AUDAX
MORTIMER’S REVISITED
ABOUT THE PARTI
CIPANTS
Robin Baker Leacock is a docum who produ entary filmm ced and aker directed Musical Comed Stella & Co: A Romantic y About Aging Giving; Stella ; It Girls; A Passion for is 95; and I’ll Take Manha her docum ttan. All of entaries have aired and many nationally shown at on PBS, a variety including of film festiva Berlin, The ls, Hamp tons, and Robin is married to Montreal. documentary Leacock, filmmaker and is the Robert daughter-inteemed cinem law of the esa vérité pionee She divide r, Richard s her time Leacock. between and Sag Palm Beach Harbor, New , Florida York.
" This mys teri ous
AND
ROBIN BAKER LEAC
zed memoriali now: is now here, restaurant Join them hole and its regulars. so: watering many celebrated could have done dinner with The most lunch and side owner Glenn le who d every only peop along gentlemen room roare by the ing hard, . These mer’s one types party Adolfo and Short t Caravaggi , 1970s Morti ican young “In the late ean and Amer Lane, Zipkin d was born.” –Rober Blass, KJ named chic Europ and a legen lanca, with friends y ladies Casab aum’s societ in Café Bernb in the Dunne brought like Rick’s role.” --Dominick mer’s is rt says Morti ldo phrey Boga erbilt Hum Reina the night “Gloria Vand aum in was the aret. When Glenn Bernb Mortimer’s ess Marg Queen,‘ e time at dinner for Princ Save the d out memorabl a little my most invited me to played ‘God as she walke “I think , Glenn ra royal wave Colacello to leave ina Herre got up that little --Bob and Carol Margaret everyone would do.” Princess Highness gave Queen --Taki warm.” like the Royal rant, just snug and and Her felt restau and of the a fireplace asked me inside of to me and table spoke like the s looked called out one my and “Mortimer’ Jerry Zipkin because every at my table said to past a table, ed a break who was walking I need asked me something. Jerryfrom He . “As I was was. I told him , or she’s pretty bored called Eileen table English; getting tess how my to speak DuRoss and I was a Spanish Coun --Kimberly tell Eileen Spanish so!’” and was table there her I said ley, I told him get back to your And you tell b: Pat Buck me, ‘You River, New York. Kempner r his thum Pearl and Nan . Glenn ses unde ty liones accounts home York socie had house al dinners at had New Slater. They all chairs, which speci h her “Glenn Frenc Glenn for ner, Anne hard, ugly Nan Kemp caviar from except those --Andre Leon Talley favorite everything one’s bottom.” got her quarter taste, in lt for the last s, but had great r joint of were difficu many other ty burge and are us socie Glenn most famo yes, there were ) of the late s was the orship York. Oh Columbia “Mortimer’ in New (and dictat Patrick century ownership ut peer.” --David of the 20th day under the it was witho in its Bernbaum,
Mortimer’s maitre d’hote l and host who later Robert Carava opened and ggi, co- owned rant on the Swifty’s restau upper east side and Pool at the currently Colony Hotel Swifty’s in Palm Beach legacy of Mortimer’s , was left a photograph from Glenn s and memo Bernbaum. rabilia He is the significant source of archive which this he has donate creation of this book d for the as consu tributor. lting editor He and his and conwife, chef Blaine Merrit and busine t Caravaggi, ss owner currently Hudson reside in Valley and the Palm Beach .
Foreword writer David Patrick Colum founder, mastermind bia is the , and contin its incept uous editor ion in the since year 2000 icle, NY Social of the society Diary, a news chronthe upper sheet for and about crust. In his NYSD, pages with he combi nes society personal reflection celebratory resulting chronicle in a unique of galas, other society opening nights, and events and their widely in attendees. the United He travels States to readers and venues where subjects his celebrate, Manhattan, but his home in New York base is City.
88 QUEST
ISBN
G Edition
$85.00 -21-1
943876
978-1-
585 00>
M oM eNTs IN TIM e
O
OCK
In the traditi on of celebr ated New photograph York Times er Bill Cunni ngham, Mary been docum Hilliard has enting society and fashion City and Europe for in New York the past been seen 35 years. Her work in Vogue has , The New Town and York Times Country, Magazine, Avenue, Quest publications and many other . She was a regular contributed at Mortim most of the er’s and photograph She lives s in this book. in New York City.
M oM eNTs IN TIM e ROBIN BAKE R LEACO PHOTOGRA CK PHS | MARY HILLIARD PREFACE | ROBERT FOREWORD CARAVAGG | DAVID I PATRICK COLUMBIA
N ANY GIVEN DAY one might see, lunch or at dinner, Jacqu eline Onass Bobby Short, is or Placido Domin de la Renta go or Oscar , Lord Snowd en or Greta bo. Mortim Garer’s, New loved restau York City’s rant on Manha muchttan’s Upper favorite wateri East Side— ng hole for a socialites, hundreds achievers of lesserand the known diners tentious who sough ambience—c t its unpre losed in 1998, its founde following r and somet the death imes contro of nbaum. But versial host, the many Glenn Berpatrons, who thoug celebrated ht fondly or anony of it as a mous, remember home away it as if it were from home yesterday. counting, In this remar they are there again, kable reHilliard’s transported stunning back by Mary photograph tos and ephem s and the many meme era—napkins ncollected , banners, by Bernb menus—lovi aum himse ngly friend and lf and beque longtime athed to maitre d’hote his And, most l, Robert tellingly, Caravaggi. through memories the poigna of Mortim nt and colorfu er’s regula l Robin Baker rs and visitors Leacock. collected by In additio n, there’s a delectable from the sample of celebrated recipes Mortimer’s here, which cookbook, were known excerpted to be simple and most important, yet delicio us — too, reason ably priced . But to set the stage, New York author and Social Diary social arbiter founder, David Patrick how “this mysterious Columbia, tells place called Mortimer’s” came to be.
s |Geditio
ns.com |Printed
and bound
in China.
876211 9 781943
dozens of other great nights in the following decades. The cast of characters was a Who’s Who of 1980s Gotham and included Peter Duchin, Mary McFadden, Sister Parish, Joan Collins, Nina Griscom, Diane von Furstenberg, Mike Wallace, Jessye Norman, Dominick Dunne, Bobby Short. Tommy and Nan Kempner, Betty Bacall, Bill Paley, Yasmin Khan and Brooke Astor. One wintry night I had the honor of fetching Vladimir Horowitz’s overcoat from the ledge by the window table where crotchety owner Glenn Bernbaum had ostentatiously seated him (“ROBERT,” Glenn would cry out as the evening’s seating approached, “We have to do le placement!”). On other
CO U RTE S Y O F M A RY H I LL I A R D
A NEW BOOK created by Robin Baker Leacock, Mortimer’s: Moments in Time, about the fabled society café of the late 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, will be published in March by G Editions, with a preface from former Maitre‘d (and today Swifty’s at The Colony impresario) Robert Caravaggi, photographs by Mary Hilliard, and a foreward by our own DPC. Fresh from Cambridge, I first lunched at Mortimer’s when it was still new in the Fall of 1976 en route to the Peace Corps in Thailand and several years thereafter running health and agricultural development projects in central Africa. Glamorous model Missy Prowell, her late, lamented boulevardier brother Richie, Jamie Niven, Helen Morris and the charming AngloIrish rogue Richard Beamish were in our congenial party that day, and when I got back to New York and started at Time Inc. in 1980 I headed straightaway back to the cozy boite at 75th and Lexington Avenue. I remember the book party Dick and Shirley Clurman threw for Christopher Buckley’s Steaming to Bamboola in 1982 and
pla ce kn own as Mor tim DIANA VREEL er ’s..."
