Clik here to view.
Given the delectability of all those slender, young, Nautilus-raised male waiterettes, with whom Manhattan is now stocked eyebrow to plucked eyebrow, who would want even the pertest, cutest girls serving at table?
Experience Preferred … But Not Essential is a film that is being much discussed over the smarter tables of Manhattan. It is talked of as a classic about another age, on a level almost of Upstairs Downstairs. It is set in a North Wales seaside resort in 1962; its sense of history, to the New Yorker, dwells in the fact that its heroine is, temporarily, a waitress.
The waitress is almost an extinct creature here now. This is the age of the virtuoso waiter. A woman is what has to be hired occasionally, the also ran for slacker lunchtimes or as a desperate measure while Andrew/Steven/Peter or John are finishing their off-off-Broadway showcase runs, beer commercials or soap shots.
Given the delectability of all those slender, young, Nautilus-raised male waiterettes, with whom Manhattan is now stocked eyebrow to plucked eyebrow, who would want even the pertest, cutest girls serving at table? The keyword is service. Women do serve, there is, alas, no way of escaping that cultural, biological image. Young men are involved in something far grander than the lowly scribbling of orders and bearing of plates. Almost all are actors, singers, dancers waiting for discovery; the restaurant table is but another theatre in the round.
The most convincing exponents of this art are to be found at the new restaurant opened in Columbus Avenue's DDL Foodshow. Dino de Laurentiis, the famed movie producer, and owner of this food extravaganza, culled the finest waiters from his Columbus competitors. Each one is more lithe with more presence than the last; this is the sound stage of their dreams. DDL is the new Schwabs drugstore; each waiter is today's Lana Turner awaiting discovery. Any one of these lovable, tousle-haired fellows might be destined to be Kevin Kline, the blond Viking type to be William Hurt. Everyone wants to be on Broadway while dishing out the strip steak, double rare.
The real elite, meanwhile, is to be found waitering for the catering services: $12 an hour, no tips, but the best of clientele. Private parties, celebrity dinners and cocktails: nor is it unknown for he who tends bar to be invited to stay on afterwards as a guest… if he be cute enough, which he always is. Restaurant waiters are costumed as chorus boys; catering waiters in their tuxedos are understudies to the stars. This year, your turn; next year, mine.
