toncounscolle

Andrew Lloyd Webber - Let's Have Lunch Lyrics

Face to face dates. But the real old line restaurant is Duke Zeibert's. SAMMY How do you like my harem?

KATHERINE I hate this weather CLIFF You look great LIZ RKO are O. I thought that Having lunch at a hotel is correct. You are where you eat As nearly as can be determined, it all started when Joe Kennedy rented out a restaurant for a private dinner the night before his son's inauguration in 1961.

Andrew Lloyd Webber - Let's Have Lunch Lyrics - But the Washington restaurant era has not taken its dominant character from places like that of Duke Zeibert, a onetime waiter who worked, and many say gambled, his way up.

You are where you eat As nearly as can be determined, it all started when Joe Kennedy rented out a restaurant for a private dinner the night before his son's inauguration in 1961. Still Paul Young's was a brave venture in Washington, a world capital that was a very provincial restaurant town. There were fewer than one hand's count of even approximately French chefs. Back then, important people went out to dinner frequently—but usually in other important people's homes. Joe Kennedy's private party marked the inauguration of Washington's restaurant era. The party made Paul Young's. It was the Kennedy restaurant. The Irish mafia also took to Duke Zeibert's, which was half a block closer to the White House. But the Washington restaurant era has not taken its dominant character from places like that of Duke Zeibert, a onetime waiter who worked, and many say gambled, his way up. What did it was the decided preference of Jackie Kennedy for French food. She had eaten at the Jockey Club, then and now a very expensive French restaurant heavy on the sauces. But it was too far from the White House, especially for lunch. Press Secretary Pierre Salinger started lunching at the Sans Souci. So did Art Buchwald whose opinion was definitely to be valued since he had spent years in Paris. Thus was born a Washington institution, the powerful and the prominent taking their lunch at the S. In 1970, Jean Pierre's pioneered the K Street strip. Two of them claim to be Northern Italian, which seems to mean French plus noodles. The clientele continually expands just beyond the table space allotted. Dining out has become a Washington ritual. At dinner parties you have to sit next to someone you may not know or don't like and table talk is a boring task. The large, lavish parties have become increasingly the preserve of exotic foreign lobbyists like Tongsun Park, South Korea's former fixer in Washington—or of the Ambassadors, among whom the star is Ardeshir Zahedi, who hosted 2000 at the Iranian embassy last October to celebrate the Shah's birthday. People in Washington define themselves by the restaurants they choose. House Speaker Tip O'Neill, who succeeded in 1952 to John Kennedy's congressional seat, remains loyal to Paul Young's. So does another party regular, onetime Democratic National Chairman Bob Strauss. But the real old line restaurant is Duke Zeibert's. Larry O'Brien eats there and Kenny O'Donnell always returns and the labor leaders are steady customers. Duke's patrons are full of lore about the famous. Congressman Gene Keogh of Brooklyn, the sponsor of the Keogh pension plan for the self-employed, ate regularly on other people's tabs. Once he was trapped at a table in Duke's with a group of guests he had invited. None of them grabbed for the check. The difference between John Kennedy's Irish mafia and Jackie Kennedy's Francophiles has endured. The Duke's types tend to look down on the patrons of the new French restaurants on K Street. In fact, some Frenchsounding waiters are illegal aliens, busily serving, among others, the Senators and Representatives who write the immigration laws. Lobbyists and lawyers dining à la client aside, the diners along K Street who are paying for their own meals tend to be liberals. They're not as tight with their money, which is why they have less. The important question is: What is the hot new restaurant? One man or one event can still make or break a Washington restaurant. Henry Kissinger catered a party for the Communist Chinese legation at the Yenching Palace and suddenly it was the Chinese place. It redecorated, raised prices, and reduced portions. Similarly one man, at least, could hurt a restaurant. Ever since Richard Nixon dined publicly at Trader Vic's while President, it has been more declasse than ever for adults to eat there unaccompanied by a child, preferably under 16. The Montpelier Room of the Madison Hotel, certainly the most expensive dining experience in Washington, attracts a certain clientele that tends to be Republican. If you're wondering about the quality of Washington food, then you've missed the point. Some of it is actually good, even excellent, if overpriced; the Guide Michelin would have awarded one star of a possible three to lean Pierre's, the New York Times reported several years ago. Only one other restaurant outside New York would have had a star, the Times asserted. Perhaps Jean Pierre took the star with him to Le Lion D'Or, but that, too, is essentially beside the point. The point is psychic nourishment. A restaurant is a badge of identity. You are where you eat. More important than the food on the plate is where you sit, and that can be a Byzantine matter. In Duke Zeibert's and Jean Pierre's, a front table is a sign of status, but in the Sans Souci it's Siberia. At any rate, Washington's appetite for restaurants with toney atmosphere and high prices—whether they serve steaks, tarted-up hamburgers, California-style leafy mixtures or attempts to scale the heights of haute cuisine—seems insatiable. There is a place in Georgetown that has an ice cream counter with the best hot fudge sundae in Washington. You used to be able to go to the counter, order a sundae, and take it to a table. One afternoon in May, however, the sundaemaker pointed to a rostrum near the counter and a man standing behind it.