D.C. Restaurant Puts the <i> Grand </i> Into Opening : Multimillion-Dollar Cafe Makes Eating a Dazzling Adventure

WASHINGTON — Imagine a big, BIG restaurant (40,000 square feet) that seems to be made out of Liberace’s dinner jackets.

That is the general idea (we’ll go on to the gold electric train, the 24 chandeliers and the topless body builders later) of Washington’s newest eatery and curiosity: a dazzling, if not blinding, creation of Hollywood-born Warner LeRoy, creator of New York’s Tavern on the Green and Maxwell’s Plum restaurants, and now, here in serious, gray-flannel Washington, a truly whacked-out place called Potomac.

A Mere 600 Guests

Potomac, which cost $12 million to build, opened Wednesday night to 600 invited guests, most of whom paid $175 each to benefit Children’s Hospital National Medical Center.

LeRoy, aglow in a $10,000 white satin and gold sequinned jacket made in France just for the occasion, admitted that growing up as the son of Hollywood director Mervyn LeRoy may have something to do with his taste in interior decorating. “I’m certainly a product of my upbringing,” said LeRoy, 51. “I grew up on Warner Bros.’ back lot and I was enormously influenced by my father making ‘The Wizard of Oz.’ ”

Emerald City has nothing on Potomac, where the ceilings are splashed with 800,000 tiny pieces of handmade colored glass, which are illuminated in swirls. The two dozen imported crystal chandeliers with their pink, green, red and blue prisms match the sconces perched on shiny white pillars. Below is a carpet LeRoy designed (he designed it all ), a repeating floral pattern of 49 colors on a royal blue background.

There are no walls, only windows and mirrors. The six indoor and outdoor dining sections seat 1,500 and are nestled on the Potomac River, which manages to look dull by comparison.

Among those enjoying the ambiance were Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), Washington Mayor Marion Barry, writer Kurt Vonnegut, food writer Craig Claiborne, former Urban League leader Vernon Jordan and film director Alan Pakula.

“It’s small, but it’s tasteful,” one observer remarked.

“Kids would love this,” another said.

“It’s glamorous,” LeRoy said, “a grand cafe for everybody. I try to build the most beautiful things. To me it’s my art and I do it the best way I can.”

Meal Prices

But will it play in Washington? LeRoy estimates that to break even he’ll have to serve as many as 1,000 meals a day in this giganto-cafe in Georgetown. (Dinner entrees are $14 to $25 a la carte; side dishes $1.75 to $4.75 and deserts about $3. Wine starts at $11 and tops out at $90 for Dom Perignon 1980 Champagne.)

“Everybody eats,” LeRoy said. “We have served 2,000 meals a day in Tavern on the Green and 1,000 at Maxwell’s Plum. I don’t know what will happen here, but it (survival) is not a crazy thought.”

After acrobats scaled tall, swaying poles outside, dinner began when the fish course was carried in on a platform by two topless male body builders, well-greased, preceded by a woman in a wild costume and followed by a band.

LeRoy’s jacket, with matching white satin trousers, was designed, he said, by Gean Vermont, “the greatest embroiderer in the world,” he said. “He makes his patterns only once. This was his pattern for the most elaborate wedding dress in French couture. But it was so expensive, no one would buy it.”

Not a few people wonder if Washington will buy this restaurant. ABC anchorman Peter Jennings, a friend of LeRoy’s and one of dozens of media guests, remarked that “only in America” would you find something like this.

“It’s terrific,” Jennings said. “Look! Look! Look!,” he said, pointing up at a gold train chugging along the rail of a balcony above.

“I came here at 8:30 this morning to look at it,” Jennings said, “and I was worried about whether this would work in Washington. I asked everybody I saw today about it and everybody said that it would work.

”. . . This may be the most exciting thing we’ve seen inside the Beltway (the freeway that encircles Washington) in a long time. I’m glad it hasn’t been done by a man who can’t afford it.”