Read Garlic and Sapphires Online

Authors: Ruth Reichl

Garlic and Sapphires (17 page)

“How?” I asked, watching him run a hand across his head and wondering, as we all did, whether he was wearing a toupee.
He gave his hair a final tug and said, “Last year I had to go have lunch with one of the paper's bigger advertisers to explain why, even though you are always writing about steak, you never choose to write about the steak in
his
restaurants. That's okay, that's my job, I don't mind. But you go five years without a single correction, and then you make a mistake about Sparks. Sparks!”
“Oooh,” I said, beginning to understand.
“That's not a good place to make a mistake about!” he said.
“I'm sorry,” I said, feeling a little sick. The greenies are bad; corrections are worse.
“And it wasn't even about food!” he fumed. “It was about art!”
“I'm sorry,” I said again.
“Don't criticize the art if you don't know what you're talking about!”
“Have you seen the paintings they have hanging in there?” I asked, trying to make John smile. He was not in the mood.
“You could have called them ugly,” he said. “That's an opinion, and you have a right to it. You could have called them atrocious, or repulsive, or even ludicrous. But you cannot call them ersatz, for Christ's sake. That is not a judgment. That's a fact.”
“I know,” I said, “but ersatz is such a great word.”
He groaned.
In a Diner's Journal article about the newly expanded Sparks, I had written this: “The new restaurant is huge and slightly tacky, so filled with ersatz old things that it looks more like a steakhouse designed by Disney than one in the beating heart of Manhattan.”
The owners were furious. They sent a registered letter assuring us that all the antiques were genuine and could be documented. They said that their Hudson River School paintings had been characterized as one of the better collections. They insisted that all the ugly old cabinets were made by Horner, who was not only one of the greatest American furniture makers of all time, but a New Yorker to boot. They demanded a correction.
They got one. “I'll do even better,” I promised John. “I like the place. They serve good steak. I'll write a full review.”
“Fine idea,” he said.
And so, for the first time in my life I set out to review a restaurant with my mind already made up.
Giving Sparks a good review should have been easy. It is, after all, a perennial favorite with New York critics, who are charmed by its meat, its wine list, and its background. Although Sparks is an infant in the venerable pantheon of New York steakhouses, it acquired instant history in 1985 when mob boss Paul Castellano was gunned down right in front. New Yorkers love a Mafia connection, and the restaurant's reputation was made.
“You're going to like this place,” I promised Nicky as we opened the door. He was older now, and it took more than hash browns to win his endorsement. “They do this thing with the tablecloths, a sort of magic act where they whip them off without removing the plates.”
“I
am
going to like that,” he replied confidently.
But by the time we got to the magic plates, Nicky was fast asleep with his head on the table. We had spent forty-five minutes waiting to be seated, jostled by an ever-increasing crowd of growingly disgruntled people. The maître d', who glared at us when he saw that we had a child in tow, had no sympathy for our distress.
“This is ridiculous,” said Michael after twenty minutes. “Let's leave.”
“We can't,” I pointed out. “I've
got
to review this place.”
“But I'm so hungry,” he said morosely. “If we aren't seated in fifteen minutes I'm going to call and order a pizza. I'll have it delivered right here.”
“You can't,” I pleaded, thinking of John. “Please don't.”
Fortunately our table beat the deadline. Unfortunately the service was terrible, the steaks were worse, and Nicky found the hash browns so sad that they put him to sleep. He woke up in time to taste the tartufo, took one bite, and put his head back down on the table.
“Are you telling me,” said Michael as he carried our sleeping son out the door, “that you're going to write a good review of an ugly restaurant that doesn't honor reservations and serves terrible food?”
“This was just a bad night,” I said optimistically. “Every restaurant's entitled to one. It's usually much better.”
“Okay,” he said, “we'll give them another chance.”
But things got worse. One night we were seated next to a group of drunken stockbrokers. Another night I showed up for my confirmed reservation only to find the restaurant closed. At other times the food came undercooked, overcooked, and overdressed. In the end I took a fellow critic along, hoping that he'd be recognized and get a great steak. He was, and he did—but mine was terrible. The two of us sat there, tasting the two steaks side by side, completely flummoxed by the experience.
“You told me that you liked the place!” cried John when he read the review.
“I thought I did,” I said, “but further investigation proved me wrong. You wouldn't want me to pull my punches, would you?”
“Of course not.” He sighed and let the matter drop.
But a few months later John called me back into his office. “I just had a meeting with the owner of Sparks,” he said.
“Uh-oh.”
“You can say that again. He told me to, and this is a direct quote, ‘order up a positive story and put it on the fucking front of Dining.'”
“You're kidding!” I said.
“No,” he said, “I'm not. He even had the chutzpah to tell me when to do it. He said I should blame it on ‘the old man.'”
“The old man?”
“Yeah, to tell my subordinates that the senior Mr. Sulzberger told me to do it.”
“What did you tell him?”
“After I caught my breath and counted to ten,” said John, “I told him we simply don't operate like that. And you know what he said? He said, ‘Oh yeah? Don't be fucking naive.'”
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he replied wearily. “But do me a favor, okay? From now on, stay away from steak.”
WHERE STEAK IS BOTH KING AND JESTER
by Ruth Reichl
KURT VONNEGUT JR. does not seem happy. The author has been hanging around the entryway of Sparks with the actor Albert Finney and about 20 other hopeful diners. The maitre d'hotel does not seem in the least concerned that we are squashed into an uncomfortable crowd, and he is brusque with those of us who ask when our tables will be ready. After about 20 minutes, Mr. Vonnegut's party leaves, and as I watch the men walk through the door, I find myself wondering if there is another restaurant in America where people of such stature would be kept cooling their heels.
In the end, we wait 40 minutes for our reservation, but it is some consolation to know that Sparks does not play favorites.
The problem is that it does not play favorites with the steaks either. I have had terrific steaks at Sparks. I have had mediocre ones, too. Sometimes on the same evening. And although lobster is usually excellent, there have been nights when it was a disaster. Late last year, Sparks expanded into the space next door, once occupied by Arcimboldo, and the kitchen seems to be struggling. Hash browns are not always crisp, meat is often overcooked, and almost everything is oversalted. But there are two things of which you can be absolutely certain when you are finally seated: the service will be cheerful, and the wine list will make up for almost everything else.
It is, however, possible to improve your odds of getting a great meal at Sparks. I hereby offer these guidelines.
• Dine on Saturday night. At Sparks, unlike other restaurants, Saturdays seem slow. You are more likely to be seated immediately, and you are unlikely to be seated next to a group of 13 drunken stockbrokers celebrating their bonuses, as I was one Wednesday night. “How much did they spend?” I asked our waiter when the table terrorizing us finally departed, “Oh, not much,” he said, flipping open his order pad. “They only had four double magnums and a bottle of port. Just a couple grand.”
• Don't bring a crowd. Maybe it is just coincidence, but the best meal I had at Sparks was the night I took only one guest. Everything came out piping hot, and both the steak and the lobster were superb.
• Watch what others eat. You don't see anyone around you eating hot seafood appetizers, and there is a reason for that. The baked clams are very bready and not very baked. You don't see anyone eating melon either. The appetizers of choice are shrimp cocktail (served butterflied and flat on the plate), lump crabmeat, and a sliced tomato and onion salad. The cognoscenti, you will note, ask to have their tomato salads chopped and topped with Roquefort dressing, which makes a very American and curiously delicious treat. You will also find that many around you are eating asparagus vinaigrette. It is not on the menu, but it is very good.
• Stick to plain steak and chops. The menu is filled with froufrou food like medallions of beef in bordelaise sauce, steak fromage (topped with Roquefort cheese) and beef scalop pine (sliced filet with peppers and mushrooms). The kitchen seems to have utter contempt for someone wanting anything so effete, and neither the meat nor the sauce is on the same level as the straightforward dishes. Incidentally, the most reliable dish I have found is lamb chops, which are always delicious.
• It you want seafood, have lobster. Lobster at Sparks is usually reliable, although once it was so tough I wish I had sent it back. Fish are treated as if they were silly intruders, and those who order chunks of lobster meat and broiled shrimp in lemon butter sauce are going to get what they deserve. This is, after all, a steakhouse.
• Don't be embarrassed to send it back. The steaks are prime and aged in a combination of wet and dry aging. The quality varies, and you can only pray you will get one of the great ones. But you don't have to pray about the cooking; if it is not as you like it, ask the waiter to take it back to the kitchen. If you ordered rare meat, you shouldn't have to eat it well done.
• Don't expect much from the hash browns. Unfortunately, I have never had a great plate of hash browns at Sparks. They should be crisp on the outside, soft within and very hot. I wonder if the kitchen even knows how to make them? Buttered spinach, on the other hand, is bright green and delicious.
• Drink your dessert (unless you're having cheesecake). Skip the tartufo, the berries and the ice cream, and note that there are terrific ports, Sauternes and late-harvest wines that would make a very sweet ending to the meal.
• Confirm your reservation. Sparks can be very casual when you call.
I once made a reservation for Sunday night only to show up and discover that the restaurant was closed. Sparks, it turns out, is never open on Sunday.
 
SPARKS STEAK HOUSE
Chloe
I
liked the black satin suit the minute I saw it at Michael's Resale. The jacket was simple, tight, cut low, with a little flare at the bottom. The skirt was short, with three tiers. It fit me perfectly—more than perfectly. It made me look elegant, thin, put together. Glancing in the mirror, I caught a flash of leg. Then my eyes moved upward and I witnessed an instant metamorphosis. What I saw was a woman who stood up very straight, so she appeared taller. Her hands had long red fingernails and her smooth, pale face was framed by silky, champagne-colored hair. As I watched, the person who belonged inside that suit invented herself. She even told me her name. When I took off the jacket, it said “Chloe.”
I went straight from Michael's to the wig shop on Fifty-seventh Street. I'd never been inside, but I'd often walked past the elegant showroom, with its long spills of human hair, and I felt that Chloe deserved the best of everything.

Other books

The Interview by Meredith Greene
The Theory of Opposites by Allison Winn Scotch
Straight by Dick Francis
Way Past Legal by Norman Green
Fallen Eden by Williams, Nicole