COVER STORY : Power Eating : In the land of deals on meals, maitre d’s are brokers of telltale tables and restaurants feed off high-profile customers

Imagine, for a moment, the worst type of natural disaster. Say, an earthquake, typhoon, mudslide or zero receipts at the weekend box office. The world is thrown into a frenzy. Southern California is adrift.

Only one thing remains unchanged. Five people in the entertainment industry will be assured their tables at the Palm restaurant in West Hollywood: Columbia Pictures Chairman Frank Price, Creative Artists Agency Chairman Michael Ovitz, International Creative Management President Jim Wiatt, producer Dick Zanuck and Castle Rock President Alan Horn.

“When we first opened and it was empty, Alan Horn ate here every day,” explains Louis (Gigi) DelMaestro, the Palm’s general manager and maitre d’, who doles out tables with alacrity to his favored few. “He was loyal. They were all loyal. And they reap the rewards, accordingly.”

Few things in Hollywood cause as much pride or panic as Power Eating, the name given to that frenzied period during breakfast, lunch or dinner when thousands of show business figures vie for hundreds of tables at only a dozen or so restaurants. The point is to be well-situated so that scripts can be pitched, movies produced and distribution deals made in an atmosphere suitable for such Hollywood fare.

Agents have been known to whimper. Studio heads to plead. Producers to grovel. Entertainment lawyers to cringe. And all because some maitre d’--no matter if he/she’s a seasoned pro or a wannabe with an unfinished screenplay--either won’t give them a prime-time reservation, or else is leading them to a table in the equivalent of Siberia.

Now none of this matters when you’re browsing the buffet court at the Sizzler. But sitting in the wrong section of Mortons is perceived as just as suicidal for a movie exec as expressing an honest opinion.

So important is getting a reservation and then a “good” table at the see-and-be-seen restaurants around town that The Art of the Deal has become The Art of the Meal. When food is so much not the issue, it’s where you eat and not what you eat that counts, or so it seems.

Any day now, a lunch table at Le Dome will become the subject of a nasty studio head ouster: “I gave you the best films of my life--and you expect me to sit in the corner? “

Once the industry’s “in” people are safely within a restaurant’s walls, smart restaurateurs make a point of knowing their clients’ credentials. It was rumored for years that Spago’s front-desk folk would call Michael Ovitz’s assistants to find out if a potential customer was important enough to rate a good table. Wolfgang Puck won’t confirm or deny that, but he readily admits that “we always keep open spaces for the powerful people because they are the bread-and-butter. Or else the restaurant would be full from 7 to 10 p.m. with tourists.” And a maitre d’ at Il Giardino was offered a big promotion if he went to another restaurant--just as long as he took his reservation book with all the VIP names and phone numbers with him.

Other maitre d’s and general managers have an uncanny knack for putting faces with job descriptions. “I must have about 5,000 names in my head,” boasts the Palm’s DelMaestro. “And their titles.”

Others actually do research, which is why L.A.’s best-known restaurants have subscriptions to various industry publications, from the trades to the Hollywood Creative Directory, which is updated several times a year.

“When I see a new client come in and I suspect that they’re powerful in the business, I always make it a point to run over and ask the waiter to see the client’s credit card so I can check the name. I see if it registers for me,” confides Andrew Tsao, the maitre d’ at Joss.

“Like the other day, Brian Mann came in, and I thought he was someone I had never met before. But when I checked his card, I realized this is a talent agent at ICM. The next time he comes in, I’ll be sure to have the hostess or myself or someone greet him by name. It’s all very subtle, but he’ll realize he’s been recognized and appreciated as a customer.”

A little history is in order. When the studios covered mega-acres of prime real estate, there was plenty of room to house the offices of producers and stars, who were only too happy to lunch in the commissary. But then studios began selling off their property and there seemed less room for everybody. Plus the quality of the food at the commissaries, thanks to cost-cutting, became execrable. The result was that everyone began renting office space everywhere. Add to that the proliferation of talent agencies and law firms, and the birth of lighter California cuisine, and suddenly there are a lot of three-Perrier meals being charged to entertainment industry expense accounts.

Naturally, a few key restaurants would replace the studio commissaries of yore as the wheeling-and-dealing places of preference. The result was that dinner at Mortons became the scene for the signing of the $15-million, five-picture deal between then-Paramount head of production Michael Eisner and Eddie Murphy. And lunch at Jimmy’s was the place where Steve Silbert, attorney for then-MGM-UA Entertainment kingpin Kirk Kerkorian, negotiated much of the MGM-UA/Turner Broadcasting Co. pact.

In the old days, Romanoff’s and Chasen’s, the Polo Lounge and Ma Maison (before its Sofitel Hotel period) became famous because they were populated by stars. But today’s hot restaurants attract star-makers. That translates into studio heads, record company executives, top agents, well-known producers, key entertainment lawyers and elite publicists--in other words, the people with the power and influence to make things happen in Hollywood, not the celebrities who are photographed by the paparazzi outside Spago.

In fact, the Power Eateries don’t boast the best food or the prettiest decor or the most recognizable actors or rock stars. But an ordinary cafe can be transformed into an entertainment industry hangout through a process that’s 50% location and 50% luck.

And once it happens, oh, the rewards! It means mentions in Army Archerd’s and George Christy’s columns. It means 10 reservation lines ringing at once. It means two or three seatings for meals, and tables booked well in advance. In short, it means success.

“When a select few of very powerful and influential people choose your restaurant as a dining place, it immediately has a ripple effect in the industry,” explains Joss’ Tsao, “because everybody wants to eat where they eat. It’s like they create a clubhouse.”

And with it goes an ever-changing pecking order, to the constant amusement of the club members. Even the smallest seating snafu is scrutinized with the same intensity as Soviet scholars keeping tabs on the Kremlin. Consider, for example, this apocryphal tale:

The year was 1985, and MGM-UA had just split into separate companies. The entertainment industry was searching for clues as to who would ultimately take over the previously contracted-for projects--MGM President Frank Yablans, or United Artists’ new president, Alan Ladd Jr. Forget the fact that both executives had assured everyone that all the movies in progress were divided on a “mutually cooperative” basis; no one in their right mind believed them.

One night, so the story goes, both men made reservations at Mortons. Yablans arrived first and was shown to the perfectly placed front table usually occupied by MGM-UA top executives. Ladd arrived a few minutes later to find that all eyes in the dining room were upon him. Where would he be seated? And would it be in a better or worse position than Yablans?

No one was quite prepared for what actually happened, however. On the grounds that there had been a reservations mix-up, Ladd unwittingly displaced Yablans from the key table. The next day, all of Hollywood claimed to know the true score on the MGM-UA schism. On the other hand, maybe the entire incident took place merely because Ladd was the more faithful Mortons patron.

Other daily dramas like this one get played out at a handful of restaurants with surprisingly familiar names: most notably Mortons, Jimmy’s, Matteo, Madeo, the Palm, the Polo Lounge, Bistro Garden, La Serre and Spago. The reason is that almost all these restaurants have been around for a while. Oh, sure, new restaurants like Stringfellow’s and Asylum may be this year’s flavor of the month. But will it be hot next winter, or next year, or even next decade?

Judging from experience, the answer is probably not.

Instead, a restaurant has to be able to count on a core group of instantly recognizable moguls within the industry who will come in week after week, sometimes even day after day, and therefore attract other people equally or less powerful than themselves, or even (dare we say it) civilians.

“You don’t know how hard we try to seat Mr. and Mrs. Smith at the time of their reservation in the table of their choice as well as (William Morris Agency Chairman) Norman Brokaw,” maintains the Grill’s owner Bob Spivak, whose restaurant is known as the unofficial William Morris commissary. “Let’s face it: You have to have the normal people coming in to see that the ‘in’ people are there for anybody to know that they are ‘in’ people at all.”

One thing is certain: The “right” people can’t be bought, nor PR purchased to bring them to a restaurant’s door. Even the lure of so-called celebrity backers isn’t a guarantee of elbow-to-elbow customers. Witness Mason’s, the short-lived Brentwood bistro whose listing of famous investors read like a rerun of “Night of 100 Stars.” Of course, opening shortly before the 1988 writers’ strike didn’t help matters.

On the other hand, the 60 major investors, including Norman Lear, Sydney Pollack, Christine McVie, Ryan O’Neal and Leonard Nimoy, who put money into Maple Drive certainly didn’t hurt that eatery’s chances of achieving superstar status in an astonishingly short time. More to the point, the restaurant had the benefit of the highly visible 72 Market Street partnership anchored by director-producer-actor Tony Bill and actor-musician Dudley Moore. This pair knows the secret to operating a successful industry watering hole: Get your friends to drop in. So Maple Drive was a sure thing from the outset.

But its thriving industry clientele is also the result of locating in the same complex as thriving industry companies. The fact is that entertainment executives would much rather get out in the fresh air and walk to lunch than hop in their cars and fight the freeways. How else to smooth out those pesky Armani wrinkles?

So it wasn’t just Kismet that Maple Drive restaurant happened to be located in the Maple Plaza complex, which just happens to house Castle Rock Entertainment, Motown Productions, Elektra Records, and the entertainment law firms Hansen Jacobson & Teller, and Cooper Epstein & Hurewitz. To further ensure adequate, uh, decoration, word is that during the restaurant’s first month of operation the partners invited Elite models to eat for free, though maitre d’ Colin Hadlow thought it was “just on the dry runs.”

Location also plays an integral factor in the continued crowding of Jimmy’s, which is adjacent to all the major Century City-Beverly Hills office towers, just a contract’s throw from such entertainment entities as Orion Pictures, agencies CAA and Triad Artists and the law firm of Armstrong & Hirsch. And talk about power eating: Jimmy’s was the site of a post-buyout private luncheon last January hosted by MCA’s Lew Wasserman and Sidney Sheinberg for one of the Matsushita bigwigs’ rare trips to Los Angeles.

The public relations company Rogers & Cowan, housed in the next block, holds some staff meetings at Jimmy’s. Indeed, founder Warren Cowan is such a regular that he isn’t even given a menu anymore. Instead, the waiter already has Cowan’s drink waiting at his favorite corner table in the main room, then departs to fetch him his favorite dish--a plain, plain salad-- without any words needing to be spoken, and finally charging the meal to Cowan’s house account. Nothing could be easier, not even eating at home.

On the other hand, even though David Geffen owns the property underneath Il Giardino, that’s not the only reason it’s an industry favorite. Instead, it’s the combination of homey atmosphere and blink-and-you’ll-miss-it environs. It’s the sort of place you wouldn’t find unless you happened to know what to look for. And therein lies its snob appeal.

“We have people coming in who’ve lived in Beverly Hills for years and did not know this place existed,” notes cashier Christina Sanges.

Once arrived, both literally and figuratively, the power eaters are seated at the power tables, which tend to be located in the front. “You always sit the most ‘in’ people there because you want to show them off,” notes DelMaestro, who escorts them to Nos. 1, 2, 39 and 40 at the Palm. “You really don’t want to put a powerful guy all the way back somewhere where he gets lost in the shuffle.”

At Mortons, an almost visible demarcation line separates superior from Siberian table placement. The rule of thumb is that the better the art, the worse the table. In other words, those customers who find themselves near the paintings by Francis Bacon and Ed Ruscha might as well leave town. Instead, the most coveted tables are in the center of the room or by the bank of windows--the better to see who’s coming in the door.

On the other hand, the coterie of regulars at Le Dome prefer to be tucked discreetly in the back so as not to have their conversations overheard. That’s why entertainment lawyer Jake Bloom, Carolco President Peter Hoffman, ICM Vice President Guy McIlwaine, APA President Marty Klein and media mogul David Geffen (always in his T-shirt and jeans) almost always make the scene.

And why soon after signing Steven Spielberg as a client last year, Michael Ovitz celebrated with a highly visible power lunch at Le Dome with the director and his producing partner Kathleen Kennedy at Spielberg attorney Bruce Ramer’s regular table. In the words of one wag, “It was a way of making a statement to the industry without having to say a word. Just the picture of those four having lunch at Le Dome was enough.”

Then again, some power players don’t always want to be on display. At Jimmy’s, agents like CAA’s Rick Nicita and Rosalie Swedlin and Triad’s Richard Rosenberg request the high-visibility main dining room more times than not. But Orion President Marc Platt prefers the privacy of the heated and air-conditioned Palm Court well to the rear.

At Maple Drive, only the most influential rate a booth, and rate they must because these are considered the most private booths in town. Which helps explain why director Rob Reiner and best friend Billy Crystal can sneak in the back entrance and sit in their booth so unobtrusively at lunchtime that no one knows they’re there. On one occasion, the people manning the reservations desk almost gave Reiner’s table away--though Reiner was halfway through his meal.

Then there’s the time that Walt Disney Studios Chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg made a reservation at Maple Drive for dinner one evening, and the restaurant gave him his usual table, No. 54, which is front and center. Trouble was, Katzenberg’s secretary hadn’t thought to mention that he’d be tete-a-tete with Tom Hanks. Now that should have been strictly a booth meal with plenty of privacy, and Katzenberg understandably wasn’t pleased.

Indeed, an unwritten contract exists in Hollywood between the power eating restaurants and the power eaters’ secretaries and/or assistants, which is to say that nearly every whim can be accommodated just as long as the reservation is made a few hours ahead. And for those people just starting their climb up the industry ladder, at least 24 hours’ notice is expected.

For instance, the Palm’s DelMaestro points out that at least 15 middle- and junior-level entertainment executives usually frequent the restaurant on any given day just because they know their bosses will be sitting there. “They want the exposure,” DelMaestro explains. “So they come in with the upcoming starlets, upcoming writers, upcoming directors that they’re trying to impress and go up to the bosses and say, ‘Hello, let me introduce you to so-and-so.’ And maybe that can’t get done in the office because the bosses don’t really have time. So this becomes another way of doing business.”

At the same time, says DelMaestro, he gives the good tables only to those people he feels really deserve them. For instance, he recalls the time “this nice little old guy” came in on a night when 60 people were waiting.

“So he says, ‘I’ll bet you $100 that you’re not going to give me one of those front tables.’ And I look at him and respond, ‘You’re sweet and wonderful, and that’s a great approach. But you aren’t going to buy one of those tables for $100. So you lose.’ ”

Of course, for the privilege of dining at the Palm regularly, the power eaters may come in one day and find their face sketched on the wall, or even a brass nameplate. In return, they get one of L.A.’s most expensive meals. In fact, the Palm is so popular that the waiters don’t waste time introducing themselves or indulging in niceties. It’s more likely to be a barked “All right, whaddaya want” (although DelMaestro is urging the staff to be more polite. So now they inquire, “What would you like?”).

And if any patrons have overstayed their welcome, a DelMaestro trick-of-the-trade is to turn down the thermostat and literally freeze them out.

The point is that power eateries are careful to feed, not fawn. Nothing turns off industry moguls quicker than a restaurant that appears to be trying too hard for their business. (Which is why the Palm’s DelMaestro refused one powerful agent’s request to stop feeding agents from a rival firm.) Just like the way it reacts to the producer who sweats too much while pitching a movie idea, Hollywood can’t stand the smell of desperation. Power eaters like to side with winners.

Almost always, that means a crowded restaurant. Sometimes it seems that the only place worth going to is the one that keeps others out. Certainly, that’s been Spago’s secret over the years. On the other hand, some restaurants may seem empty when actually they’re holding tables for VIPs.

At 12:30 p.m. on most weekdays, for instance, Maple Drive only looks deserted. That’s because four tables are always held for Triad agents, two each for Castle Rock producers, and one each for Motown Productions President Suzanne de Passe and entertainment lawyer Chuck Hurewitz.

Meanwhile, the management at Madeo always makes room for the likes of MGM-Pathe’s Alan Ladd Jr. and Carolco Chairman Mario Kassar, both of whom have house accounts. At the same time, Madeo must ensure an adequate supply of tables for the daily rush from ICM agents only an elevator’s ride away.

Still, the privilege of proximity can’t be abused. “We just don’t hold the tables hoping they will come in,” explains assistant manager Micky Maravic. “But of the 24 tables in our dining room, usually 14 of them are reserved by the upstairs crowd. Usually it goes real smoothly.”

And sometimes not. ICM founder Marvin Josephson--a low-profile kind of guy in every respect--didn’t get recognized one time. Maybe conscious of that, Maravic was quick to meet and greet the William Morris agents who defected to ICM last December.

At the other end of the spectrum is the Grill, where managing partner Spivak steadfastly refuses to hold tables even for regulars. (And why rumor has it that one powerful agent decided not to frequent the Grill when he found out he couldn’t be guaranteed a regular table in a prime location.)

Of course, for every rule, there’s an exception, like sports and media attorney Ed Hookstratten, who can usually be seen in the second booth on the right at the Grill with such clients as television news anchor Paul Moyer or the voice of the Dodgers, Vin Scully. “Ed is the only person who gets a specific table. And that’s because he happens to come in early almost every day,” Spivak explains.

Though La Serre holds 10 tables for seven Valley-based entertainment companies, a different kind of problem has developed. Here, industry executives don’t fight over the tables; they fight over the waiters. For instance, Antonio Morgio isn’t just the most senior waiter working there (22 of his 42 years), he’s also the most popular. “And sometimes it gets difficult because some people like to sit in one room and other people in another, but they still want to have Antonio,” sighs day maitre d’ Jean Crochet. “I’ve had customers even refuse waiters they don’t know.”

Then there are those power eaters who will go only to the “right” restaurants at the “right” times: Mortons on Mondays and Thursdays (never on weekends), Hugo’s for breakfast on Tuesday mornings (no other meal is considered kosher), Bistro Garden on Fridays (when the ladies-who-lunch crowd can be joined by MCA Chairman Lew Wasserman breaking bread with the likes of Henry Kissinger, or Kirk Kerkorian negotiating with real estate kingpins).

Sunday nights at Matteo’s are known as “family night” within the industry. That’s when former 20th Century Fox owner Marvin Davis and wife Barbara can be seen having dinner with Paul Newman and Warren Cowan alongside the Frank Sinatras, the George Schlatters, the Sidney Poitiers or the Kirk Douglases. And after Gladden Entertainment’s David Begelman married Annabelle Weston in Las Vegas, the returning wedding guests went directly from their private jet to their tables at Matteo’s.

“Sunday nights are like a big party because so many people are table-hopping,” notes maitre d’ Mikey Jordan. “After 28 years in business, we have a clientele where everyone knows everyone.”

In fact, some restaurants know their industry customers so well that they provide power eaters with the equivalent of home-cooked meals.

For instance, legend has it that the famous Leon’s chopped salad at La Scala Boutique was created at the request of an agent who didn’t want chewing to interfere with his ability to talk to his clients. And former MGM-UA Communications Co. CEO Jeffrey Barbakow has a dish named after him at Maple Drive--”barbakowed duck salad.”

At La Serre, Crochet readily admits that waiters will write the names of well-known customers directly on the ticket order. “That way the kitchen automatically knows the details of what they like,” he explains.

Those in the know at Spago order off the menu, and only very special entertainment executives are served Wolfgang Puck’s special dishes, so sources explain. (Puck also cooks for the very special home dinner parties of very special Hollywood clients, and recently designed the kitchen at CAA headquarters.) At Jimmy’s, owner Jimmy Murphy and his son Sean will see to it that special diet demands, even down to a customer’s favorite bottled salad dressing, are kept on hand by the kitchen.

Naturally, scores of other restaurants are approaching power status: Patina (with the Paramount crowd) and Chaya Brasserie (hot attorneys and brat pack managers). Outside the Century City-Beverly Hills-West Hollywood triangle are popular, young Hollywood likes: Jerry’s Deli in Studio City and Encino (known as the Valley Polo Lounge), the Steak Pit in Hollywood (favored by baby moguls and young agents), the Olive (so hip it doesn’t even need a sign outside), Kokomo in the Farmers Market (where the scripts outnumber the menus at breakfast) and Formosa Cafe (for pre- and post-screening meals near the Warner Hollywood lot).

But sometimes power eaters like to do their own thing. Klein of APA seeks out the solace of the garden room Il Cielo. Also reeking of rebellion is Loconda Veneta, where Peter Morton of Mortons takes lunch nearly every day. No matter imf the tables are too close together to discuss business unless you’re planning to plant something in tomorrow’s trades; producers Steve Tisch and Rod Dyer are regulars along with MCA and Virgin Records executives who maintain house accounts.

William Morris President Jerry Katzman likes to have dinner at Toscana.

OK, so you’ve read this far and you think (a) power eating is ridiculous or (b) power eating is de rigueur . Congratulations. You’re on the road to ruin either way. But next time you lose your perspective when it’s Thursday night and the only decent table you can secure is the 10 p.m. seating at Kate Mantilini, remember what happened at Joss a few months ago when the phone rang and a quivering voice asked, “What time is Mass for Danny Thomas?”

Had the comedian been a regular customer of the restaurant? Was Joss a clearinghouse for information about industry events of note?

“No,” explains maitre d’ Tsao, giving a puzzled look. “I think they just confused us with Good Shepherd’s Church.”