A DAY IN THE LIFE OF STARS

A nova is a variable star that suddenly increases in brightness to several times its normal light, and then returns to its original appearance – in either a week or years.   A supernova is a rarer celestial phenomenon. When experiencing a supernova, we are seeing the explosion of most of its material, making it an extraordinarily bright, short-lived object that emits vast amounts of energy. In the restaurant business, sometimes a week seems like a million years.  

In this respect, Stars was a supernova. 

Here is what it was like.

MORNING

I arrived at Stars, my restaurant in San Francisco early in the morning and the espresso machine fouled my cappuccino. I left a note to the opening bartender wondering what it was in his job description and checklist that he didn’t understand about flushing the machine every day with cleaner. Of course, my note was written in state-of-the-art California human resources language rather than mine. I didn’t want a pouty and whiny bartender when I returned for my next coffee.

Fueled by the cappuccino I drove to the flower market.

I was doing the flowers for Stars for a while to figure out what a reasonable fee was for someone else to charge me for that service. I bought twelve-foot-long wild rose runners, massive magnolia and just-fruiting fig branches, and twenty dozen cut flowers. After a fast gossip with a couple of the less discreet vendors about which restaurants were not paying their bills, I stuffed all the flowers in the Citroen “Deux Chevaux” van and drove back to Stars. As I walked through the doors, the bartender forced a smile and held out a new cappuccino.

As soon as the flowers were done, I visited the basement and greeted the Latino-Tibetan-Vietnamese prep crew. These were my favorite employees, and twenty minutes with them could have been the last really good moments of the day, depending on what I would hear at the morning managers’ meeting at ten. I savored the time talking about washing lettuce by hand and showing them again how to peel fava beans (never blanched) and peel and cut the cardoon for a lobster dish slated for one of that night’s private parties. Without these little teaching sessions (which worked both ways), and sometimes despite them, the day—which could last until two the next morning— could go really bad.

I checked on the toilets, the homeless outside, the basement pumps, the carpet, the “take” from the day before, and sat with my chef, bartender, assistant, private dining manager, dining room manager, sous-chef, and bookkeeper. We knew it was going to be a rough day, so I canceled my daytime once-a-week bartending and called in the spare.

The mayor was in for lunch with a new girlfriend and so was his old one with someone else, so seating in the preferred section was going to be delicate. Our most regular couple, and also our most demanding, were booked at the same time as the mayor. They hated the mayor and, when drunk would go over and tell him why his lack of Irish ancestry left him less than a man. Joan Collins and Barbra Streisand were booked at lunch for at the same time and, knowing restaurateurs never have the benefit of coincidence, I wondered aloud if one of them was booked for the same time the following week. Either way I would be asked to sit with both after lunch, cutting into my time to prepare for dinner and the private parties. 

Herb Caen put the pressure on with a note saying he hoped we would do our usual eleven out of ten for “Baby Denise” that night. Parsifal was opening at the opera, which meant starting at 5, an hour earlier. Lunch would be frantic to end early. Denise Hale’s party for Zubin Mehta would leave us a little more than the usual fifteen minutes to turn “The Club” from regular seating into a fairyland of special decor that would have strained London’s Ritz. Carol Channing’s anti-allergy lunch box had to be taken from her the moment she entered and kept at the maître d’ stand so she didn’t worry it would be contaminated. Denise’s chauffeur was to arrive at 5:00 PM with her pink light-bulbs, the candle stands, tablecloths, and napkins. All the special plates, glasses, decor, and flatware would have to be polished by 5:00 P.M. and put nearby in the hallway out of sight for the minutes we had to set up her party. I told the bartender to make new special ice cubes with Evian for Denise’s husband. And to remind the evening bartender to have Prentis’ Waterford glass, little tray, and two pieces of bread ready for his arrival by 7:45.

“It’s your neck,” I reminded the dining room manager and continued briefing.

The security guards for the jewels worn would have to be fed. The piano had to be moved and tuned in place for the reception, then moved back for the later bar crowd. That took eight people and me. Chilies had to be crushed for Zubin Mehta no earlier than 8:00 P.M. Cookies set aside for the chauffeur. The North Station guys alerted that Danielle Steele was wearing her two-million-dollar-each Graff twin diamonds, one on each hand. The dining room staff alerted that her Dior dress cost $150,000, that no waiter was allowed near her, that the red wine would have to be poured only by the manager, and that she needed a special stool because she couldn’t sit down in that dress. Our insurance company had to be alerted about the jewels and the dress. There was to be a special cake, which Mrs. Mehta had arriving by private jet from Los Angeles by six o’clock. An alert to me and the pastry chefs was to be sent out if no one had seen it by then.

There were two private dinners that night other than Denise’s, one for twenty-five in the Grill Room and one for forty in the “JT’s” room. The chef reported all the food was prepped. The late-arriving wine steward said he’d checked the wines, and one selection of the parties’ wines was missing.

“Find it!”

The flowers were being supplied by the hosts of the parties. I reminded the manager about our 10 percent service charge for that. And to make sure Denise was not charged for the cake Mrs. Mehta was bringing.

“Whatever you do, if I am busy, make sure the security guards have the homeless out of there by seven o’clock.”

I heard a shout from the men’s room as one of the staff ran into a particularly scrofulous homeless man taking a bath from the sink. We escorted him out, and the dishwasher cleaned up the piles of wet old newspaper that had been used as underwear. With concealed rage I reminded everyone to keep the front door locked until 11:00 A.M. and told them to re-clean the room. Then I went up to my office.

The first meeting was about the ever mysterious, and always emotional, annual health insurance policies, the monthly financials, the bank loan payment now at $35,000 a month, cash flow, and the cash for my trip. The second was with my assistant about my seven-day round-the-world press trip in two days’ time.

LUNCH

Thank you for reading Out of the Oven. If you upgrade for the whole experience, and pay $5 a month or $50 a year, you will receive at least weekly publications, as well as menus, recipes, videos of me cooking, and full access to archives. Continue reading for the Lunch, Afternoon, Evening, Late Evening & Midnight at Stars.