Thursday, March 27, 2014. Sunny and mild but with a whipping, icy wind moving everyone this way and that across midtown.
It was the Michael’s lunch, and the place was packed – one hundred sixty at table and bar (also reserved and filled). The big star in the room was The Divine Miss M who was lunching with Boaty Boatwright. Miss M is very familiar with Michael’s as her husband Martin Von Hasselberg is one of Michael McCarty’s best pals, and is in the portrait with Michael (painted by Kim McCarty) next to the reception desk at the entrance of the restaurant.
Around the room: Joan Gelman; Elizabeth Musmanno, PR exec now with her own company; formerly of Vera Wang; Adam Platzner of Cornelius Capital, Bisilia Bokoko with Judy Agisim, Prince Dimitri; next door to them:s Michael Garin, CEO of Image Nation Abu Dhabi, with Jacques Cousteau’s daughter (didn’t catch her name); and next door to them: Deborah Norville looking her bright and beautiful self; and next door to them: this writer with author (“Haywire”) Brooke Hayward; Beverly Camhe, Steven Stolman; Ed and Arlyn Gardner with Tony Hoyt; Dan Lufkin; Jordan Ringel; Andrew Stein with Nancy Ross and Ed Klein;Peter Price; Al Roker with Henry Schleiff; Kelly Langberg celebrating her husband Jeffrey’s birthday; Ellen Levine of Hearst; Debra Shriver of Hearst, Fern Mallis, George Green, formerly President and CEO of Hearst magazines; Dr. Jerry Imber with his pal Jerry della Femina. There are usually four or five at this table.
Moving right along: Ed Kelly of American Express Publishing with Keith Kelly of the New York Post; Jack Kliger; Joe Armstrong with Dave Zinczenko; hedge fund guru James Chanos; Nick Verbitsky of United Stations; Lisa Linden of Linden, Alschuler & Kaplan PR, with Joe Spinado; Ryan McCormick with Diane Clehane; Robert Peck of Baron Captal, Steve Solomon of Rubenstein PR; Betty Lee Stern; Stu Zakim of Bridge Strategic Communnications, and scores more just like ‘em.
![]() | ![]() | | A young Charles Masson arranging flowers at La Grenouille. | ![]() |
Sound-wise it was pandemonium. The conversation passing this table was mainly about La Grenouille, the ne plus ultra French restaurant around the corner on East 52nd Street where Charles Masson, son of the founders and manager of the restaurant for the past forty years, ran the business. Except for seven years in the 1990s when Charles departed after disagreements with his younger brother Philippe. At this stage, the word younger is relative — the men are now in their fifties.
Last Saturday, Charles departed once again and was “replaced” by his brother who heretofore had been living in France where their mother lives.
New York magazine food and restaurant blog Grub Street, which broke the news of Charles Masson’s departure on their web site Tuesday, was able to interview Charles again yesterday, and the story began to surface in the media.
It turns out Charles Masson never had a share in the family business despite all the decades he has put in to taking care of his parents’ business and turning it into a restaurant without peer in New York. Amazing when you think of it. He’s been a paid manager, always requiring his mother’s approval and eventually his mother and his younger brother’s approval for anything he spent right down to a light fixture in the kitchen. This, while mother and brother were living across the Atlantic in France on the laurels of the son’s work. |
