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| Just another quiet night out for Keith McNally | |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| Keith McNally is anxious. He is fretting that Balthazar's ceiling is the wrong shade of smoky yellow. He is worried the strip lights aren't right and the hanging fans are definitely wrong. He is concerned about his chips, his tea strainers, his salads. But now he is mostly anxious about not being able to find his childhood home. | Keith McNally is anxious. He is fretting that Balthazar's ceiling is the wrong shade of smoky yellow. He is worried the strip lights aren't right and the hanging fans are definitely wrong. He is concerned about his chips, his tea strainers, his salads. But now he is mostly anxious about not being able to find his childhood home. |
| We start our search, appropriately it seems, in "barmy park" next to the tube, where the Bethnal Green Library was built on the site of a 200-year-old asylum. "I haven't been here for 50 years," he says. "I was terrified of this place. It was so austere. I was a local kid and they would make me wash my hands before letting me in. I was in terror of not bringing books back in time." | We start our search, appropriately it seems, in "barmy park" next to the tube, where the Bethnal Green Library was built on the site of a 200-year-old asylum. "I haven't been here for 50 years," he says. "I was terrified of this place. It was so austere. I was a local kid and they would make me wash my hands before letting me in. I was in terror of not bringing books back in time." |
| It is a decade since McNally was here, despite living in London for the last two years in an expensive, expansive Notting Hill house, light years and a lifetime away. "I haven't brought my wife or children here either," he says. "I have reluctance … " | It is a decade since McNally was here, despite living in London for the last two years in an expensive, expansive Notting Hill house, light years and a lifetime away. "I haven't brought my wife or children here either," he says. "I have reluctance … " |
| As we walk in the cold, winter rain he tells me about Joyce and Jack, his mum and dad. "They should never have married," he says. "My mother was neurotic, cautious. She always felt slighted. We were never allowed to bring anyone into the house or sit on the green sofa or go into a certain room. My father was a docker, more easygoing, a keen amateur boxer and footballer." | As we walk in the cold, winter rain he tells me about Joyce and Jack, his mum and dad. "They should never have married," he says. "My mother was neurotic, cautious. She always felt slighted. We were never allowed to bring anyone into the house or sit on the green sofa or go into a certain room. My father was a docker, more easygoing, a keen amateur boxer and footballer." |
| His parents parted in the late 80s, he says, as we pass by Joyce's final home: "She was unsettled in every way, always moving, always thinking the next home would make her happy. She was a deeply unhappy woman." But it was her ambition – and his fear – that drove him. "My mother read a lot, did well at school but wasn't allowed to stay on. I only did slightly well out of fear of ending up at Fairfields School, over there. They used to put your head down the toilet on your first day at Fairfields so I worked just hard enough to get to the grammar school." | His parents parted in the late 80s, he says, as we pass by Joyce's final home: "She was unsettled in every way, always moving, always thinking the next home would make her happy. She was a deeply unhappy woman." But it was her ambition – and his fear – that drove him. "My mother read a lot, did well at school but wasn't allowed to stay on. I only did slightly well out of fear of ending up at Fairfields School, over there. They used to put your head down the toilet on your first day at Fairfields so I worked just hard enough to get to the grammar school." |
| We walk past the site of the old ABC bakery in search of a pie and mash shop. Like many exiles, McNally has a romantic longing for scraps of his childhood culture and history: he talks knowledgeably and happily about Wat Tyler's death at nearby Mile End and of the old market gardeners and silk weavers of Stepney. We stop a pair of passers-by and ask directions to the pub near to long-gone Palm Street where the McNally family home once stood. "If I can see the Palm Tree I will know where we were," he says. | We walk past the site of the old ABC bakery in search of a pie and mash shop. Like many exiles, McNally has a romantic longing for scraps of his childhood culture and history: he talks knowledgeably and happily about Wat Tyler's death at nearby Mile End and of the old market gardeners and silk weavers of Stepney. We stop a pair of passers-by and ask directions to the pub near to long-gone Palm Street where the McNally family home once stood. "If I can see the Palm Tree I will know where we were," he says. |
| We are close now but times, the landscape – and McNally – have changed. We cross a park with a failing "ecology pavilion" while he reels off the routes and numbers of local buses like a reassuring mantra. We are lost and cold and wet. Then suddenly he sees it – an old-school East End boozer, standing alone, shorn of the streets that once surrounded it, and it all comes flooding back. "Look, there it is," he says with relief. "My prefab where I lived would have been … right here. God, I broke one of the pub windows with a cricket ball. Palm Street …" We stop, he exhales, then is quiet. "It is a terrible feeling when the place where you grew up has vanished," he says finally. | We are close now but times, the landscape – and McNally – have changed. We cross a park with a failing "ecology pavilion" while he reels off the routes and numbers of local buses like a reassuring mantra. We are lost and cold and wet. Then suddenly he sees it – an old-school East End boozer, standing alone, shorn of the streets that once surrounded it, and it all comes flooding back. "Look, there it is," he says with relief. "My prefab where I lived would have been … right here. God, I broke one of the pub windows with a cricket ball. Palm Street …" We stop, he exhales, then is quiet. "It is a terrible feeling when the place where you grew up has vanished," he says finally. |
| McNally's life could be a mini-series: poverty, exile, money, fame, bitter family rivalries. A younger sister, Josephine, was born eight years after Keith and there are two older brothers: the eldest, Peter, is now a taxi driver living in Wanstead, and Brian – the Kinks' Dave Davies to Keith's Ray, as Vanity Fair once put it – with whom McNally opened his smash-hit Odeon while still in his 20s, and who was for a time a rival to his restaurant crown. | McNally's life could be a mini-series: poverty, exile, money, fame, bitter family rivalries. A younger sister, Josephine, was born eight years after Keith and there are two older brothers: the eldest, Peter, is now a taxi driver living in Wanstead, and Brian – the Kinks' Dave Davies to Keith's Ray, as Vanity Fair once put it – with whom McNally opened his smash-hit Odeon while still in his 20s, and who was for a time a rival to his restaurant crown. |
| Much of what we understand about the glamour of New York restaurants was created by McNally. In a 30-year career, he has opened a stream of successful businesses – Odeon in TriBeCa, the nightclub Nell's, Pastis in the Meatpacking District, Minetta Tavern, Balthazar – that defined their times and the downtown areas they dominated. It hasn't always been easy. He has walked away more than once, to make films, to farm. At the height of Odeon's success, the McNally brothers fell out; something about Keith and their mum, some say, and didn't speak for five years. Now, though, they talk or write every day, perhaps because Brian is running a restaurant in Saigon, on the other side of the world. | Much of what we understand about the glamour of New York restaurants was created by McNally. In a 30-year career, he has opened a stream of successful businesses – Odeon in TriBeCa, the nightclub Nell's, Pastis in the Meatpacking District, Minetta Tavern, Balthazar – that defined their times and the downtown areas they dominated. It hasn't always been easy. He has walked away more than once, to make films, to farm. At the height of Odeon's success, the McNally brothers fell out; something about Keith and their mum, some say, and didn't speak for five years. Now, though, they talk or write every day, perhaps because Brian is running a restaurant in Saigon, on the other side of the world. |
| London, I967: creative good-looking boys are doing well. Terence Stamp, David Bailey, the Stones. McNally is working as a bell boy at the Hilton on Park Lane when he gets a break: "Some American producers were making a film about Dickens with Michael Redgrave, and they couldn't cast a part," he says. "I was 16 but looked 12 and I got it. A limousine would pick me up from home and take me to filming. Later, I played The Winslow Boy in York and had a lead on TV, though my parents wouldn't watch it." | London, I967: creative good-looking boys are doing well. Terence Stamp, David Bailey, the Stones. McNally is working as a bell boy at the Hilton on Park Lane when he gets a break: "Some American producers were making a film about Dickens with Michael Redgrave, and they couldn't cast a part," he says. "I was 16 but looked 12 and I got it. A limousine would pick me up from home and take me to filming. Later, I played The Winslow Boy in York and had a lead on TV, though my parents wouldn't watch it." |
| McNally's lifelong love affair with theatre and film had begun. He appeared in Alan Bennett's 40 Years On at the Apollo theatre in the West End for a year, though when he told Joyce he'd be on stage with John Gielgud, she "burst into tears: 'You're going to be working with a homosexual!'" It was with Bennett he ate his first restaurant meal: steak at Bianchi's in Soho, and the playwright was later an investor in the Odeon. | McNally's lifelong love affair with theatre and film had begun. He appeared in Alan Bennett's 40 Years On at the Apollo theatre in the West End for a year, though when he told Joyce he'd be on stage with John Gielgud, she "burst into tears: 'You're going to be working with a homosexual!'" It was with Bennett he ate his first restaurant meal: steak at Bianchi's in Soho, and the playwright was later an investor in the Odeon. |
| By 1971, McNally had followed the hippie trail, hitchhiking through India and Afghanistan. On returning home, he worked the lighting board at The Rocky Horror Show and moonlighted at the Nell Gwynne strip club in Soho, where his current backer Richard Caring's Dean Street Townhouse now stands. "I was the stage manager," he says. "I checked the girls in, checked they were dressed, undressed, and stood at the side of the stage, taking their clothes. I had a terrible fear of seeing someone I knew, maybe my dad." He was sacked when one night the tape machine sped up, forcing the women to strip too fast: "Even when you are fired from a job you don't care about it is devastating." | By 1971, McNally had followed the hippie trail, hitchhiking through India and Afghanistan. On returning home, he worked the lighting board at The Rocky Horror Show and moonlighted at the Nell Gwynne strip club in Soho, where his current backer Richard Caring's Dean Street Townhouse now stands. "I was the stage manager," he says. "I checked the girls in, checked they were dressed, undressed, and stood at the side of the stage, taking their clothes. I had a terrible fear of seeing someone I knew, maybe my dad." He was sacked when one night the tape machine sped up, forcing the women to strip too fast: "Even when you are fired from a job you don't care about it is devastating." |
| While working at Rocky Horror, McNally had made a "couple of short films, some bits and pieces", and arrived in New York in 1975 intending to become a director, but restaurants got in his way. For a while he was working as the maître'd at One Fifth in Greenwich Village, where the Saturday Night Live team – John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd et al – had their aftershow parties. When McNally teamed with brother Brian and Lynn Wagenknecht, later his wife, to turn a tired TriBeCa cafeteria, the Towers, into the Odeon, the showbiz scene followed and the rest is restaurant legend. Warhol, De Niro, Scorsese, Cher, Mick Jagger, Liz Taylor, Warren Beatty were all regulars. Belushi helped himself to food in the walk-in fridge ("Leave him," was McNally's smart response) and once saddled and rode supermodel Janice Dickinson around the restaurant. Excess was everywhere – fistfights with artist Richard Serra and with the aggrieved owner of One Fifth; Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquiat being kicked out. Cocaine was snorted from every rest-room surface, chronicled by another regular, writer Jay McInerney, in 1980s New York's definitive novel, Bright Lights, Big City. When Random House published the book their lawyers were worried McNally would sue over the talk of drugs – instead he approved the use of the Odeon's awning on the cover. | While working at Rocky Horror, McNally had made a "couple of short films, some bits and pieces", and arrived in New York in 1975 intending to become a director, but restaurants got in his way. For a while he was working as the maître'd at One Fifth in Greenwich Village, where the Saturday Night Live team – John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd et al – had their aftershow parties. When McNally teamed with brother Brian and Lynn Wagenknecht, later his wife, to turn a tired TriBeCa cafeteria, the Towers, into the Odeon, the showbiz scene followed and the rest is restaurant legend. Warhol, De Niro, Scorsese, Cher, Mick Jagger, Liz Taylor, Warren Beatty were all regulars. Belushi helped himself to food in the walk-in fridge ("Leave him," was McNally's smart response) and once saddled and rode supermodel Janice Dickinson around the restaurant. Excess was everywhere – fistfights with artist Richard Serra and with the aggrieved owner of One Fifth; Jeff Koons and Jean-Michel Basquiat being kicked out. Cocaine was snorted from every rest-room surface, chronicled by another regular, writer Jay McInerney, in 1980s New York's definitive novel, Bright Lights, Big City. When Random House published the book their lawyers were worried McNally would sue over the talk of drugs – instead he approved the use of the Odeon's awning on the cover. |
| Next came Cafe Luxembourg, Nell's – New York's hippest nightclub – more restaurants, McNally's Midas touch turning everywhere into a goldmine. But, of course, he wasn't happy. "I got so depressed about being in New York not doing what I wanted," he sighs. "By the late 80s I had the Odeon, Cafe Luxembourg, Lucky Strike. I had Nell's where Rose Gray [later of London's River Café] cooked. But I didn't care. | Next came Cafe Luxembourg, Nell's – New York's hippest nightclub – more restaurants, McNally's Midas touch turning everywhere into a goldmine. But, of course, he wasn't happy. "I got so depressed about being in New York not doing what I wanted," he sighs. "By the late 80s I had the Odeon, Cafe Luxembourg, Lucky Strike. I had Nell's where Rose Gray [later of London's River Café] cooked. But I didn't care. |
| "I had to stop for six months. I wrote a script [End of the Night, about a man whose life is falling apart], realised it would take forever to get made so I borrowed $500,000 for a new restaurant and used that." McNally directed the film in black and white. "It was selected for Cannes," he says. "It got good reviews and I made the money back. So we moved to Paris and I made Far from Berlin, in Berlin. It took two years and flopped, my marriage broke up. It was my fault." | "I had to stop for six months. I wrote a script [End of the Night, about a man whose life is falling apart], realised it would take forever to get made so I borrowed $500,000 for a new restaurant and used that." McNally directed the film in black and white. "It was selected for Cannes," he says. "It got good reviews and I made the money back. So we moved to Paris and I made Far from Berlin, in Berlin. It took two years and flopped, my marriage broke up. It was my fault." |
| During the divorce, McNally signed over his three biggest businesses to his wife, keeping only the less glitzy Lucky Strike. With the movie bug out of his system, his thoughts turned to a new obsession: farming. "I was getting fed up with watching people consuming food," he says. "I wanted to produce some." He bought four acres of land on Martha's Vineyard and rebuilt the house and himself. "I have been building most of my life," he says. (There is a theme here: each of his places has been extensively reworked. The only original fitting left from his Notting Hill home is the front door. "I put together the house, bit by bit," he says. "Put in the floor, the ceiling, the staircase. To make it my own, I take away everything that is there and start again.") | During the divorce, McNally signed over his three biggest businesses to his wife, keeping only the less glitzy Lucky Strike. With the movie bug out of his system, his thoughts turned to a new obsession: farming. "I was getting fed up with watching people consuming food," he says. "I wanted to produce some." He bought four acres of land on Martha's Vineyard and rebuilt the house and himself. "I have been building most of my life," he says. (There is a theme here: each of his places has been extensively reworked. The only original fitting left from his Notting Hill home is the front door. "I put together the house, bit by bit," he says. "Put in the floor, the ceiling, the staircase. To make it my own, I take away everything that is there and start again.") |
| He farmed pigs and goats and learnt to milk. "I love milking," he says. "Mostly in my life, I feel fraudulent. I am good at getting others to do things, but with milking I am solely responsible." He shows me beautiful pictures of his goats, his wife Alina, his kids holding hens. But it wasn't all monastic, semi-retirement: Meg Ryan popped by for breakfast and Keith Richards came to stay. | He farmed pigs and goats and learnt to milk. "I love milking," he says. "Mostly in my life, I feel fraudulent. I am good at getting others to do things, but with milking I am solely responsible." He shows me beautiful pictures of his goats, his wife Alina, his kids holding hens. But it wasn't all monastic, semi-retirement: Meg Ryan popped by for breakfast and Keith Richards came to stay. |
| After a seven-year absence, McNally was again ready to conquer the city, first opening Pravda in 1996, a "constructivist" bar serving food (the only one of his places he has since sold), and then the next year: Balthazar, a thrumming Frenchified brasserie reimagined for Americans. | After a seven-year absence, McNally was again ready to conquer the city, first opening Pravda in 1996, a "constructivist" bar serving food (the only one of his places he has since sold), and then the next year: Balthazar, a thrumming Frenchified brasserie reimagined for Americans. |
| "I really missed having a big, bustling place," he says. "I felt I was starting again." New York again fell for the McNally magic. Celebrities flooded back for classic escargots, roast chicken, chocolate pot, effortless service, impeccable ambience. More importantly, so too did ordinary New Yorkers. As art critic Robert Hughes put it: "Balthazar is a fashionable restaurant. But it doesn't behave like one." | "I really missed having a big, bustling place," he says. "I felt I was starting again." New York again fell for the McNally magic. Celebrities flooded back for classic escargots, roast chicken, chocolate pot, effortless service, impeccable ambience. More importantly, so too did ordinary New Yorkers. As art critic Robert Hughes put it: "Balthazar is a fashionable restaurant. But it doesn't behave like one." |
| There were more celebrated openings, including Pastis, the much-copied Minetta Tavern, lastly even a pizza place: Pulino's; all successful, all different. For years, McNally has rebuffed attempts to replicate his places, particularly from casino king Steve Wynn in Las Vegas and Richard Caring, owner of The Ivy, J Sheekey, Scott's, in the UK. A few years back, Caring even tried to buy McNally out for $100m before becoming his backer at Pulino's and in London. | There were more celebrated openings, including Pastis, the much-copied Minetta Tavern, lastly even a pizza place: Pulino's; all successful, all different. For years, McNally has rebuffed attempts to replicate his places, particularly from casino king Steve Wynn in Las Vegas and Richard Caring, owner of The Ivy, J Sheekey, Scott's, in the UK. A few years back, Caring even tried to buy McNally out for $100m before becoming his backer at Pulino's and in London. |
| "I didn't come here to open a restaurant or do the same thing," says McNally. "I came to London to live. But doing the house helped me." That said, it wasn't until Caring joined him for the final 20 miles of a long hike across Exmoor (McNally is an epic walker) that he finally succumbed. "I need to be earning a living," he says. | "I didn't come here to open a restaurant or do the same thing," says McNally. "I came to London to live. But doing the house helped me." That said, it wasn't until Caring joined him for the final 20 miles of a long hike across Exmoor (McNally is an epic walker) that he finally succumbed. "I need to be earning a living," he says. |
| A couple of weeks before the opening I meet head chef Robert Reid and his team at Balthazar in Covent Garden. The trademark red banquettes are in, the beautifully aged original mirrors. We taste onion soup gratinée, superior British and American steaks, three styles of French fries (McNally is still not happy), crisp roast chicken. The star dish for me: sublime rhubarb crumble soufflé with a gently gingered ice cream. But McNally's reassuring smile is increasingly rictus: "I have never had a tasting where I don't end up unhappy," he says. "There has been more emphasis on the food here than in New York, a lot more thought, a lot more research. Both places might look the same but may not have the same feel." | A couple of weeks before the opening I meet head chef Robert Reid and his team at Balthazar in Covent Garden. The trademark red banquettes are in, the beautifully aged original mirrors. We taste onion soup gratinée, superior British and American steaks, three styles of French fries (McNally is still not happy), crisp roast chicken. The star dish for me: sublime rhubarb crumble soufflé with a gently gingered ice cream. But McNally's reassuring smile is increasingly rictus: "I have never had a tasting where I don't end up unhappy," he says. "There has been more emphasis on the food here than in New York, a lot more thought, a lot more research. Both places might look the same but may not have the same feel." |
| Asked what he thinks Londoners will make of it, he pauses. "Of course I am anxious about Balthazar," he says slowly. "Whether people will be expecting a New York experience or French but I hope that when people come here they will feel somehow transported." | Asked what he thinks Londoners will make of it, he pauses. "Of course I am anxious about Balthazar," he says slowly. "Whether people will be expecting a New York experience or French but I hope that when people come here they will feel somehow transported." |
| Towards the end of our time together I visit McNally in his elegant Notting Hill home. It is a quiet Saturday morning, kids are playing in the plush, grassy town square behind the house. We are talking about the London opening, his life, his career when the conversation takes an existential turn. "I absolutely sense that things hang by a thread," he says. "No one turns the corner. Success is a brief suspension of failure. Things don't get better as you get older, you don't get wiser, none of those things are true. | Towards the end of our time together I visit McNally in his elegant Notting Hill home. It is a quiet Saturday morning, kids are playing in the plush, grassy town square behind the house. We are talking about the London opening, his life, his career when the conversation takes an existential turn. "I absolutely sense that things hang by a thread," he says. "No one turns the corner. Success is a brief suspension of failure. Things don't get better as you get older, you don't get wiser, none of those things are true. |
| "When my mother was dying, the thing that bothered me was not that she was dying. It was the thought I would have to kiss her. She was in hospital, she was very sick, but I couldn't kiss her. I am very affectionate with my kids but I couldn't kiss my mother. I am sweating just thinking about it. If I ever have parents again I will kiss them. | "When my mother was dying, the thing that bothered me was not that she was dying. It was the thought I would have to kiss her. She was in hospital, she was very sick, but I couldn't kiss her. I am very affectionate with my kids but I couldn't kiss my mother. I am sweating just thinking about it. If I ever have parents again I will kiss them. |
| "We all die," he sighs. "I do feel that in 50 years, or 20, I am not going to be here. At some point there will be no newspapers, no books, no Nelson's Column…" | "We all die," he sighs. "I do feel that in 50 years, or 20, I am not going to be here. At some point there will be no newspapers, no books, no Nelson's Column…" |
| I leave the restaurant auteur surrounded by his muted German Expressionist paintings, his Georgian lighting and his ever-present anxieties. McNally may be fretting but I suspect he needn't be concerned. As long as he is worrying, the new Balthazar will be OK. | I leave the restaurant auteur surrounded by his muted German Expressionist paintings, his Georgian lighting and his ever-present anxieties. McNally may be fretting but I suspect he needn't be concerned. As long as he is worrying, the new Balthazar will be OK. |
| Balthazar, 4-8 Russell Street, London WC2; 020 3301 1155; balthazarlondon.com | Balthazar, 4-8 Russell Street, London WC2; 020 3301 1155; balthazarlondon.com |