The Hunger: A Story of Food, Desire, and Ambition

253 Pages·2009·1.11 MB·English

by  John Delucie

To Mom and Dad
Contents

Author’s Note vi

Introduction by Graydon Carter viii

Prologue 1

Office Space 7

Happy All the Time 12

Ingredients 19

Was It Him? 25

Trial by Salad 30

Crossing Bloomingdale’s 37

South by Southwest 46

Benediction 53

Twelve Smoking Ducks 58

Blue Chili 66

Gold Leaf and Turbot 71

The Waverly Juice 78

The Brothers Calamari 86

Waltz for PJ 92

iv
Reluctant Patty 100

Running from Stilettos 107

Angst Hampton 112

Food and Marriage 120

The Conversation 126

Park Babylon South 131

French Roast 140

Odd Pairing 147

Under New Management 154

More Butter 161

Reduction 169

Piatti Secondi 178

The Man 185

Mac & Jeez! 195

Unhinged 202

Adrenaline Junkie 207

Coda 217

Epilogue 223

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Credits

Cover

Copyright

About the Publisher

v CONTENTS
Author’s Note

Some names, dates, places, and chronology of events have been changed
or altered. I apologize to those whose stories were left on the cutting-
room floor. I also apologize to those who wish their stories were left on
the cutting-room floor.

Introduction

When a small group of us bought The Waverly Inn in 2005, I was a rela-
tive newcomer to the hospitality trade (if you don’t count thirty-five
years of dining out as an editor with a liberal expense account). I may
not have known a thing about how a restaurant worked, but I did know
what I expected in return for my trade and 20 percent tip: convivial sur-
roundings, gentle lighting, crisp service, and good food. The Waverly
Inn—at least in my years in New York—was a stranger to all of the
above. It was not without its charms, however—a compelling history
being one of them. The restaurant opened its doors when Babe Ruth
was still pitching for the Red Sox. It was originally billed as a tearoom,
a concept that had less to do with the tastes of its proprietors and more
to do with timing: the 1919 Volstead Act, ushering in Prohibition, had
been passed the year before.
Set as it was in a charming little nook carved out of the ground
floor of a Greenwich Village brownstone with a garden out back, The
Waverly Inn survived that initial, ill-advised period of temperance and
passed through many hands as the century progressed. Rumor has it
that the restaurant once fronted for a brothel. Fact has it that it had been
owned by the secretary to Clare Boothe, then the managing editor of
viii
Vanity Fair—a coincidence I found interesting, to say the least. That
she went on to marry Henry Luce, founder of Life and Time magazines
(both of which I have worked for), was another point in the restaurant’s
favor. (As was the fact that Dawn Powell, whose 1942 novel, A Time to
Be Born, was based on the Luce-Boothe marriage, lived across the way
at 23 Bank Street.) More recently—and in relative decrepitude—the
restaurant was a haunt operating in blissful disobedience of New York
City’s smoking ban, which, I will freely admit, further enamored me of
the place.
We wanted the front room of the restaurant to have the clubby cul-
ture and warm, flattering lighting of Elaine’s on the Upper East Side, or
Harry’s Bar, in Mayfair. And we wanted the conservatory—the garden
room out back—to be warm and cheery, with a nod to San Lorenzo, in
Kensington. Most important, since all the owners live in the neighbor-
hood, we wanted The Waverly Inn & Garden (as it has officially been
known) to be a local restaurant—the kind of place where the barman
begins pouring your old fashioned after recognizing the pitter-patter of
your footsteps as you made your way down to the door.
The little I knew about running a restaurant was matched only by
my ignorance of the actual preparation of food. Aside from occasional
stints in front of an outdoor grill or a campfire, I’ve cooked maybe a
few dozen meals in my life. As a result, I have boundless admiration
for anyone who can disappear into the kitchen and whip up something
as simple as a ham sandwich. When it comes to restaurants, I’ve never
been comfortable eating in places where small, precious dishes are self-
consciously arranged on fragile, outsize china. I don’t like foam. I don’t
like the solemn hush of the four-star dining room. Or having the food
redescribed to me once it hits the table. Nor do I welcome the arrival of
amuse-bouches—those little “gifts” chefs send out to make you feel
special, until you look around and realize that everyone else has them
ix INTRODUCTION