Within the kitchen of One Fifth, 1976.
Photograph: Courtesy of Keith McNally
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It was October 1975. I used to be 24 and had arrived in New York with a imprecise plan to make movies. Working out of cash within the second week, I ditched the movie concept and located a job as a busboy at Serendipity, the ice-cream parlor on East sixtieth Road.
Like many immigrants, my need to reside in New York got here from watching movies. One movie specifically: Klute. There’s a terrific scene early on through which the 2 leads, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland, are out previous midnight shopping for fruit from a sidewalk produce stand. As Sutherland reaches for some luscious-looking peaches, Fonda’s sexual need for him explodes onto the display screen. This was the precise second after I longed to reside in New York. However it wasn’t the scene’s eroticism that triggered the longing. It was the concept you would purchase contemporary fruit in Manhattan after midnight.
The odd factor about experiencing New York for the primary time was that it appeared extra just like the movies than the movies themselves. Locations hardly ever reside as much as expectations, however New York did — notably its aspect of availability. Not like London in 1975, subways ran all evening, bars served till 4 a.m., taxis have been accessible 24/7, and diners by no means closed. Not that I wanted to have an egg sandwich and a espresso at three within the morning, however figuring out I may helped me sleep higher. It nonetheless does.
Realizing I can do one thing, with out essentially doing it, is important for me. There’s a scene within the movie Pennies From Heaven through which an unhappily married man who’s fallen in love with a schoolteacher asks if she’d ever contemplate having intercourse with him on an elevator ground. He doesn’t wish to have intercourse on the elevator ground, he simply desires to comprehend it’s a risk. I really feel that manner about most issues. (She says “sure,” by the way in which.)
I used to be working illegally and dwelling in Queens with a few guys I’d met at a kibbutz three years earlier. New York was harmful within the ’70s, and after leaving work at evening, I’d stuff no matter ideas I’d made into my socks and experience the 7 prepare to the final cease, Flushing–Major Road.
Needing more money to hire an condo in Manhattan, I discovered a second job as an oyster shucker at a downtown place known as One Fifth. This fashionable restaurant had not too long ago opened on the bottom ground of a Twenties skyscraper at 1 Fifth Avenue in Greenwich Village. With its Artwork Deco design, engaging ground employees, and creative prospects, One Fifth opened up an entire new world to me.
After shucking oysters for a month, I used to be promoted to waiter. Having a poor short-term reminiscence, I used to be hopeless on the job. I’d usually wake in the midst of the evening remembering the 2 cappuccinos that desk No. 12 had ordered 9 hours earlier.
On my second shift, a busboy known as Po Ming was assigned to me. Earlier than the service started, I jokingly gave him an oversize cup for the supposed abundance of ideas we have been going to earn that evening. Extending the joke, he silently exchanged the oversize cup for a big wine bucket. That was the second when Po Ming and I turned pals. Humor and integrity are two qualities I worth above all others, and one hardly ever finds them in the identical particular person. However this busboy from Communist China possessed each. Thirty-year-old Po Ming would quickly change into my closest good friend.
Undeterred by my incompetence, One Fifth’s prospects have been surprisingly forgiving as soon as they heard my English accent, and after six weeks of ready tables, I used to be promoted to maître d’. I then realized that in America attraction performed a extra vital function than potential. Or may do, in case you purchased into it. And I purchased into it massive time.
One Fifth’s proprietor was a radiologist known as George Schwarz. Schwarz was so obsessed with meals and wine that within the early ’70s, he started constructing his personal eating places. Though he had no expertise within the enterprise, Schwarz trusted his personal style and every restaurant he constructed succeeded past expectation, One Fifth most of all.
If solely Schwarz had trusted his employees as a lot as his style, One Fifth would nonetheless be round at this time. However he was so satisfied his staff have been plotting in opposition to him that Schwarz would discover a cause to fireside a minimum of certainly one of them each different week. Consequently, 5 months after being employed at One Fifth, I turned its most senior worker working within the eating room.
For some cause, Schwarz took a liking to me. Born in Germany, he had a unusual humorousness and appeared to understand mine. All the identical, when he requested one evening to have a phrase with me on the finish of my shift, I felt certain I used to be getting the chop. Like an Academy Award nominee in reverse, I labored for hours on some disparaging final phrases. But as an alternative of firing me, Dr. Schwarz promoted me to common supervisor.
I used to be 24 and dealing illegally however out of the blue discovered myself being shot out of a circus cannon into this swanky Manhattan restaurant and being paid handsomely to handle it. On high of this, Schwarz promised to sponsor me for a inexperienced card. I couldn’t consider my luck. I nonetheless can’t. Which is why there’s not a day goes by after I don’t worry an authority determine tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “McNally, you’re a fraud. We’re placing you on the subsequent aircraft again to London.”
I bought to know George Schwarz and his spouse, the painter Kiki Kogelnik, fairly effectively. It’s not usually one likes each companions of a married couple to the identical diploma. Half the married {couples} I’m pals with I dread seeing collectively. However I appreciated Kiki as a lot as I did George. In some methods, extra so. Each different month, as a form of discipline journey, they’d take me and some different staff to dinner at a three-star restaurant. George analyzed each ingredient on his plate as if he have been inspecting an X-ray. I discovered extra about meals and wine from him than anybody else within the enterprise.
One Fifth’s dishwasher didn’t present up, so I roped Nell Campbell into serving to me wash dishes that evening. We lasted 5 minutes, 1977.
Photograph: Courtesy of Keith McNally
Within the precarious world of New York eating places, One Fifth was one thing of a recreation changer. Its giant, bustling eating room mixed uptown glamour with downtown cool and was a forerunner to many future Manhattan eating places, together with a lot of my very own. Although I’m loath to attribute adjustments in character to at least one pivotal second — and am suspicious of people that do — I usually surprise what flip my life may need taken if I hadn’t been employed at One Fifth. I feel most occasions which have a major impact on us are unattainable to detect till years later. It’s solely now, 40-odd years after working at One Fifth, that I understand what an enormous affect it had on me. Particularly when it comes to design.
Skilled designers wish to say that good design “is all in regards to the particulars.” This isn’t true. Good design is all about the proper particulars. It’s additionally about what you don’t do, what you chorus from doing. Sadly, I don’t at all times take my very own recommendation.
Good design, like good cinematography, ought to by no means pressure to be seen. It ought to seem pure and easy. The second a designer’s hand turns into conspicuous, the sport’s up.
Restaurant design begins and ends with lighting. Working at One Fifth, I found that the much less overhead lighting and the extra aspect lighting one makes use of, the extra engaging the eating room turns into. Having many alternative mild sources at low wattage provides a room a terrific glow. However in fact, seductive lighting doesn’t compensate for tasteless meals or inept service. Likewise, extraordinary meals, design, and repair by no means assure a profitable restaurant. Nothing does besides that unusual indefinable: the proper really feel. At its finest, the proper really feel can transport a buyer like nothing else. With out it, it’s possible you’ll as effectively pack your luggage.
For its first two years, One Fifth was probably the most trendy restaurant in Manhattan. It opened a number of months after Saturday Night time Reside first aired on NBC, and the solid held their unique after-show events on the restaurant. After my promotion, I used to be liable for organizing these charismatic occasions, and lots of would final till 4 within the morning (notably if John Belushi was current). It was at certainly one of these events that I met SNL producer Lorne Michaels, whom I’ve remained surprisingly near ever since. My son Harry was the ring bearer at Lorne’s marriage ceremony in 1991, and my daughter Alice was named after Lorne’s spouse.
Within the mid-’70s, singer Patti Smith and her ex-boyfriend, the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, have been regulars at One Fifth. Sam Wagstaff, Mapplethorpe’s benefactor and at one level lover, lived in an condo above the restaurant, and all three of them would eat at One Fifth collectively just a few occasions every week. They made an intriguing-looking threesome. Whereas Smith and Mapplethorpe had the surly look of younger, rebellious artists (which they have been), the quietly understated Wagstaff — who was a former museum curator and exceptionally good-looking — appeared to embody the patrician values of an ancient times. On the time, I discovered Wagstaff to be probably the most attention-grabbing of the three. I nonetheless do at this time.
On nights when Wagstaff wasn’t on the desk, Smith and Mapplethorpe could possibly be very troublesome to attend on. Smith, sadly, was extremely impolite to the servers. It’s unattainable for me to take heed to a Patti Smith track at this time with out remembering her lowering a waitress to tears as a result of she forgot to place bread on the desk.
Though Mapplethorpe, along with his tough-boy leather-jacket picture, could possibly be terse with the servers, he by no means tried to belittle them the way in which Smith did. The one time I noticed Mapplethorpe with out his leather-based jacket — when the restaurant’s air-con broke down — he appeared surprisingly decreased and, like a policeman out of uniform, surprisingly ordinary-looking. Possibly it was a coincidence, however with out the leather-based jacket he was additionally friendlier to the employees. No matter what he was sporting, Mapplethorpe was an excellent photographer. Nevertheless, I consider that with out Wagstaff’s patronage, his images wouldn’t be as celebrated as they’re at this time.
The final time I noticed the urbane Wagstaff was on the subway. We rode ten blocks collectively on the Lexington Avenue line one night rush hour. Our automobile was so full that we stood all the way in which. Although 63, he was nonetheless remarkably handsome. It appeared incongruous to see somebody this rich and refined driving the subway.
And though he didn’t know me effectively, Wagstaff graciously chatted all through the journey. It was solely after we parted that I noticed he hadn’t stated a phrase about himself. This was 1985. Inside two years he would die of AIDS.
There are solely two or three individuals in life that I want I’d recognized higher. Sam Wagstaff was certainly one of them.
Not lengthy after being promoted to common supervisor, I seen one thing vaguely attention-grabbing a couple of younger Englishwoman who got here for brunch each Sunday. She was usually accompanied by a number of writers and at all times ordered the identical dish: eggs Benedict. One Sunday, she got here in alone a couple of minutes after the kitchen had closed. Realizing she was a daily, I requested the brunch chef, Chang, to reopen the kitchen and make her eggs Benedict. Like most restaurant cooks on the time, Chang refused to cook dinner the order as a result of it was given to him one minute after closing time. I instructed him that the shopper got here each week and in addition to, she was fairly fairly. On listening to she was fairly, Chang went bananas and threw his sauté pan at me. His purpose was as dangerous as his cooking, and he missed by a mile. I picked the pan up off the ground, and for the primary and final time went behind the kitchen line and cooked a buyer’s order.
Though I made a hash of the eggs Benedict, the incident itself had wealthy penalties: The younger girl was future Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, and regardless of coming from reverse ends of the English class system, we turned shut pals. Nothing romantic occurred between us, but we’d usually watch films collectively within the afternoon, which, outdoors of the bed room, is probably the most intimate factor two individuals can do at the moment of day.
Regardless of my English accent and passing attraction, not all of One Fifth’s prospects appreciated me. A number of days after I used to be promoted from waiter to maître d’, a dressmaker who was one of many restaurant’s regulars summoned me to his desk. Carrying a elaborate tuxedo (which I wouldn’t be seen useless in at this time), I went to the desk anticipating a query in regards to the wine listing. In entrance of his boyfriend, the style designer eyed me and sneered: “The worst factor this restaurant has ever executed is to make you its maître d’.”
Oddly sufficient, the restaurant’s proprietor, George Schwarz, would finally assume the identical.
As One Fifth’s common supervisor, I now had the duty of hiring the restaurant ground employees, which was absurd, seeing as I used to be unlawful and had been working in eating places for simply 5 months. I used to be additionally hiring individuals whose jobs I knew subsequent to nothing about. Solely in America is it potential to get to the highest of the heap with out figuring out something in regards to the job. (Some even change into president.)
Two of the individuals I employed would play an integral — and sometimes sophisticated — function in my New York life. One was my older brother Brian and the opposite was my future spouse Lynn Wagenknecht.
Brian arrived in New York on Thanksgiving Day 1976. Since I used to be working that afternoon, he got here instantly from midtown’s Port Authority Bus Terminal to One Fifth to satisfy me. It was my 28-year-old brother’s first time in New York and likewise his first time in a restaurant this glamorous. He was surprised. He’d by no means skilled something as refined as downtown New York and was in awe that, in managing this fashionable restaurant, I appeared to have a foot within the door of Manhattan’s excessive life. Although effectively learn (rather more so than me) and effectively traveled, Brian resented the truth that he was working class and longed to flee it. Superficially, New York gave him the prospect to interrupt free.
Over the subsequent few weeks, I discovered Brian an condo on Bleecker Road and gave him a job as a bartender at One Fifth. My brother was a terrific bartender, and it wasn’t lengthy earlier than he had a powerful following of downtown’s artists and intellectuals.
After just a few months tending bar, Brian — like me — additionally had one foot within the door of town’s good life. The one bother was that at occasions the opening wasn’t large sufficient for each of us.
Sooner or later, whereas interviewing ground employees, I discovered myself sitting throughout from a 24-year-old girl making use of for a waitress job. Her title was Lynn Wagenknecht. It was clear from her full lack of guile that she will need to have been new to Manhattan. She was. Lynn had arrived within the metropolis six weeks earlier from the Midwest. She had lengthy blonde hair and eyes bluer than robin’s eggs. After 5 minutes, I employed her. After 5 years, I married her.
Through the interview I found that after graduating from Stanford, Lynn had attended the College of Iowa, the place she acquired her M.A. and M.F.A. She’d come to New York with aspirations to color and maybe finally train drawing at a college however in the meantime wanted a job to pay the hire. Being employed by me led the educated Ms. Wagenknecht to alternate a noble life in academia for a lowbrow one in eating places.
Other than being the restaurant’s common supervisor, I used to be additionally its maître d’ three nights every week. This meant seating prospects within the eating room, the place Lynn was certainly one of eight servers ready tables.
Lynn was an excellent waitress — she was additionally utterly herself when ready tables. I used to be so mesmerized watching this midwestern girl work that I rapidly fell in love together with her. (Individuals change into surprisingly interesting when performing a job with talent.) The one drawback was Lynn wasn’t in love with me. Even so, she agreed to see me outdoors of labor.
Within the early days of our courting, there was such an imbalance of affection between us that, consumed with jealousy, I usually refused to seat engaging males in Lynn’s part. Even unattractive ones. (Whenever you’re eaten up with jealousy, all males change into potential suitors.) I keep in mind scanning the room one evening and seeing solely ladies seated in Lynn’s part. What excuse I gave the boys for refusing them tables I’ve no concept. However as maître d’ of this hip restaurant, I had many troublesome exchanges with prospects. One busy evening, I instructed a pushy New Yorker — a John Gotti look-alike — that there wasn’t a desk for him.
“Have you learnt who I’m?” he snarled.
“No, however I can discover out for you,” I rapidly replied.
After he threatened to interrupt my legs, I discovered him a desk tout de suite.
My worst mistake as maître d’ was failing to acknowledge Ingrid Bergman. One evening, a middle-aged couple graciously requested me for a desk. As a result of the eating room was full on the time, I requested them to attend on the bar and defined that I’d give them the subsequent one accessible. The person took me apart: “You do know that the girl I’m with is Ingrid Bergman, don’t you?” Having no concept who Ingrid Bergman was (I in some way bought her confused with Ingmar Bergman), I seemed on the tall, refined girl standing a number of toes from me and simply repeated my spiel about ready on the bar. The person seemed me within the eye, rotated and left. Every week later, I watched the movie Casablanca for the primary time and noticed probably the most superbly dreamy actress possible. I felt like disappearing down the closest manhole.
With Tim Curry and Nell Campbell on the fashionable all-night Empire Diner in 1978.
Photograph: Courtesy of Keith McNally
For the reason that eggs Benedict incident, Anna Wintour and I noticed one another frequently. In 1978, she moved to Paris to reside together with her boyfriend Michel Esteban, a French entrepreneur who’d made a fortune within the document enterprise. After just a few months — maybe out of loneliness — she invited me and Lynn to hitch her for every week. Realizing that we have been penniless, Anna paid for our airfare and resort.
Anna and Michel took us for dinner each evening, normally to a number of the finest brasseries and bistros in Paris — La Coupole, Allard, Chez René, Vaudeville, Au Pied de Cochon, Balzar. My favourite was a spot known as Chez Georges. I beloved the odor of escargots drenched in butter and garlic, the look of the pink banquettes, the scored mirrors, the handwritten menu, the waiters with starched white ankle-length aprons. Every thing in regards to the place stimulated me. Even the jug of pickled cornichons on the desk. I ate ris de veau (veal sweetbreads) for the primary time at Chez Georges, which for somebody who’d grown up on a eating regimen of boiled greens and tinned salmon was like manna from heaven.
Though the aesthetically pleasing world of French bistros was 1,000,000 miles away from my Bethnal Inexperienced prefab, one thing in regards to the expertise at Chez Georges that evening struck a chord.
By taking me to those unimaginable eating places, Anna’s plan was to seduce me into remaining in France to work alongside her boyfriend. By the tip of a protracted week of being handled to such terrific bistros and brasseries, I used to be totally seduced: not by the concept of shifting to Paris, nonetheless, however by the considered returning to New York and, with Lynn and Brian constructing our personal model of a Parisian brasserie.
In February 1979, I acquired my inexperienced card from the U.S. Immigration Service. After working at One Fifth for 3 years, I used to be now authorized and free to do the one factor I got here to New York to do: write and direct movies. Besides I didn’t have the balls, and so I remained within the restaurant enterprise. Apart from, Schwarz had sponsored me for my inexperienced card, and whereas Schwarz was troublesome to work for, it didn’t appear proper to depart him the second I turned authorized. Like many mentor-pupil relationships, ours was destined to finish badly. A month after I bought my inexperienced card, we had a battle over the bartenders’ schedule and I walked out.
Lynn and I made a decision to open our personal restaurant. We have been fed up trudging away for different individuals and have been anyway bursting with restaurant concepts of our personal. Within the spring of 1980, we hit the streets in search of an area. The one space downtown we may afford was Tribeca, a neighborhood between Soho and the Twin Towers unknown to most individuals dwelling above 14th Road.
The actual-estate dealer gave us a listing of three accessible areas. The primary two have been lemons, however approaching the third, I seen a pink neon signal that shone so brightly it could possibly be seen from Kansas. This was Towers Cafeteria. The second we pressed our faces in opposition to certainly one of its three monumental home windows, Lynn and I knew we’d struck oil.
Inside the month, we’d signed a 15-year lease and roped my brother Brian into being our third companion. It was Brian who got here up with the concept of calling it the Odeon — rising up, our native cinema was the Mile Finish Odeon.
Between signing the lease for the restaurant and fixing it up, Lynn and I spent every week in New Orleans. Whereas strolling round a shady space outdoors the French Quarter, we noticed a big ’30s-style neon clock within the window of a junk store that seemed excellent for our unbuilt restaurant. The one drawback was there was a NOT FOR SALE register entrance of it. The eternally shy Lynn persuaded me to go in alone and make a suggestion. “Provide 100 {dollars} however no extra,” she suggested.
Getting into the store, I confronted an offended–trying man behind the counter. “I do know the neon clock’s not on the market,” I started hesitantly, “however I’d wish to make a suggestion of …” Earlier than I may say “100 {dollars},” he blurted out, “I received’t take a penny lower than $25!”
That $25 neon clock was our first buy for the Odeon and has been hanging in the identical place on the wall subsequent to the bar since October 1980.
Excerpted from I Remorse Virtually Every thing: A Memoir, by Keith McNally (to be revealed by Gallery Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, LLC). Copyright © 2025 by Keith McNally. Printed by permission.
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