paired with Cristal or Dom Pérignon. It was as much a part of our morning as coffee is for most people.
Silvano would go home for his customary nap after lunch service, we’d work dinner together, then we’d have dinner ourselves around eleven o’clock. By then, we could have split a bottle of wine, a bottle of cognac, and a bottle of champagne. That kind of abandon would have ruined some people, but it just made the day more entertaining for us.
As we grew closer, I learned that Silvano could actually be quite generous in his own way, mostly having to do with food. For example, if truffles were in season and he had some in the house, we’d eat them every night after service, shaving them over pasta or risotto, just as we had after our bonding moment in December. Or, in the springtime, he’d whisper in my ear during dinner service, telling me that we were going to have shad roe, and then after the last customer was gone, he’d go into the kitchen himself and sear it up with lemon, butter, and white wine. By the same token, he stimulated my taste nostalgia, and sometimes I’d say to him, “I’m going to make you something you never had before.” After service I’d go into the kitchen and come out with tuna livornese with a sauce of tomatoes, capers, onions, and anchovies, or spaghetti AOP, a dish I’d been making for years; the name stands for aglio, olio, e peperoncino or garlic, oil, and pepper flakes. I also sometimes make it with a splash of tomato sauce, or pomodoro, and call it spaghetti AOPP.
I even came to love some of the less Italian, more idiosyncratic dishes he cooked, like that duck with dry vermouth, even though I still have no idea where he came up with that one.
Somehow, even after eating and drinking like this, we still had energy to burn. We’d go drinking at One Fifth, or we’d go to Heartbreak, a nightclub on Varick Street, and dance until our legs felt like they’d give out, often with customers who we’d run into there. Sometimes, we’d end up in his apartment, hanging out and drinking almost until sunrise, which sounds like compulsive socializing but was actually a well-disguised form of workaholism because for the most part we talked about the restaurant, kicking around ideas for specials, talking about how to handle certain customers, chewing over issues with the cooks, and so on. Eventually, when I began to feel my eyelids grow heavy, I’d stumble out into the street, hail a cab, and head home up Sixth Avenue.
Of course, none of this was good for my marriage. Da Silvano became my life and I wanted it to. I found myself with a place to go where I didn’t have to think about my problems, my status in Italy, or earning a living. I was making lots of money, and every day I learned something new. But I was working six days a week, almost always doing double shifts, and it was perfectly normal for me to leave home at ten A.M. and not return until well after midnight, stinking of liquor and nicotine.
And there was something else, or rather somebody else. One night that February, a table of six was having dinner at Da Silvano and I found myself unable to take my eyes off of one of them: a slender, dark-haired woman dressed in white. I thought that she was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. As their dinner wrapped up, my post-service meal was just beginning, and I asked her to sit with me. After much giggling and teasing from her friends, she came over to my table and sat down. For the longest time, I just stared at her. I think I made her uncomfortable, between my broken English and the way I was looking at her. What can I say? She brought out the man in me. I was so smitten that I blurted out the stupidest thing: “I want for you to be all mine,” I said, and she stared at me for a moment and then smiled sweetly.
Her name was Jessie and she was a New Orleans native who was earning a license to work in a salon and had modeled for a while in the Garment District. I didn’t wear a wedding ring, so when I asked her out, she had no reason to decline. We saw each other two times and it was going well, but when I told her I was married, she said that she didn’t want to see me anymore. I told her it wasn’t working out, but she still wouldn’t see me again, and just like that she was gone.
IN TIME, MY other “marriage” began to fray as well.
When I first took over for Delfino it was like a gift for Silvano. He had always had to be at the restaurant all the ti
me, but now he could get away. And he did, for two weeks, then three weeks at a time.
At first, I didn’t mind. I took more and more liberties: with his blessing, I started making a mark on the menu, like introducing my mother’s pasticcio di Dante, yellow and red peppers, sliced and wilted with olive oil and garlic, then sprinkled with capers and anchovy fillets and baked, which we served on its own as an appetizer or as a side to fish. I also came up with some original ideas: to show American diners that not all Italian sauces involved tomatoes, I made a veal ragù with bacon, red onion, celery, garlic, and carrots, but no tomato. I would almost dare diners to order it, by saying, “You ever tried a meat sauce with no tomato?”
But you know what they say: when the cat’s away, the mouse will play. And I did play. Not in a devious way, but I was so in my element by then. I was speaking better English and was becoming friends with a lot of our customers, such as the art dealer Leo Castelli, and artists such as Julian Schnabel, Francesco Clemente, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and Andy Warhol.
My background in theater gave me a natural bond with other customers, such as the producer David Field or the director Michael Cimino, and with Cassevettes, with whom I was on a first-name basis by then. Cassavetes began showing up with his wife, Gena Rowlands, and actors from his films, including Peter Falk and Ben Gazzara, and I’d find myself hanging out at their table, which produced some of my favorite moments. Their conversations always began somewhat seriously, but as soon as the wine started to flow, they’d get pretty silly. One night they got so drunk that Cassavetes began challenging Gena Rowlands that she couldn’t stand up. She went him one better, removing her shoes, stepping up onto the table, and performing an improvised flamenco dance to the applause of me and the few lingering customers.
Sometimes, if friends of mine came in late, I’d send the kitchen guys home and cook for them myself, treating the dining room like my own little home away from home. In 1981, Martin Scorsese was shooting his film The King of Comedy in New York, and David Field would often come in around closing time with the stars of the movie: Jerry Lewis, Sandra Bernhard, and Robert De Niro. I dismissed the cooks home, keeping just a dishwasher to help out. When they arrived, I’d have one table set up in the dining room with the wine already uncorked, and water boiling in the back, ready for me to make pasta. As they nibbled on chicken liver crostini, aged sausage, and fried sage, I finally got a chance to converse a little with De Niro, but we didn’t talk movies; instead he wanted to talk about Italian food, which made sense because a few years later, he’d go on to open Tribeca Grill, Nobu, and other places.
Not that I could always have the run of the place. As Silvano took more and more leisure time away from the restaurant, he began leaving me with his father—a diminutive man, rather like my father in stature—and his mother—also short, with wavy hair, glasses, and a round face that reminded me of an owl—to look over me.
The first time he did it, he left me with them for two or three weeks. His father would come to me all the time, complaining because one employee was frequently late, or because he thought another one was stealing, not that he had any proof. It was driving me crazy and so when Silvano returned, I told him, “I don’t mind you being away, but don’t leave me with two owls sitting on top of me every day.”
That spring, I asked him if he was going to bring them back during his summer vacation.
“Yes, why?”
“It’s not going to work.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’ll talk to them.” It reminded me of my problems with the waiter, Tom. Silvano really didn’t like confrontations, and he actually preferred to let problems fester.
“You should worry about it,” I said, “because eventually I’m going to quit and then you’re going to have to work every day.”
This wasn’t the only reason things were strained between us. Sil-vano came to resent me as customers began treating us as equals. It got so I didn’t like being around when he was there. I was beginning to feel a sense of ownership, even though I wasn’t the owner. When he returned from vacations, customers would ask him how his trip was, then turn to me and ask me about how things were at the restaurant, what the specials were, and so on. To reclaim his territory, he began spending more and more time on the service floor, and by the spring of 1982 we spent almost no time together in the wee hours; he’d head off into the night with his friends and I’d go my way with mine.
When he decided to expand and take over the room next door, I thought he was selling out. In the original place, there was no such thing as a bad seat. Now there were tables right next to the bathroom. It was his place and that’s how he wanted it, but I thought it showed really poor taste and felt I had to say something. He didn’t want to hear it from me; whenever I brought it up, he’d just walk away.
Come the summer, Silvano took off for another vacation, and I was again under the watchful eyes of the owls.
One Friday night we were packed, and Silvano’s father came over to me and again told me that one of the employees was stealing. I said, “If you do not get off my back I am going to hang you on the coat rack.”
He didn’t know when to stop. Finally, I couldn’t take it any more. I went to the cash register and took my salary and left.
It was only seven fifteen or seven thirty. Early in the night. A terrible thing to do to a restaurant, but I had had it.
I stormed up Sixth Avenue in a state of rage. Trying to calm my nerves, I stopped near Waverly Street and watched some guys playing basketball, but it was no use. I was shaking with anger. I looked around at the people enjoying the summer evening, sitting on benches or strolling along. I felt as alienated as I had on the day I arrived.
I knew that there was no way back, that I’d never hear from Silvano.
Once again, I saw myself in a movie moment, the final scene of Three Days of the Condor, in which Robert Redford, having crossed the CIA, has a few final words with the intelligence agent played by Cliff Robertson before walking off into a life of isolation, about to disappear into the crowd, absorbed by the city. And so I disappeared, headed back to my apartment, with no idea what I’d do next.
INTERLUDE
PINO’S DESCRIPTION of his mastery of the English language needs a slight clarification because while Pino is fluent in English, he still, nearly thirty years after his arrival in the United States, speaks it with a thick Italian accent. It’s also, perhaps because he spent so many of his formative years here with cooks, liberally seasoned with four-letter words. This is especially true when he’s angry, which usually causes him to pile on the profanity, often in a nonsensical way. If discussing, say, an incompetent shoe salesman, he might say, “I don’t know what his problem is, probably that he been fucked so many times he forgot what’s a loafer and what’s his asshole.”
I ask Pino about this.
“It used to be worse,” he says. “Back at Silvano, I’d often begin sentences with shit or fuck. Delfino would say, ‘Pino, we’re opening for dinner in five minutes,’ and I’d say back, ‘Fuck! OK. No problem.’ I wasn’t upset about anything, I just liked those words. I’d even come in in the morning and say ‘What the fuck’ instead of ‘What’s up?’ but in time I toned it down.”
Pino has also maintained some idiosyncrasies that have yet to be corrected; for example, he says never when he means ever, as in “that was the stupidest meal I never ate in my life.”
I ask him about this, too, and he just shrugs.
“It hasn’t changed by now, it’s not gonna change,” he says. “Plus, I think it sounds better that way.”
Perhaps this is something else Pino learned from Silvano: the inherent value and attraction of remaining a little different. In the brief time I worked with Silvano on his book, I found the man was so discombobulated that I couldn’t reconcile his persona and his success. It was so incongruous that I began to entertain fantasies that it was all a brilliant put-on. I half expected him to lean in one day and whisper to me in perfect, refined Eng
lish: “You know it’s all just an act, right? Nobody could live here this long and still speak the way I do.” Then it dawned on me that, of course, that reverse Esperanto is one reason for Silvano’s celebrity: in a city where hundreds of languages are spoken, he speaks one that nobody has ever heard before.
Because of all of the animosity they display toward one another in the press, and that Pino professes for Silvano in person, it was a little jarring to me one day while we were working on this book when Pino told me that he had been walking up Sixth Avenue from SoHo and had heard a familiar quacking voice behind him.
“Pino! Pino!”
It was Silvano, and the two had engaged in a spontaneous game of catch-up, centered on injuries: Pino had been wearing a brace to protect a foot he had injured playing basketball, and Silvano loves nothing more than talking about his bum knee and all the medications he’s tried for relief. Neither man is getting any younger, it seems, and their ability to kibitz on the street is as good a bit of evidence as you’ll ever see that time heals all wounds; though when I comment on how much Pino learned from Silvano, he’s quick to qualify.
“Don’t forget about my uncle, and my mother. And remember, Silvano has a special talent for running that little place of his; you put him in some of my dining rooms, even this place . . .” Pino says, gesturing at the Cen-tolire dining room, “and he’d be lost.”
Despite their recent run-in, Pino and Silvano aren’t about to start speaking with any regularity. But I’ve often wondered if Silvano has a grudging admiration for Pino, a paternal pride in the busboy who became a restaurant emperor, the same way his long-lost professional son secretly admires the man who taught him so much. I could pick up the phone and ask him, I suppose, but it’s very much in keeping with their relationship to leave some mystery around its edges.
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