Word: terrail
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...most popular brand in the U.S. is Perrier, a French import that comes in an elegant tear-shaped green bottle. Says Patrick Terrail, owner of Ma Maison in Los Angeles: "Perrier has become a cocktail in its own right." For the thirsty cosmopolitan there are also Contrexéville and Evian waters, the two bestsellers in France, West Germany's preferred Apollinaris and Gerolsteiner Sprudel, and Ferrarelle, one of Italy's favorites...
...Terrail's Tour, the menu is not all that commands attention. As Sacha Guitry, the French playwright, observed, "You go to La Tour d'Argent to dine. Once there, you look" at the scene. Shirley Temple Black, unable to flag a cab on a rainy day, was conveyed to the restaurant by gallant gendarmes in a Black Maria. Terrail also relates that a distinguished Roman Catholic prelate, Monsignor Fernand Maillet, loved late dinners at La Tour. "As he was obliged by ecclesiastical rules to stop eating at midnight so that he could conduct early morning Mass," Terrail says...
What makes and sustains a restaurant like La Tour d'Argent? In an interview with TIME Correspondent Paul Ress, Terrail, the Gielgud of gastronomy, explained: "La Tour d'Argent is like a theater. I am the author of the play, an actor in it and the director. The words and gestures of every actor are carefully rehearsed. Every employee knows exactly how to walk, stop, bow. There is no obsequiousness. Nor is anyone allowed to take a fat tip from a guest in exchange for a 'good' table. I'd fire anyone who accepted...
Fort Knox. Americans, who are increasingly knowledgeable about wine, are among Terrail's favorite guests. La Tour rests above 150,000 bottles of wine, worth at his estimate at least $3 million. ("It's my Fort Knox," he says.) When a guest asks for a Coca-Cola, the waiter invariably replies, "What is that? How do you spell it?" There is one innovation that particularly pleases the well-to-do party giver: Terrail's notion of presenting only the host with a menu that lists prices. (A dinner for two, with a modest wine, will cost...
...Tour is not all that severe. To a sympathetic party, the management quite often proffers an after-dinner liqueur. And, says Terrail, no one blinks an eye when his guests swipe souvenirs. "You're in good company," says he. "Every year 14,000 ashtrays disappear...