The Mysteries of Georgetown

"Welcome to the _______. Your name, please?" Though we expected the last guests—the evening's honoree and his wife—protocol still required us to ask. Standing with a pair of French poodles on the steps of a Washington, D.C., townhouse, they stared at us a moment, then gave their names. Taking their coats, we escorted them down the hall and into the main salon. The other guests, as directed—ordered, we might say—had arrived en masse at one minute past seven in the evening; some moments later, the hostess had descended from an upper floor. And the evening's host, Count _____, stood waiting in the crook of the baby Steinway grand to receive his guests of honor. As if posing for a full-length portrait, legs oddly crossed at his ankles, family-crested sword unsheathed at his side and bearing his weight, His Hochgeboren-ness offered a limp hand to the man and woman. And with that, a Dinner in Honor of Mr. Pierre Salinger began.

The point of this story both isn't the late Mr. Salinger. Not entirely. It's the host and hostess, and the manner and style of hospitality at that Georgetown address where, starting in the late Nineties, for about five or six years, we joined the on-call rotation as part of their ongoing, unfixed roster of staff. Of all of the gigs we've had, those at that home are among the most eccentric we've ever known. The inclusion of a pair of French poodles at a formal dinner was, in comparison, rather ordinary. Staged and tightly-controlled down to the minute, the occasions paid tribute to some prominent figure, and the array of personages and personalities who came up those townhouse steps never failed to intrigue us. When they were shown into that main salon, however, with its piano, its fireplace and its French Provincial furniture, their cushions protected by inexpensive teatowels, we wondered: did they, too, stop to consider why the room's impressive art was so formally displayed, complete with Plexiglass cases and identification cards detailing the pieces' provenance? Did they realize that, despite the fineness of the old-fashioned, cut-crystal Champagne cups, the linen napkin around the bottle in the silver bucket hid a product made by the cheapest bulk process? Perhaps, like us, they too were jaded. At a certain level of society, it's possible to see everything.

Then again, it's possible not to. (Which might have been for the best.) Downstairs, the cold, damp, half-basement dining room held eight seats at a rectangular gate leg table. In the corner, a large old wooden easel displayed the hostess's latest painting or sketch. The chairs didn't match, some Chippendale, others French Provincial, some with torn cushions, others with hand-worked needlepoint. Inexpensive bamboo blinds screened the door and windows. We set the table with Royal Doulton chargers, antique sterling, monogrammed napkins, and crystal wine glasses with negligible capacity. The lack of table linen wasn't strange, but the lighting scheme was: no electric fixture, just a single Gorham five-arm rondo candelabra in the center, and on a side table, a pair of single sticks with a foot-long pewter snuffer and a silver pitcher with plastic flowers. Like the chairs, the tapers were of varying colors, heights, and degrees of previous use. We lighted the candles at the beginning of the meal, and once the guests came downstairs and were seated, served the first course and poured the first round of wines. "These vines are from my vamily estate in Chermany," purred the host. The guests nodded, but did any of them know, as with our "Champagne" service, we'd poured Gallo Chablis and Hearty Burgundy into silver-topped decanters for just this purpose? They couldn't see very well through the dim candlelight in that chilly, nitrous room; could they see through their hosts' act? Were they meant to?

And did they know what a challenge seeing across the table would become, period? We cleared the first course, stacked the plates in the kitchen, and as instructed by the host, returned to ceremoniously snuff out one of the five candles. One course, one candle down. Four courses left, and only four candles...

(To be continued)

Ishtar Is Born...

This week's release of Peter Biskind's biography of Warren Beatty reminds us of a story that probably didn't make the pages...

We were working in the downstairs dining room at Babbo on New Year's Day, 2001, when a party of five walked in. During the pre-service briefing, maitre d' John Mainieri hadn't alerted the staff to expect either Beatty or Annette Bening by name, so it may have been as much of a surprise for him as for the rest of the staff and the guests when they showed up out of the blue early in the dinner service with a party of six. They were quickly shown to a table in our section, and we were particularly glad, even grateful, that through a rare and perhaps divinely-sanctioned change of pace, we hadn't made the usual wee-hours, restaurant-employee, booze-besotted run of the night before, and had instead gotten a good, solid rest.

Tony winner Judith Ivey and another couple (producers? old college friends?) were part of the group, which was very low-key and very relaxed. Neither Beatty and Bening were particularly dressed up, but neither were they dressed down. The talk at their table flowed at a steady pace for some time before they picked up the menus. It's always a little odd to watch a star actively reading a menu; the brief, necessary attention and concentration is like seeing them at work, watching them read a script. It's also a little odd to stand there and recite specials and answer questions. There's also the sense that a meal at a restaurant like Babbo, a meal that for many people might be a once-in-a-lifetime event, is for them simply a meal eaten in public rather than the privacy of home. For example, whenever celebrities are provided anything to eat or drink with the compliments of the house, they don't necessarily eat or drink it. With complimentary food, they might take a bite or two before returning to their conversation. But they can be confounding, even capricious. Just when it seems they're done, they'll take yet another bite. As a waiter, you have a communicate with the kitchen constantly, even more than usual, as starting the first course too soon or too late can throw the whole rhythm off. In good houses, there's usually a backwaiter or food runner especially deputized by the chef for communication. And when everything's working like it's supposed to, a restaurant feels like...well, like a talented group of ensemble actors.

Ms. Bening commented that despite the carbs, ordering pasta seemed the right thing to do. Once the order was out of the way, the group settled back into conversation. Bening was more of a listener, but Beatty was intently talkative. His intelligence was palpable, but not dominating. The party ate their main meal as unhurriedly as their amuses-bouches, and afterward picked for an unusually long time at an array of the wonderful desserts of the great Gina DePalma, Babbo's James Beard Award-winning pastry chef. (At one point, worried that the gelato was melting unattractively into the other treats, we asked Beatty if he wanted us to leave the puddled plate alone; somewhat loftily he replied, "I should think so.") When the bill was finally paid (by one of the unknown faces at the table), and the group began to gather their belongings, we mustered the courage to tell Ms. Bening that we saw her back in the mid-Eighties as Lady Macbeth at ACT in San Francisco. "Oh, no!" she moaned. "That was such a terrible production." "But you were very good," we assured her. "You and Henry Woronicz, who played Macduff, were the best things about it." "My gosh," she laughed. "How do you remember that? You must be an actor yourself." No, but we do like the theater...

We particularly remember the table next door. When the stars entered the dining room, the woman at that neighboring table blinked in recognition; while they were being seated, she took advantage of the rustle to lean forward and whisper excitedly to her husband. For the rest of the meal they could barely contain themselves, and we could tell that they were looking for some hairline-fracture opening to say something to Bening, who was closest. Finally their bill gave them their excuse. "Well, look at that," the woman said loudly, pointing at the date. "Oh-one-oh-one-oh-one..." "Well, what do you know?" the man responded. Bening turned. The woman, feigning the casual detachment of a customer filling out a deposit slip in a bank, repeated the sequence of numbers. Bening blinked, then, as comprehension dawned, repeated, "How about that? 'Oh-one-oh-one-oh-one'..." The couple nodded, pulled themselves up and out from their own table, and having obtained the kind of New York souvenir that usually only does come along once-in-a-lifetime, launched themselves into the night and the new year touched by the optimistic but glamorous thrill such an encounter provides.