DELICIOUSLY UNSUITABLE : Lunch With ‘The Man’ Is a Rite of Passage That Demands Just the Right Attitude

You can always spot the guy having Lunch With the Suits. He’s the 22-year-old at Le Dome wearing a torn MC Ren shirt at a table full of people otherwise dressed in Armani; she’s the seven-earringed woman pacing near the entrance at Pinot Bistro, practicing her sneer when she thinks nobody’s looking. He’s the young record producer who wears a sweat suit to Spago, scoffing at The Man even as he scarfs his chopped vegetable salad.

Lunch With the Suits is one of the great rituals of Hollywood, where expensive food is traded for attitude, and if you have a project that requires more capital than you can scrounge pulling decaf lattes at Starbucks, the ritual becomes inevitable.

If you are in a hot rock ‘n’ roll band or are just out of film school, you can eat free for months if you play your cards right. You can play label rep off against label rep over plates full of rare prime rib, complaining about your manager between mouthfuls of the risotto that she’s paying for. Just remember the cardinal rule: You are not a Suit yourself.

It may be all but essential that you dress for the occasion, but you would do well to remember that a person in a position to pick up your tab at the Ivy will usually wear clothes more elegant than you will be able to afford for years. Try to be ironic instead. If you are a director right out of film school, a skeevy Hang Ten shirt worn with an old pair of cords will remind your host of how he used to dress when he was 12. (This is a good thing.) If you sing lead in a punk-rock band, feel free to wear your unwashed bondage pants and fly your Mohawk high. If you don’t freak out your Suit at least just a little, you’re not doing your job.

It is your right, even your obligation, to be a little bit difficult at these lunches. If you are in a restaurant famous for its elaborate desserts, demand a bowl of plain ice cream. If somebody wants to buy you a drink, make the waiter find out all the single-malt scotches behind the bar that day, then order a bottle of Bud.

And make sure to cultivate the right air of indifference toward the food. Even if you have never eaten a dessert more sophisticated than a Hostess Sno-Ball, it is unseemly to get yourself too worked up over the passion fruit charlotte with pistachio creme anglaise . Make it seem as if you are ordering lobster only because corn dogs are not available. Take a note from famous wine writers and scan the 75-page wine list, then dismiss it for having only one Gewurtztraminer.

Of course, the discovery of creme brulee is something of a rite of passage in itself. Creme brulee , available only in relatively expensive restaurants, is the very culinary embodiment of extreme richness. Courtney Love has equated an acquaintance with creme brulee with the act of selling out. Sonic Youth wrote a song about creme brulee . Creme brulee is pretty good, but don’t get carried away with the stuff. It’s only dessert.

Attitude is also fine. But if you want to be invited out again, you must always let the guy with the gold card choose the restaurant--Georgia again ?--and must usually pretend to be just a little in her debt. You must listen to her Woodstock stories without interrupting and even nod a little at her comparisons of Buffalo Springfield and the Offspring. Presumably, the ultimate goal of this lunch, beyond a free plate of swordfish carpaccio, is a gig of some kind: a sculpture commission; 12 weeks of music editing on a movie about a baseball-playing chimp; a chance to interview Juliette Lewis for GQ. There is such a thing as being too cool for your own good.

And remember: You yourself may be a Suit someday, and the transition from sullen guest to exuberant host can be difficult.

“If I take this job,” a friend of mine worried, “does it mean I have to go out and buy pantyhose?”