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| The Four Seasons: A Most American Experience | |
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| MY introduction to the Four Seasons restaurant, when I was in my 20s, came courtesy of Alexander Liberman, then the editorial director of the Condé Nast magazines and my boss (though to say he was my boss is like calling Barack Obama the boss of your local postmaster). I was a kid from Pittsburgh in love with New York as the capital of wit and style, neither of which I possessed, though I was hoping I could acquire them. I can only assume that he took me to the Four Seasons because he thought it was something I needed to experience. | MY introduction to the Four Seasons restaurant, when I was in my 20s, came courtesy of Alexander Liberman, then the editorial director of the Condé Nast magazines and my boss (though to say he was my boss is like calling Barack Obama the boss of your local postmaster). I was a kid from Pittsburgh in love with New York as the capital of wit and style, neither of which I possessed, though I was hoping I could acquire them. I can only assume that he took me to the Four Seasons because he thought it was something I needed to experience. |
| And it was. I had never seen a restaurant like it, which I attributed at the time to the fact that I hadn’t seen enough restaurants. It was only years later, after having seen many, that I realized that in fact there was no place like it. | And it was. I had never seen a restaurant like it, which I attributed at the time to the fact that I hadn’t seen enough restaurants. It was only years later, after having seen many, that I realized that in fact there was no place like it. |
| But it was when I was living abroad that I came to appreciate just how American it was. And not just the food. On return trips to New York, I was struck by all the ways the restaurant seemed to mirror the culture in which it bloomed: the veneration of money and power, on parade in the Grill at lunchtime; the deference with which they welcomed not only the A-list regulars but the pilgrim tourist; the big statement and bold confidence inherent in design that crystallized the country’s buoyant mood at the time of its opening, in 1959; the sense of theater implicit in the arrangement of the tables and the vaguely madcap Pool Room, an urban pond. It was one of those rare instances when a restaurant manages to capture the soul of a place. | But it was when I was living abroad that I came to appreciate just how American it was. And not just the food. On return trips to New York, I was struck by all the ways the restaurant seemed to mirror the culture in which it bloomed: the veneration of money and power, on parade in the Grill at lunchtime; the deference with which they welcomed not only the A-list regulars but the pilgrim tourist; the big statement and bold confidence inherent in design that crystallized the country’s buoyant mood at the time of its opening, in 1959; the sense of theater implicit in the arrangement of the tables and the vaguely madcap Pool Room, an urban pond. It was one of those rare instances when a restaurant manages to capture the soul of a place. |
| Last year, Aby Rosen, a German-born real estate developer and owner of the Seagram Building, which houses the Four Seasons, announced that its lease would not be renewed. (Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder, two of its current owners, will reopen next year a few blocks away.) In its place, Mr. Rosen will install a new restaurant. Those of us who took heart in the fact that the Four Seasons’ interior was landmarked, in 1989, along with the building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with Philip Johnson, have lately been confronted with the limits of that protection. The shell of the rooms Johnson designed will remain. But the furniture and tableware, each item carefully considered for the part it played in the total experience, will be dispersed at auction on July 26. | Last year, Aby Rosen, a German-born real estate developer and owner of the Seagram Building, which houses the Four Seasons, announced that its lease would not be renewed. (Julian Niccolini and Alex von Bidder, two of its current owners, will reopen next year a few blocks away.) In its place, Mr. Rosen will install a new restaurant. Those of us who took heart in the fact that the Four Seasons’ interior was landmarked, in 1989, along with the building, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe with Philip Johnson, have lately been confronted with the limits of that protection. The shell of the rooms Johnson designed will remain. But the furniture and tableware, each item carefully considered for the part it played in the total experience, will be dispersed at auction on July 26. |
| On a recent Saturday night, sitting at the bar, gazing out at the Grill Room one final time (the Four Seasons closes this evening), I saw the restaurant through the eyes of the young man to my left. He had come to check it out after reading an article in that day’s paper. Together we admired the 20-foot ceilings, the simple lines and extravagant materials. Three women chatted with the bartender. Over the years, they said, they had paid farewell visits to the old Tavern on the Green and Russian Tea Room, and now here. The crowd that night seemed divided between customers of long standing, who had turned out to commemorate the restaurant’s role in their lives, and first-time visitors, who had come for a last-chance tour of a monument to midcentury optimism. Admission was the price of a drink. | On a recent Saturday night, sitting at the bar, gazing out at the Grill Room one final time (the Four Seasons closes this evening), I saw the restaurant through the eyes of the young man to my left. He had come to check it out after reading an article in that day’s paper. Together we admired the 20-foot ceilings, the simple lines and extravagant materials. Three women chatted with the bartender. Over the years, they said, they had paid farewell visits to the old Tavern on the Green and Russian Tea Room, and now here. The crowd that night seemed divided between customers of long standing, who had turned out to commemorate the restaurant’s role in their lives, and first-time visitors, who had come for a last-chance tour of a monument to midcentury optimism. Admission was the price of a drink. |
| The Grill Room has been best known as a canteen for power brokers, but I can attest to the fact that the restaurant also catered to those of us whose presence conferred no status whatsoever. One night at dinner some 20 years ago, I told Mr. Niccolini that I needed to get home and pack for my trip to India the next day. | The Grill Room has been best known as a canteen for power brokers, but I can attest to the fact that the restaurant also catered to those of us whose presence conferred no status whatsoever. One night at dinner some 20 years ago, I told Mr. Niccolini that I needed to get home and pack for my trip to India the next day. |
| “India! For how long?” he asked. Four weeks. “But you’re not going to have a good meal for a month,” he protested. There are, of course, good restaurants in India, but they weren’t on the itinerary, and in any case, I wasn’t going for the food. The next day, 15 minutes before I left for the airport, my buzzer rang: It was a messenger from the Four Seasons delivering a tote bag with two appetizers, two main courses and two desserts in Tupperware containers, and two bottles of wine — a picnic my traveling companion and I unpacked on our flight that evening, unfolding our tiny tray tables in the next to last row of economy. | “India! For how long?” he asked. Four weeks. “But you’re not going to have a good meal for a month,” he protested. There are, of course, good restaurants in India, but they weren’t on the itinerary, and in any case, I wasn’t going for the food. The next day, 15 minutes before I left for the airport, my buzzer rang: It was a messenger from the Four Seasons delivering a tote bag with two appetizers, two main courses and two desserts in Tupperware containers, and two bottles of wine — a picnic my traveling companion and I unpacked on our flight that evening, unfolding our tiny tray tables in the next to last row of economy. |
| Every generation, I suppose, witnesses the demise of its favorite places, but usually they run their course and fade away. Which in this case is not what happened. What rankles is the way Mr. Rosen has framed his decision as not capricious but inevitable, a clash between two cultures: old or older New York versus new or young New York, stuffy versus lively, an aging clientele of predigital corporate titans versus a crowd of up-and-comers, the past versus now. As if it’s finally time for the parents to vacate the premises and let the kids get the party started. | Every generation, I suppose, witnesses the demise of its favorite places, but usually they run their course and fade away. Which in this case is not what happened. What rankles is the way Mr. Rosen has framed his decision as not capricious but inevitable, a clash between two cultures: old or older New York versus new or young New York, stuffy versus lively, an aging clientele of predigital corporate titans versus a crowd of up-and-comers, the past versus now. As if it’s finally time for the parents to vacate the premises and let the kids get the party started. |
| Mr. Rosen has engaged Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick — the team behind Carbone and Dirty French, both wildly successful downtown restaurants — to take over the space. In an interview with this newspaper, Mr. Carbone, one of the chefs, said he had been researching old Four Seasons menus on file at the New York Public Library with the intention of recreating many of the vintage dishes. “I’m really just doing the first decade,” he said. “I don’t know how much interest I have beyond that. I want to be playing in the J.F.K. world.” | Mr. Rosen has engaged Mario Carbone, Rich Torrisi and Jeff Zalaznick — the team behind Carbone and Dirty French, both wildly successful downtown restaurants — to take over the space. In an interview with this newspaper, Mr. Carbone, one of the chefs, said he had been researching old Four Seasons menus on file at the New York Public Library with the intention of recreating many of the vintage dishes. “I’m really just doing the first decade,” he said. “I don’t know how much interest I have beyond that. I want to be playing in the J.F.K. world.” |
| So the Four Seasons’ unmaking will likewise be quintessentially American. Not even epidemic nostalgia for the ’60s could save it. The restaurant where real live admen met for lunch is, it seems, less compelling than the world of Don Draper. Paris’s Grand Véfour, now over 200 years old, is still thriving, as is Milan’s Sant Ambroeus, founded in 1936. But the Four Seasons, in many ways their New York counterpart, will not survive intact. The new operators will cherry-pick its past and use what they like. Our tolerance for the stuff of history goes only so far. In the end, it’s all material. | So the Four Seasons’ unmaking will likewise be quintessentially American. Not even epidemic nostalgia for the ’60s could save it. The restaurant where real live admen met for lunch is, it seems, less compelling than the world of Don Draper. Paris’s Grand Véfour, now over 200 years old, is still thriving, as is Milan’s Sant Ambroeus, founded in 1936. But the Four Seasons, in many ways their New York counterpart, will not survive intact. The new operators will cherry-pick its past and use what they like. Our tolerance for the stuff of history goes only so far. In the end, it’s all material. |