A Place at the Table (14 page)

•  •  •

Except I’m not the entertaining one. Gus Andres, the café’s owner and namesake, is. He fills me in on the history of the restaurant as if he were Liz Smith, gossiping about an actual person, assuring me that the restaurant used to cater to a far more bohemian crowd, though “now it’s mostly ladies who lunch.”

“Everyone loved to sit in the back garden,” Gus says, after insisting on bringing me not just a glass of sherry but also a bowl of chocolate mousse topped with softly whipped cream, the dessert, he says, that the café is known for. “Tanaquil said it was her favorite place in the world.”

“Who’s Tanaquil?” I ask.

Gus slaps my hand in reprimand.

“My dear, are you really telling me you know nothing of Tanaquil LeClercq?”

I shake my head.

“Every member of the board of education in Alabama ought to be shot!”

Not five minutes before, I told Gus I was from Georgia, not
Alabama, but I’m already figuring out that facts seem to mean very little to him.

“Tell me about her,” I say.

“Only if you promise to be a good boy and eat your mousse. You haven’t touched it.”

I take a bite, closing my eyes while I marvel at the dessert’s complexity: It tastes deeply, darkly of chocolate, and yet its texture is so light. It is as if you are eating air. Air, butter, and chocolate, that is.

“Is there coffee in this?” I ask.

“Gold star! Espresso. It really intensifies the chocolate flavor.”

“That reminds me of how my grandmother always put almond extract into her pound cake. Just a splash. You couldn’t really taste the almond, but it really brought out the sweet, nutty taste of the butter.”

“Hmm. The young man has a good palate. Well then, that
is
good news. Now. You asked about Tanaquil LeClercq. Tanaquil was quite possibly the finest dancer who ever graced the stage. By the time she was nineteen she was a charter ballerina in Balanchine’s New York City Ballet. Balanchine, as you surely know, was a legend, a god, the man who invented modern ballet. Balanchine’s marriage to his third wife, also a dancer, was ending, and, inevitably, he found a new muse in Tanaquil. He secured a divorce, and they married.”

“When one muse stops delivering, find another?” I ask.

Gus arches a brow at me but continues. “Then tragedy struck. At twenty-seven, Tanaquil contracted polio, and she never walked—let alone danced—again.”

“How terrible,” I say. “But let me guess. Balanchine found a new muse?”

“Heavens, child. Your cynicism is killing me. And yes, they divorced, but not immediately afterward. They probably would have divorced sooner, actually, if polio hadn’t struck. Balanchine was not
meant to spend his entire life with one woman, though Tanaquil would be the last woman he actually married.”

“He sounds like kind of a jerk,” I say.

“Dear boy, please do not speak of such genius with such disrespect.”

“Marriage is marriage because it’s for life,” I say. “You love the person warts and all, for better or for worse.”

I am quoting Daddy, which is crazy, to move so far away and start spouting Baptist adages in a Manhattan café.

“Believe me, I’m all for loyalty, but I detest rules. And neither Tanaquil nor Balanchine followed conventional rules in their union. And I say, hoorah to that! Be open to all life has to offer. Eat from the banquet set before us. Ignore what the world determines is ‘right’ or ‘wrong.’ Such puritanism only leads to unhappiness, and besides which, the rules change from age to age. What’s taboo today won’t be tomorrow.”

“But you’ve got to have some rules,” I say, once again defending the world I ran from. Next thing you know I’m going to quote Daddy’s all-time favorite saying,
You’ve got to stand for something, or you’ll fall for anything
. “I guess it’s a matter of figuring out which ones are just niceties and which ones are real.”

“Well, damn the niceties! The other day I overheard one of my customers saying that the relationship between Woody Allen and Mariel Hemingway in
Manhattan
was pedophilic. If that particular customer weren’t a regular with a taste for expensive wines, I would have shown him the door!”

I have never seen
Manhattan
.

“Why pedophilic?”

“Well, she was seventeen, about to turn eighteen.”

“And he was . . . ?”

“Forty-two, and her mentor, something every young person ought to have. How else are they to learn anything? Eventually the ingénue
moves on, of course. Blossoms. In the case of this particular Woody Allen film, the young girl leaves for London to conquer the world. But she goes there knowing about sex and art and Chinese food and old black-and-white movies, all things that will bring her much pleasure in life. She received from him an education.”

“And he received from her a blow job.”

I can’t believe I said that. It just popped right out. Probably the result of spending time with Mike, who seems to think it’s his job to be crude. Gus looks as shocked as I feel.

“I feel so dreadfully sorry for your generation,” he says. “There’s no romance to be had, only endless anxiety over equality.”

He stands abruptly and goes to check on the woman sitting in the corner. “Darling, darling Lenora,” he says. “What else may I get you?”

•  •  •

Gus is wrong. I have no anxiety over equality. What I’m anxious about is money, food, shelter. Heck, had Gus offered, I would probably allow him to educate me in any manner he chose. Except I read him wrong. After his abrupt departure, I decide it’s time for me to leave. He meets me at the door, and when he does I step in too close, put the flat of my palm against his shoulder, and ask if there is anything he might like to teach me.

I can’t believe I’m saying such a thing, but I’m desperate. And so lonely. Lonely enough that even the company of an old man sounds comforting. And anyway, I like the company of old people. At least, I liked Meemaw’s company.

“Subtlety for starters,” he answers. “But who am I to criticize a little country mouse let loose in the big city, trying to find a nibble of cheese? The problem, my dear, is that I am not a cheese monger, only the humble owner of this café. But I tell you what: Your palate impressed me. Come back tomorrow and we’ll see if that translates
to you having skills in the kitchen. Jose can julienne a vegetable, but that’s about it. If it looks like you might be able to cook, I’ll train you using Alice’s cookbook,
Homegrown
. Alice started this place with me, and though she has moved on, most of the recipes we prepare are from her repertoire. I pay minimum wage, plus you get fifteen percent of the waitstaff’s gratuities. We’ll be closed all of August. We still keep up the old summer schedule, back before there was any air-conditioning in New York and
everybody
went away. I should warn you that it’s an unpaid vacation, though if you are very skilled I might be able to get you some catering jobs on Fire Island.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you so much. You won’t regret it. I’m an excellent cook. I was trained in Paris.”

He looks amused. “Paris, Texas, maybe. I would work on your accent a bit before spreading about
that
little fiction. I’ll teach you Alice’s recipes, but you’re also going to need to know some basics of French cooking, how to make the major sauces and all of that. Julia Child is your best bet for that. You can get a cheap copy of
Mastering the Art
at the Strand.”

“Where?”

“Oh my, you really are fresh off the boat. Broadway and Twelfth. But before you do anything else, take a look at this.” He hands me a glossy magazine titled
Vanities
. “They interviewed me about the café. Impudent reporter, but the piece turned out all right. Read it thoroughly. I might give you a quiz on it when you come into work. It’s important you know the history of this place.”

I have no idea where to put the magazine. I hold it in my hand until I am well away from Gus Andres and the restaurant, but then I roll it up, stick it in my back pocket, and walk, bounce really, down the street.

An Interview with the Always Entertaining, Sometimes Cantankerous, Gus Andres

I
n a town where restaurants open and close with the speed of a camera shutter, the fact that Café Andres has remained in business since 1946—albeit with what one could only call irregular hours—is in itself noteworthy. But dig into the history of this outwardly unassuming restaurant on E. 51st Street and you will discover a fascinating past: Seemingly every artist that mattered during that golden era of creativity spanning from the end of World War II to the start of the McCarthy trials not only passed through the café’s front door but lingered for hours in its capriciously decorated interior. The most coveted seats: the six tables in the courtyard garden, shaded by a 100-year-old American elm. While past patrons include luminaries from an array of disciplines—the choreographer Balanchine, the actress Katharine Hepburn, the photographer Richard Avedon—it was the young writers who frequented the café in the late 1940s that longtime proprietor Augustin “Gus” Andres alludes to with the
most pride. Mr. Andres, who at 72 is almost disconcertingly dapper in his jacket and tie with matching pocket square, recites with relish the names of the writers who once frequented his establishment, many of whom were southerners having fled the stultification of their hometowns for the stimulation of Manhattan. Among them were Truman Capote, Tom—“Tennessee”—Williams, Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, Horton Foote, and Donald Windham. Even Faulkner paid the café a visit, on a trip described by Mr. Andres as “a shakedown of the publishing industry.”

In honor of the café’s 35th anniversary, we spoke with Gus Andres about his long career and his many encounters with celebrity. We meet at his apartment on Beekman Place, which offers a stunning view of the East River. At the start of the interview Mr. Andres, ever the host, offers chocolate mousse, butter cookies, and mint tea from a Spode pot. Given Mr. Andres’s love of both entertaining and writers, is it any wonder the dining room walls are lined with shelves, all holding row after row of hardcover books?

V
ANITIES
M
AGAZINE
: This is a gem of a place you live in. Prewar elevator building on a quiet tree-lined street, 11-foot beamed ceilings, parquet floors, gorgeous moldings, killer view. Owning a restaurant is a notoriously risky enterprise, but from looking around this place I would say that Café Andres has done quite well.

G
US
A
NDRES
: Heavens no! I make no money on
that
little folly. No, I came to inhabit this apartment by sheer virtue of staying in Manhattan when so many others were choosing to move out. I bought it ten years ago in the early 70s when all of the tiresome, milquetoast residents were fleeing the city like teenagers running home, afraid of missing curfew. As one who remained, all I could think was good riddance. The modus operandi of New York City has always been opportunity, never safety.

It was my dear friend Randall Jones who led me to this gem.
Randy had heard that there was a one-bedroom for sale on Beekman Place that the owner was positively giving away. Well.
Beekman Place
. Sure, it might be a tad stuffy, but Auntie Mame made her residence here. How could I resist? The apartment for sale had belonged to a widow with a lot of fusty old furniture cluttering up the space and wallpaper in what I suppose was meant to be a yellow floral design, but which most resembled overcooked scrambled eggs. The widow’s children lived in Westchester and wanted nothing to do with the apartment, and I suppose potential buyers were scared off by the drab furnishings. But one of my few virtues is that I can see past almost anything. And anyone, for that matter.

V
ANITIES
M
AGAZINE
: You’re referring to the fictitious Auntie Mame, yes? The legendarily eccentric bon vivant played by Rosalind Russell in the movie adaptation of Patrick Dennis’s novel?

G
US
A
NDRES
: Yes. I will never forget the moment in the movie when Mame tells her nephew, “I’m going to open doors for you. Doors you never knew existed!” I dreamed of having an influence like her in my life. And I should add, I always hoped Rosalind Russell would walk through the doors of Café Andres, allowing me to spread a banquet before her. But alas, that was not to be.

V
ANITIES
M
AGAZINE
: The café is known for its cuisine. This mousse we’re eating is wonderful. Absolutely sublime. I love how it’s so light I can see the air pockets when I spoon into it, and yet the taste is as intense as a cup of espresso. It’s a café favorite, is it not?

G
US
A
NDRES
: Indeed. We’ve had the mousse on the menu since the day we opened. I whipped this one up. It’s easy to do. You’ll find the recipe in Alice Stone’s charming book,
Homegrown
, published nearly 20 years ago now. It’s mostly recipes celebrating her childhood on a farm in North Carolina, but she included a final chapter with favorites from the café. The secret to making the mousse is to make sure the melted chocolate and coffee is at the exact right temperature before you beat in the egg yolks. You want to rub the chocolate on
your lips to test. If it feels as warm as a lover’s body lying in the sun, it’s the perfect temperature. If it burns—well, that too is a part of love—let it cool a few more minutes.

V
ANITIES
M
AGAZINE
: I did not realize Chef Stone had such a sensual approach to her cooking.

GUS ANDRES
: I may have elaborated on the metaphor, but the technique is hers. Alice is the best cook I have ever known. I believe it is because she paid such careful attention to the “why” behind her most successful dishes.

V
ANITIES
M
AGAZINE
: Let’s talk more about Alice Stone, with whom you opened Café Andres. By all accounts she was a fascinating individual—a black woman raised in a farming community of freed slaves in North Carolina who moved to New York during the Depression, worked a variety of jobs, including laundress, seamstress, and department store window decorator—something the two of you often did together—and then suddenly, though she had no formal restaurant training, she was the chef at Café Andres. And this was all before she turned 40! In later years she would become known first for the cookbook you mentioned,
Homegrown
, and then for a series of shows she did on PBS, each focusing on a different region of the South and paying especial attention to the contribution of African-American cooks to the cuisine. Tell us more about Alice: Did you two meet through the world of window dressing? How did you come up with the idea of opening the café?