March 29, 1971 | Vintage Insatiable
It Must Be Calf's Foot Jelly 'Cause Cannelloni Don't Shake Like That
When the desperation of attendance at the Obligatory Scene escalates into habit… an institution is invented.
The intense inevitability of Elaine's has survived the tensility of Mere Chic. I suspect it has gone beyond even the boundaries of Ritual Masochism. When Suzy designated Manhattan's seven "Beautiful People Restaurants," there, nestled amidst all the obvious La's and Le's, was…Elaine's, with its antlers and deer heads and the ambiguous murky murals -- is it the Rape of the Sabine Women or getting-to-know-you at the Woodstock Festival?
Elaine's: playpen of the quality media set. Salon littéraire. Reputations soar or stub mortally on how long a man has to stand at the bar of this lovingly seedy little joint on the 88th Street edge of Nowhere before getting a table somewhere in back of playwright Jack Richardson's head. "In" quotient like Elaine's does not stand impregnable without an iron will fighting back the riffraff, the gawking nobodies, the camping piranhas and unamusing gypsy moths who could so easily clutter up the dining room and strain the loyalty of the pets du maison. All this began with a poet or two, an off-Broadway playwright and a few actor boozehounds. Elaine Kaufman is incurably taken by things literary. Everybody wants to be Somebody, and Elaine's Somebodies were mostly Nobody to Anybody Else.
Well, granted… clearly Geroge Plimpton is as disarmingly adorable at the very tony Raffles as he is to Elaine. But what glacial maître d' is likely to court Willie Morris?... How many haute snobberies will even recognize Gay Talese? Your average everyday groupie is not too likely to faint in religious ecstasy over the nearness of Harper's magazine's Lewis Lapham.
So Elaine's is essential. Writing is hell. A slow day at the typewriter is like a week in solitary. "It is solace to be there," Life's Tommy Thompson observes, "and see the competition goofing off, nursing blocks…" And after the journalists, the editors, the playwrights and actors came the pretty girls, celebrity collectors, moneyed sycophants of class, artful appreciators…for what is an ego without a mirror? It would be a fatal bore if everyone in the room were a celebrity and no one a fan. But your peers make the best fans… at least, they don't do anything embarrassing, like steal your cufflinks or ask for an autograph. And with Manhattan Success Aristocracy outdazzling the blocked and undiscovered came Jackie in giant shades and, inevitable bliss, the Movie Stars, humbled in the presence of the Muses' many messengers. If Norman Mailer is here, can Raquel Welch be far behind? The crush grew Hieronymus Boschesque about the time Susan Stein and the Beautiful Burdens stopped giving so many parties. Or do I imagine it? If you wanted to keep in touch… see all your chums… you had only to drop by Elaine's. Anytime from twilight till 4 a.m. … guaranteed good gossip and good fettuccine… or as faithful Jackie Rogers puts it: "A few giggles and a couple of fights."
Divorces were crueler. The parting two would calmly give up offspring, the Rothkos and the Poonses, the flat at the Dakota, but neither was willing to surrender custody of Elaine's. Some nights the turnover of fashionable ex's and about-to-be-ex's with soon-to-be-mates was dizzying.
And here is China Machado, dazzling beauty in African capelet, and Eve Orton in her body stocking. Muriel Resnik stalks the reservation disguised as an Iroquois squaw. Here are Michael Arlen, Jack Gelber and the Times' Arthur Gelb. Rita Gam in a prioress' hood. The Dustin Hoffmans… Jack Nicholson five nights in a row. Bobby Short. Here is Nureyev embracing Roman Polanski… Nureyev come straight from the airport with suitcase in tow. David Frost, Diahann Carroll, Art Buchwald and the Robert Mitchums, all on the same glorious night. Joe Namath insists on the back room. Rod Steiger and Tammy Grimes suffer exile with dignity. Ragu'd too: Antonioni and the Henry Fords. Elaine shrugs. "She's just a middle-class Italian."
Table four is the Club Table ("The Training Table," says Mary Ann Madden), sacred of the exiled Harper's magazine crew, Bruce Jay Friedman, D.D., and John Barry Ryan III, and a stream of madly chic transients and table-hoppers. Unwelcomed squatters are gently ignored. Even by the waiters… in unspoken conspiracy.
When Mummy and the Duke of Bedford come to town, where else would daughter Caterine Milinaire throw her little supper? Naturally, Charlotte toasts baby brother Edsel's twenty-first birthday with fettuccine, veal piccata, endive and cherries jubilee for sixteen. From the neighborhood come Christopher Cerf, Dan and Nora Greenburg and John Lindsay. Then in walks the former mayor. "Look, it's Robert Wagner," someone cries. "Oh," says Lindsay, "I thought it was the Sundance Kid."
Elaine herself is a celebrity abroad, better known in London, say (where she danced till dawn at Annabel's with Nureyev), than at home outside the rarefied altitude of the status-conscious. Michael Caine, Tony Newley… even Marcello Mastroianni… must make the pilgrimage, usually in the tow of the man from Rogers, Cowan -- status-savvy Bobby Zarem. Bobby would die of malnutrition if Elaine’s closed down for a month. Bobby sees Stars. Bobby delivers Stars, four and six at a swoop. Fame has not jaded Elaine. Like a high school nymphomaniac, she is still wowed by names and still keeping score. Nor has fame smoothed he rough edges. Elaine has been described as tough, salty, earthy and immense. She has recently shed 110 pounds (like losing a whole person) and is still 150,000 calories away from sylphlike. Diplomacy is not her game. "This isn't your kind of place…you’re going to hate it here," she warns a table of well-dressed middlde-aged unknowns a waiter has unwittingly led to a table she needs. "Out. Out out. Give the creep his check." Some of the unexpected exits are swifter than a bleary eye can follow.
If you don't know anybody and nobody knows you -- into the Ragu Room. Elaine's can be a bore and a disappointment to interlopers and status-climbers. You can't people-watch from Ragu. And you wouldn't recognize Elaine's most celebrated pets if you saw them. You will feel old before your time, shabby, cheated. But the service out back is excellent -- the better to get you out swiftly. If you linger, don't be shocked by the unbidden arrival of the check or a brisk farewell from Elaine.
The food is strictly tangential. It is edible, reasonable in price and available till 2 a.m. Elaine takes the food very seriously and is not happy when guests drink… and forget to eat. China swears by the spinach soup ($1) and paillard of beef ($5). Jackie Rogers and Mary Ann are pleased with the steak ($6.50). John Diebold has not been too spoiled at La Caravelle and La Seine to admire the spaghetti ($2.25). And fettuccine ($2.75) is tender and creamy, the frutta di mare vinaigrette ($2.50) excellent -- fresh, with bits of radish and celery for texture, though it would have been better more tart. The bread is Manhattan's best Italian bread. The fresh strawberries in zabaglione ($1.50) are perfect. And one night the specials included pink and tasty roast lamb ($4) with regrettably mushy beans. The boned chicken on buttery spinach ($3.50) was pleasant. But the veal is not first-rate. Chicken livers and kidneys ($4) were dry and tasted of damp cardboard. Green beans were overcooked. The cannelloni ($3.50) were soggy. The clam sauce on the linguini ($2.50) was anemic, and the slices of filet ($6) were gristly and overdone.
The checks are hand-toted by Elaine. Nobody wants to accuse her of padding, but in all that milling about, it isn't surprising that two men may be charged with the tab for the same peripatetic female.
Success with partner Donald Ward has given Elaine floor-length sables, a townhouse and, recently, the building at 1703 Second. But she is still the penultimate fan. She has read the book. She has seen the show. She knows what everyone is up to, Herb Sargent notes. "She really listens." And she cares. New York's puzzle-poser Mary Ann Madden, having confessed a mad passion for Donald Sutherland, was deeply touched when Elaine phoned her at home one night. "He's here," was all Elaine said. Mary Ann threw on some clothes, leaped into a cab and arrived at Elaine's half-zipped. "She had neglected to say he was having dinner with Jane Fonda. I turned around and went home."
One evening some of the stalwarts were sitting around the Training Table and someone said, "Why don't we do somewhere else once in a while, instead of sitting here with all these people?"
The response has a solipsist finality. "Because," someone said, "we are all these people."
1703 Second Avenue at 88th Street
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