Loew headed for a round table in a corner close to the bar. Leon pulled out his chair for him and handed him the menu once he’d sat down.
“What do you recommend?”
“Don’t bother ordering. Let me take care of it,” Jean said.
Jean Leon still kept his Spanish origins secret from most people, but he had confided in Arthur one night when he was serving him. The MGM producer had a yen, almost a devotion, for anything that came from Spain—especially for the food, which he loved. Jean sent out the best—every dish he thought might make the man smile, with the finest wines to match. After Arthur had finished eating, Jean went over to check on him and make sure everything had been to his liking.
“Congratulations, Jean. Everything was fantastic. I’ll do publicity for you, you can be sure of it!”
“Thanks, Arthur. I appreciate it. I won’t lie to you, we need customers like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I’ll be talking about La Scala to tutti quanti.”
With smiles and hugs, Jean Leon said goodbye to their first and only guest on opening night. That was the one time La Scala was ever empty.
The competition in Los Angeles was ferocious. But La Scala distinguished itself from the pack right away with its fine Mediterranean cooking, drawing on a wide variety of culinary traditions, prepared from the finest raw materials. Even those first months, when they were drowning in debt, they never lowered the quality of their ingredients. They didn’t mind paying high prices if it meant their customers got the best.
And as they knew, the more the ingredients cost, the more exquisite the flavors. Their cheese list became world class. Jean had a weakness for the stuff, especially gorgonzola. Deliveries came in directly from Italy: once a month, they sent off to Lombardy for gorgonzola dolce and piccante, and their purveyor shipped them straight to the California coast. They served the cheeses as an appetizer along with house-baked bread, black olives, and endive leaves in olive oil, or as a dessert with seasonal fruits.
It didn’t take long for word to get around. Soon enough, the restaurant was a reference point, a place where many faces known and loved found their little oasis of company and privacy.
Before the first month was out, Gary Cooper, Tyrone Power, David Niven, Gregory Peck, Lauren Bacall, Clark Gable, Rock Hudson, and Warren Beatty had come in, the last of these with his sister, Shirley MacLaine. A big boost to the restaurant was Jack Paar’s recommendation live on the Tonight Show, NBC’s most-watched program. He said he had dined there, that the food was majestic, and that it was the new favorite haunt of every star in Hollywood. That was the kind of advertising you couldn’t dream of, and you certainly couldn’t pay for.
Jean Leon wasn’t the only one who was coming up in the world. The little group of actors who used to hang out at his old job were no longer promising youngsters; many had become Hollywood’s biggest stars. Now that James Dean was gone, Leon had started opening up more and making friends with other members of the group. They missed Jimmy just as he did.
Nat was one of them—Natalie Wood, the girl from the group whom everyone, more or less, was in love with. Sadly, it was always unrequited, because for years she’d only had eyes for RJ—Robert John Wagner. Jean and Nat grew so close, they were soon like brother and sister. Jean even started a new tradition at La Scala: he added the actress’s favorite dish to the menu, a pasta she had fallen in love with. In Italy they called it penne lisce, but immigrants to the New World had dubbed those hollow noodles, cut at an angle on both ends, mostaccioli, which meant “little mustaches.” Emilio would bake them with his signature meat sauce, until a fine crust formed on the mozzarella over the top of it. The actress was mad for it, it was all she ever wanted, and they wound up naming it after her: mostaccioli Natalie.
The second dish Jean put on the menu in honor of a customer was dedicated to a promising, rather solitary young man who reminded him so much of James Dean that he couldn’t help but take a liking to him—an up-and-coming actor named Paul Newman. When Newman visited La Scala, he always ordered a celery salad with salt and pepper for dinner, along with a cold beer to wash it down.
Jean often stopped by to chat with him during these meals. Paul was struggling with a decision just then.
“I can’t accept it, Jean,” Newman repeated over and over. “It isn’t my role.”
“But you have to,” Jean said in a firm tone. “You couldn’t think of a better way to pay homage to Jimmy.”
“I feel like I’m stepping into someone else’s territory.”
“Don’t be a fool! Jimmy’s gone, and he’s not coming back. Who’s going to play that role better than you?”
That role in question was Rocky Graziano in Somebody up There Likes Me. It had been meant for Dean, but after his tragic accident, they offered it to Newman. Ironically, James Dean’s death helped make Paul Newman a star. But if it had to happen, why not to him? He had known Dean well, they had both come from the TV world, they were friends, and they shared a strong mutual respect.
“I remember the screen tests we did for East of Eden,” Newman said with a lost look in his eyes, reproducing the dialogue that Kazan had told them to have ready. Jean worried that the pride Newman should be feeling over his newfound success would be tinged forever with guilt and regret.
Newman’s blue eyes turned mournful as he looked at Jean sitting next to him. Trying to cheer him up, Jean quickly changed the subject.
“Say what you will, but this isn’t going to cut it!” Jean said with a chuckle, pointing at what was left of his friend’s salad. Newman looked at him. “You can make the film or not, but what you’re not going to do is keep coming in here and eating like a rabbit,” Jean went on. “From now on, you come to my restaurant, I choose your meal. Whether you want to be a star or not is your call. But you’ll damn sure eat like one here.”
And that was how, not long afterward, the famous grenadine of beef à la Paul Newman showed up on La Scala’s menu. Two juicy beef medallions, grilled rare, with house-made hollandaise, broccoli, and whipped potatoes. The secret was the Spanish paprika Emilio imported for the sauce—that, and lots of butter for the potatoes.
Sure enough, Newman took that fateful role, and his memorable performance won him the respect and recognition of critics and the public. Thanks to Leon, his palate won over more than a few gastronomes as well. In the process, Leon taught Newman a lesson: his tastes could change, and so could those of the audience.
“Jimmy Dean was unforgettable. You and I will always remember him, and the spectators will, too. But you’ve got talent, Paul. And if you put it out there, audiences will know how to appreciate it. You deserve to be recognized.”
It was clear to quite a few discerning critics and customers that La Scala deserved to be recognized, too—the quality of its cooking certainly warranted it. Never far from the grill, Emilio Nuñez was sharpening his talents and making a name for himself, and he was now the youngest executive chef in Los Angeles. He had natural drive, and he had the talent, but more than that, he had the desperation well known to every Spaniard living in exile during the Franco years. Occasionally Emilio would receive letters from home detailing the repression, the poverty, the misery; even speaking Galician, the language of his province, could get a person a beating at the hands of the fascist police. Now and again, someone would straggle in looking for a job, speaking broken English, and Emilio would take them on as a dishwasher or prep cook just to hear the news from back home. It was never good, and Emilio realized he’d been given a golden opportunity. He had escaped that life, and now he had a chance to build himself a new one.
The dishes Emilio prepared under Leon’s supervision certainly caught the attention of their customers. The pasta was made in-house: “Pasta Fatta in Casa,” the sign said at the entrance, and everybody was wild about his ravioli, fettuccine, lasagna, and cannelloni. He had learned the technique from his uncle, whose Italian mamma had helped him get his start in the restaurant business. But Emilio had gone
a step further, traveling to Italy when he could and having the best ingredients shipped to him: tomatoes from San Marzano, oil from Liguria. When he couldn’t find buffalo mozzarella in LA, he arranged to have Scandinavian Airlines fly it over.
Still, Emilio never forgot Galicia; the memory of it was in his blood, and that differentiated La Scala from the French-influenced repertory of other restaurants in the area. He knew better than to drown a good piece of fish in sauce; he knew how to judge seafood by the feel and smell; and he knew not to fill his fryers with the cheap industrial oils and shortenings that had begun to invade restaurant kitchens.
La Scala was unique—Jean and Emilio were unique—and that caught the press’s eye. The influential food critic for Cosmopolitan ate there and then arranged a meeting with Jean Leon the same week to ask some questions before he wrote his review.
Leon was on edge when the critic showed up on the assigned day with a photographer.
“We need a signature dish from the menu,” the critic said with the indifference of someone used to giving orders. “Maybe antipasti, something that represents the essence of what you do.”
It was Cosmo. No one dared to contradict them. Jean Leon went along with their requests until they proposed having a stranger they had brought along with them pose as the chef in photographs instead of Emilio.
“What are you talking about?” shouted Leon. The imposter was, to be fair, the perfect image of a chef: a mature man of sturdy build, with a substantial mustache whose curled tips pointed at the ceiling, and the standard toque blanche on his head.
Emilio, on the other hand, was short and squat, not much more than a kid. He had thick hair and sideburns, and an eternal five-o’clock shadow. He didn’t care much for the limelight, so he found the magazine’s scheme hilarious. But Leon was livid.
“That shows a lack of respect for my chef and a lack of respect for your readers!” Leon objected, refusing to let the reporter explain himself. For him, there was nothing to be discussed.
“But Mr. Leon, neither the customers nor our readers know your chef.” The critic couldn’t understand why Leon had a problem with the idea. “And I’m sorry, but Mr. Nuñez’s image isn’t what comes into people’s heads when they think chef.”
“You’re goddamn right he isn’t. Emilio Nuñez is a king, and that’s the entire point: neither he nor our cooking resemble anyone or anything else.”
Jean threw the ingrates out of his restaurant. That was the word he used, and it was the softest one he could come up with.
“Emilio, this won’t stand, I promise you that! The press is going to give us the attention we deserve, and they’re going to do it on our terms.”
“Forget it, Jean. It’s not a big deal.”
“I swear to you! Or else my name’s not Jean Leon!”
“Don’t be silly. You and I both know your name’s not Jean,” Emilio said with a smile. “Come on, let it go. When you cool down, you’ll see it differently, believe me.”
Emilio disappeared behind the swinging door to the kitchen. But Leon wouldn’t give up that easily. No one could beat the Lion for obstinacy and determination.
He had to control everything, down to the final details. That was Jean’s conclusion after the dustup with Cosmopolitan. La Scala was his kingdom, and he was the one who called the shots. Nothing missed his attention, and he oversaw everything with an iron resolve that soon became obsessive.
For the next few days, late into the night, he kept trying to think of some original way to get press; he barely slept for a week. But his tenacity led him to a solution. It was imaginative, and it exceeded all expectation.
“We’re going to be in the Los Angeles Times!” he blurted out one day in the kitchen.
“How so?” Emilio said, his attention focused on the last row of tickets still hanging in the window. It was the hardest part of the day—not the rush, when everyone knew they were busy and had to work like mad, but just after, when the cooks were taking turns going out back for a coffee and a smoke but the pressure was still on to get the last round out in a timely manner.
“From now on, they’re going to call us the Ritz and Escoffier of Beverly Hills. I came up with that on the phone with the head of the food section, and he liked the comparison. When he heard it, he decided to do an article on the restaurant and how we run the business.”
“So we’re supposed to be some kind of Laurel and Hardy now? You’re the skinny guy and I’m the fat one? Give me a break.” Emilio frowned.
“No, man, no! You fool!”
Leon’s fascination with history and art had made him think of the idea, just as long before it had suggested to him a new name. Again, he was aiming for the stars, to reach the lofty heights where César Ritz and Auguste Escoffier, the fathers of modern restaurant service, had stood. Those two pioneers had worked together at the Grand Hotel National in Lucerne, in Switzerland, César Ritz as the maître d’ and Auguste Escoffier as the chef.
“They were just like us, but at the beginning of the century,” Leon explained to his suspicious partner. “They created a new restaurant concept.”
Like us. Leon ran down the list. Service: exquisite. Kitchen: groundbreaking. Wines: magnificent. Food: unforgettable. The result for Ritz and Escoffier was a refined, exclusive restaurant with a smaller number of tables for a very select clientele.
“Together, they founded the Savoy hotel in London, the Grand Hotel in Rome, and Ritzes all over the world, in Paris, Cairo, Johannesburg, Madrid . . . They were visionaries.”
Like me, Jean thought. Since Jimmy’s death, he hadn’t found anyone to share his dreams with, and he didn’t like meeting resistance from the people he was close to. He bristled at the look on Emilio’s face just then. Donna was no better; she too seemed to think there was something pretentious in all that ambition.
This Ritz-Escoffier tandem he wanted to form with Emilio Nuñez wasn’t only meant to take La Scala to the top, but even to expand from the restaurant business into broader and more diverse fields. He refused to be content with what he had. And he was willing to do anything to get what he wanted.
“Emilio, this connection you and I have is the same as with those two geniuses,” Leon said, nodding to convince himself there was truth in his words, in the hopes he could soon convince others. “And here in Hollywood, where image is everything, it’ll help us, comparing ourselves to two guys who had success and fame all over the world. Everyone knows their names.”
Emilio threw up his hands in resignation, and Leon took that as a victory.
“They cooked for all the celebrities of the day: the Prince of Wales, Count Nigra, Sarah Bernhardt, the leading ladies of the stage and the demimonde . . .”
“I never cooked for any king!” Emilio protested.
“I know, Emilio,” Leon conceded with a sigh. “But you’re like Escoffier, you have the kind of instinct only the great masters have. You can’t see it, because it comes from inside you, but believe me, what you do, it touches the body as well as the spirit. And you do it with simplicity, and you know how to adapt your cooking to new flavors.”
Emilio shrugged.
“Caesar, the die is cast. Monsieur Escoffier at your service!”
Emilio bowed theatrically, and the two men broke into laughter. This was his way of blessing Jean’s PR strategy. Once more, Jean had gotten what he wanted: he was convincing, and he wouldn’t let anyone stand in his way. You had to follow along with him, but he did know how to listen—and how to be quiet when the occasion demanded. That was part of his charm, and the charm of La Scala itself.
Leon never spread rumors or fed the gossip mill about gatherings that took place at La Scala. He kept his integrity, and that brought him closer and closer to his famous friends—the stars, the cinema magnates, the occasional politician. With his carefully managed image and his affable, boyish face, his stark features and animated eyes, he practiced to a T what he had learned at Villa Capri: discretion, trust, likability. Mike Romanoff, th
e charismatic owner of Romanoff’s restaurant, had told him once, “Half of a restaurant’s atmosphere depends on its owner.”
And what was attractive about La Scala was Jean Leon—his presence, his ability to please, his power—and he was always there.
He played the part of the ideal host to the hilt, with attention and deference, never flaunting the restaurant’s luxury or exclusivity. He knew all the regulars by name and tried to be sure there was always a table ready for them. And if there wasn’t, he would make one—literally.
One night, when La Scala was packed to bursting as usual, a familiar face came in.
“Warren!”
When Jean saw the actor, he went straight up to greet him. Warren Beatty had been a loyal guest ever since his future costar from Splendor in the Grass, Natalie Wood, had introduced him to Jean.
“You got a table?” the actor asked, looking around dubiously at the buzzing restaurant.
He was right to be skeptical. It was clear to both that not another soul could squeeze in that night.
“For you, Warren, always,” Leon said reassuringly.
“Where would that be . . . in the kitchen?”
Jean Leon’s face lit up. He asked Beatty to wait at the bar while he vanished into the back of the restaurant, calling over his shoulder, “Have a drink. On the house.”
The actor elbowed his way in among the guests seated at the hefty barstools and leaned his elbow against the leather-padded rail, pulling over an ashtray and eyeing the bottles lined up on shelves beneath rows of freshly polished glasses.
A few minutes later, Jean beckoned him back toward the swinging kitchen doors.
“Where are you taking me, Jean?” Beatty asked.
“It’s a surprise,” Jean said, amused.
The actor was perplexed, and his face showed it. Then Jean opened the doors to the kitchen.
“Voilà!” Leon exclaimed, beaming with satisfaction. “We’ve got a new table, and it’s just for you.”
In one corner, between dry storage and the door, the table where the staff usually sat for their breaks had been festooned with a white cloth, a vase with four flowers, and a little lamp. There were two complete settings there, with plates, chargers, and glasses for water and wine. The employees couldn’t believe their eyes, nor could Beatty.
Stars in His Eyes Page 10