Like a pack of wolves, the rich travel together, from one watering hole to another. Not because they like each other so much as because they can’t bear the idea that they might be missing something: who showed up with whom and wearing what and who got doused with water for coming too close.
Already the most famous “unopened” restaurant in the city, still in “previews” after four months, still doing a “soft opening” without a working phone for reservations, The Waverly Inn could hardly be more popular. Everyone in “that pack” has been there—and not just once or twice, but frequently, and they’re determined to make sure that everyone around them knows it. They make sure their fellow diners know which room they prefer—the back one with the fireplace—and why can’t they have the truffled mac-and-cheese tonight and not only on Tuesday nights? And is there any lettuce in the kitchen, because that’s all they really want tonight—apart from the sweet potato mash.
Oh, yes, the rich are different. Air-kissing one moment, and dissing the next. “He blew up like a tick on a deer,” she said, speaking of an old beau who’s just passed by. “We’ve an open marriage,” he confided. “She’s still getting her divorce.” And the outfits—like a catwalk in Paris: Gaultier and Galliano. Clothes as investment, signifiers of net worth. Table-hopping and toasting to each other—before muttering under their breath. The hair: that high-maintenance New York blonde. And the accents—faux British and Locust lockjaw.
Perhaps it’s the “unfinished” Edward Sorel murals along the walls. Sorel’s satire of the Village, all the artists and writers, all those bon vivants creating a salon of sorts in this series of low-ceilinged, creaky-floored, gas-fireplaced rooms. And if it’s not entirely a literary salon, well, at least it’s a salon of the celebrated—at least by their own kind.
At times, it feels as if Elaine’s or Swifty’s has moved downtown. Was this how 21 first felt, years ago—or the Stork, or El Mo? All those clubby watering holes like the Cub Room in All About Eve.
If this was how it was, well then, no wonder the rich and celebrated kept returning—for apart from the endless parade, there’s also a great deal to love about the food. The biscuits, for example, warm and dusted with sugar, with their own little crock of sweet butter.
And then comes the truffled fries, and the slow-roasted caramelized carrots—reason enough right there to return again the next night. But there’s also a beet salad, fresh from the greenmarket, and a rocket salad, equally vibrant.
And for dessert a bananas Foster which might find you licking the copper pot. There’s something about this food which evokes the very best of classic American cuisine—the sort of food one might expect to find at a Labor Day spent at the National in Southampton or at the beginning of summer in Newport. Food that might well have been brought up north by the people who knew how to cook it best down south. And the attentive service has a kind of graciousness often encountered at some of the best-managed private clubs, both in the country and city.
Who can resist? Food that makes you feel good—as well as a feast for the eyes and ears. This is New York dining at its most theatrical, an off-Broadway show well worth the price of admission and the wait to get in.
LINK: The Waverly Inn
