May 7, 2025 • 46 mins
Call the reservationist, we're popping champagne with downtown restaurateur Keith McNally and his spankin' new memoir "I Regret Almost Everything." From his homosexual relationship with British playwright Alan Bennett to hitchhiking across Turkey, suic*de, medical crises, class anxieties, retro revanchist Americana aesthetics, sex with unnamed celebrities, zinc bars, and of course, Patti Smith being a bitch—it doesn't get any more NEW YORK than this. Stay tuned for Part 2 next Wednesday!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Celebrity Book Club. Hey club kids, did you miss us?
We're handing out a free app this week. It's part
one of our epic two parter on Downtown Restaurant or
Keith McNally. If you want part two, honey, you're gonna
have to head over to patreon dot com slash CBC
the pod that's dropping next week, But for now, this
one's on us. Love you. Who's that knocking at the door.
(00:26):
It's all your friends, you filthy whrse. Your husband's gone
and we've got books and a bottle of wine to kill.
It's Hollywood, it's books, It's gossip. I'm shook. Its memoirs Martini,
Celebrity poof Club. Come read it while it's hot. Celebrity
poof Club. I'll tell your secrets.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
We won't talk celebrity books.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
No, boys are a loud celebrity boo.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Say it loud and pound.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Celebrity Book Club.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Buzz me in. I brought the queer foe. Hey, best
friends friend?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
How the hell are you?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hey, best friend? It's so it's so good to say it.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yes, yes, because we don't get to say it as
much now, But it's still true.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Mama, right and you have to make sure you're like
is it true.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yes, yes, check in, check in with your bestie's out
there ladies, and make sure you guys are still each
other's number one, because sometimes those rankings can shift.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
No, they can totally fall, and in life sometimes things
do fallt yes, and we all go through phases with
wives and children.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And friends and friends and restaurants.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
And lovers that become friends.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And then wives that become business partners.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Exactly and close confidence.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So yeah, I think you'll be able to tell by
the fact that you're listening to this episode on a
Wednesday and that we said, hey, best friend.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
We're doing a book.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
We're doing a book. Isn't it good to be back
in the old library.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
A book that literally comes out and say it with
me today or yesterday's this week?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, no, it comes out yesterday. Okay, wow, you listening to
this it comes out yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So be impressed by the fact that we railed this
in twenty four hours. Oh wait, no, we got the
arc ma man.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Oh yes, I'm talking about that galley bitch with big
confidential letters across the page.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
It's like a slight gray diagonal letter that' says confidential
for review purposes only on every I will admit, well,
I am not ashamed to admit that when I was
reading this on the subway, I definitely was just like
just taking it out a little bit more solely, just
in case anyone was curious as to the cover. Be like, yeah,
that's right, this book that comes out next month. I'm
(02:38):
reading it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, you're like holding it so hard, hold like a
completely yeah holding galley.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, impressed, And then like letting people see the confidential
review purposes only. Yeah, that's right. If your eyes wander
over to my lap, yeah, keep your eyes off my crotch, asshole,
I'm reading a galley.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I wonder if anyone at Call Lord today when I
was reading it in the waiting room, was like so fucking.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Impressed, so fucking horny.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, it was just like, WHOA is that an arc?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah? Maybe they would have been impressed if it was
like Ocean Wong's new book or something, or like the
sequel to a Little Life or something something in the
queer lit canon in which this book is not, I.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Would put this in the cannon.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Wait, I guess, I guess one is, but like by
accident in this way that's so like not gay that
I really love.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But right, it's so not gay that it is gay,
but it's also.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Like way gayer and more honest than like any other
ship book. Okay, who are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Let's say it.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know him as the restauranteur who invented downtown Acquardant
to New York Times, he is the owner of Baltasar.
It's so funny that you say Baltussar and not balt Bazar.
Can we unpack? You know?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I was watching this interview of him when he's talking
about opening up the London version, which we'll get into
this episode, and I realized he's saying Baltzar, and then I.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Will whoa, Now you just really clipped it. You just
made that two syllables. You just said Baltzar.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Well that's what he was kind of saying in this interview.
He was like Boltsar, Yeah, balts Are. He was like, well,
I hope to make the London bolts Are, you know,
like the New York But you know, expectations. It's like
when you know a woman hears it you're good.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
In bed and and and then you sleep with her
and you're not good in bed.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Baltzar. I mean that's a really clipped well of course
English working class bethnal Green, like you know those clipped vowels,
right Boltza.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So okay, so how do you say it?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I say both bizarre?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Oh, both are.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Both bizarre, you know the soft the soft.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And I'm giving it kind of a baltazar.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Most times that I've heard it spoken in my circles
as a member of the downtown New York literati, I
hear people saying both.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Thesar, bothre.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Bazaar, come over here, both tazar, come over here. No,
I want my next group of fish. I want to
name pestis bald bizarre shillers, Kathy Luxemburgva.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Is a really good name for fish.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
School. Okay, who are we talking about if you don't
know already.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
None other than Keith McNally and.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
His spanking fresh from the Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Book I regret almost everything. And here he has on
the cover and I wool having bone overcoat, sort of
gazing somewhere in the distance. Looks like he's on a
sidewalk in New York City, maybe just thinking about his life.
Black and white photo. It was probably in four days
in this shot. Eye.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, he has this kind of cool spiky hair in it.
That kind of name feels very fifties.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yes, but the photo is probably from the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Maybe I just have to say I ate this book up.
Honey doored it.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
It was fucking eight course meal devoured.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Obviously, this is like actual like catnip for us.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's restaurants, it's drama, it's celebrities, it's.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Martini's Sick, it's Martini's, it's fall Gral, it's Patti Smith.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And he's a great writer, and I mean he really
you know, Tina Brown was talking about this on her substock,
you know that one humiliation that everyone now is suffered.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So crazy that Tina Brown has a substock.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's just like, wow, we really all just got to
be out there begging for cash digitally panhandling. And she
said she was like, reading this book, I realized I
should have hired him as a writer at Vanity Fair.
I mean, he just has he has voice, he has
a gift for voice. And you know, the structure of
the book is quite compelling. So it begins with his
attempted suicide after his stroke.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
So it's kind of these these tragedies one after another
where he's it's like bam, And a lot of us didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Even know that he had an attempt at suicide.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, in my community, in your community of Keith watchers, No,
I didn't know about the suicide either. And I you know,
obviously by the stroke, because if you follow him on Instagram,
he's a voracious Instagram poster, partly because he had a
stroke that took away his faculties with speech and he
kind of speaks in his more slurred way now, and
so Instagram lets him express himself much more easily.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And I feel like that was also why many of
us out there were so excited for this book, because
we all got this taste of you know, and he
writes these long, detailed posts and kind of these these
humorous but sad and you know lately, you know, in
some of the gossip, you know, he's a famous.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Poster in this book, but you know, but a lot
of it's posting. He's always posting about his restaurants, and
like with this very kind of romantic, cantankerous misanthrope like
viewer is just like, oh and you know, another terrible
night at both this are We did six hundred covers
and so he's you know, there's a transparency. He's like
pulling the curtain back and telling you about like all
the money they made. Be He's always like has this
(08:10):
kind of like faux disdain for like you know, powered
and celebrity and wealth and like you love to like
take people down a peg, even though obviously he's like
completely enamored with celebrities and also like creating a space
that is like a place to go spend your money
and wants people to be rich and glamorous.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Like right, it's like his whole kind of I would say,
like style of restaurant is for a celebrity to go
to in jeans. Yes, he's so, which I think comes
from his generation because he is like maybe like a
younger boomer. So it like comes out of this like, oh, well,
(08:47):
the French restaurants of New York of the sixties where
you know, you had to put on a tie and
and jacket and there weren't really these big French of
bistros where you could wear a leather jacket and jeans
and have steak free.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You know what's funny about him? So I thank you
for me them about because I feel like you know,
like somewhat early in the book, he does he imagines
himself as like reinventing the wheel and restaurants, and literally
every restaurant thinks that they've reinvented the wheel, and he
thinks he's the first person to be like French cuisine
was so stuffy and uptown and menus had the longest
(09:20):
titles of dishes on them and way too many dishes
on them. And I said, what if we made a
brasserie that was a little more accessible, okay, or you
could just go get a good steak frets in the
neighborhood and a glass of champagne. It's like, that's literally
what every restaurant or has ever thought ever. They're like,
what if the food is really good but it's actually
like kind of casual, kind of casual and more down
(09:43):
to earth like even to this day, like every new
like small Plates rethinks that they're doing the same thing
of being like, you know, we saw every other place
was supertentious, and we were like, how about we just
do some like seven things really good good And what if.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Sorry, what if this what if it was just fucking
bankots a zinc bar right now Vintage mirrors from Burgundy
from seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
And then we wrote them menu on the mirrors. What
about that? What about that?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
But what's not to really jump ahead here, But while
we're on the subject of kind of RESTAURANTSS being rocketed
to head. The two chefs he hired for both the
czar who you know, became partners, you know, ended up
becoming partners.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
In Minetta and then Pastisee. They opened up, Vodoor, they opened.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Up and French Chatte, where we had a lovely meal
at Lily by the way, let's just say.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Let's just say we had a lovely meal there after
leaving Odeon.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Oh my god, his former restaurant with his former ex
wife Lynn Weggencock or wow. No, I mean it's impossible
to escape as New York if you live here and
you're in the know, as of course we are.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
This is but I guess sorry, just to thread my
point is that those two restaurants are trying to bring
back a little little bit of the stuffiness. His ex
chefs are trying to bring back a little bit of
the stuff in Malagy. Yes, in their newer French restaurants. Yes,
Vodor is spelling against but it's also.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Like, I mean, I haven't been to Vodor, you know,
because I might as well. I'm the biggest loser on earth,
and like you should run me over with an NYC
garbage truck. But like I have been to the Rock,
which is also theirs, and like rock is I'll say this,
it's fine for like a pre dinner, the pre theater meal.
I'm not like rushing to go back. It's like really
expensive and like I don't think it's so worth it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's exactly what my his mom said, Well ARPI okay, but.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Like they're also thinking that they're reinventing the wheel by
going fancy again, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They're like, what if we were fancy?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Do you remember the days of the nineteen sixties when
men with them jackets?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Okay, so, but Balthazar, as you were describing, has like
a zinc bar. It's like a French brasserie. It's like
the concept is like, it's not it is not reinventing
a single wheel. When he talks about the when this
attorney goes The idea for Balta came about while I
was living in Paris, seven years before I built the place.
Although it's hard for me to come up with good ideas.
(12:09):
A few decent ones I've ever had come about by
pure accident. I was searching for vintage curtains at a
Paris flea market in nineteen ninety when I suddenly spotted
an old CPIA photo of a turn of the century bar.
Behind the bar zinc counter one hundreds of liquor bottles
stack twenty feet high, flanked by two towering statues of
semi naked women carved in the classical Greek style. It's like, sorry,
(12:31):
you saw a photo of a bar with liquor bottles
behind it, and it gave me the idea for her restaurant.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
All of his inspiration is a photo of a naked
woman's isn't thin?
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
The way?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yes, she went, how do I say this bottle cheli esk?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But he was like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
It wasn't one of those models. She had curves and
she was leaning. I literally drank every time he says
zinc in this book. But it's like and bottles stashed.
I guess what he's time as he's not time about
just two shelves. He's talking about balls to the wall.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Liquor.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, I'm still just like and he's it, and it's
like a photo of a bar, isn't an idea for
a bar? That just is a photo of a bar,
And then you're just doing a concept that exists already,
which is just like French brasserie like but mirrors.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Like I'm also like always seeing a photo of a
vintage bar, being like, wait, I have an idea.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Bar, but it's old.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The concept is bar.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
And then in this trip, so he gets like when
he creates a restaurant, he admits very wildly, like it
it takes a lot of money, honey.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, he's always running out, it's always going in a debt.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And because so he goes to France and he finds
these vintage luggage racks and like French luggage racks to
put on like the ceiling of baltasar and he buys
them in like greater and then he comes back and
the guy has like shined them and polished them so
they don't look vintage anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And he's like, I've never been more.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Upsetting, absolutely furious.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And then at Kathy Luxembourg, he like he was like, wait,
what if we have the idea to do like the
postcard with a check that's like a funky postcard of
the restaurant. And then he's like, let's do a photo
shoot with Zoftig women like right the bar. But then
they accidentally hired these fucking Vogue models, right, So.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
He calls like a model agency, right, and they said,
have these Vogue models and he's like, absolutely not what
I want. So he's like, no, I want like curvy,
big Luxembourgian curls.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And he was like and it was perfect.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I was wondering about the postcard thing, where I was like,
people were probably doing it, but that was another thing
where he was like, would it be so crazy if
we gave people a post card?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah. I feel like he's probably lying about coming up
with that idea because obviously lots of restaurants do that,
and you know, it does add to the experience. It's
like another point of branding that I think, you know,
helps sell the overall narrative of the restaurant and you know,
leaves the consumer with like just like a little bit
of a closer relationship to the brand. But I can't
(15:22):
imagine that he came up with that idea. It's like,
obviously other people.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Were doing that, right, but yeah, just to take it
back a little now, like to the seventies. So the
big reveal in this book is in his early twenties
he had a homosex wood relationship.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yes, play right. Alan Bennett, the famous.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Celebrated British playwright Alan Bennett, author of the Madness of
King George, is part of.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
The Beyond the Fringe group now.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And he was just a working class boy, you know,
from bethnal Green and but he wanted to be he
wanted to be a filmmaker. You want to be sund
by the intellect. And he started hanging out with Alan
Bennett and he was like, it's so cool the way
you talk about art and culture and plays.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I feel like he was like just experiencing like
gay guy criticism.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So he says he was seventeen when they met, or no,
he says he was like eighteen when the relationship started.
But I kind of think maybe he's lying about that
just to protect on. I think he was seventeen. It's
groom central. But you know what I'm you know, I
feel like he's really like grateful to have been groomed.
And I feel like he's like I learned like so
(16:33):
much from this guy who I got to be around
him and his playwright friends, and it was like it
was such an education. He says.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I've had two homosexual relationships in my life. The first
was with an actor when I was sixteen. The second
and more serious one was with the English play right
Alan Bennett.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So and they're doing that. I left his like so
like and like after the plays they would have right Sorry.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Supper was always simple, a light salad and a chunk
of pete or cold chicken that Alan and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Had roasted before the theater.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
During the meal, we talk about that night's play, but
to avoid getting serious too quickly, Alan would preface his
thoughts on the play by gossiping about the actors.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
He was quite funny about short actors, with Edward fox
Off in his main target.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
That's something so seventies and also British of it, calling
something just like, oh, just a chunk of pettis.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Chunk of pette. It's giving cat food, you.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Know, it's very gay cat food.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So six weeks after our theater go and routine began,
Alan drove me to see a small Anglican church in
the countryside. On our return we stopped the car arrestop
to eat sandwiches and drink tea from a flask. It
was a dreary day, and Alan seemed unusually melancholy. It
was then that I sensed he was in love with me.
Not long after that, I stayed the night at his house.
Sleeping with Alan felt like a natural progression of our friendship.
(17:51):
It was uncomplicated. I never once felt guilty about it.
After that first night, I'd say two or three times
a week and I'm just like, okay, so sorry, Na Pride,
what were you all doing? You know?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I was almost up.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Because I was like, Okay, he's you know, he's very upfront,
but he's also like he talks about sex a lot, but.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Like, can you talk about the positions?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah? Is twenty five? Who's topping?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Like was there? Boy butter involved? Was there? Chunk Pete and.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Chunks was so twink?
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's Twink Top elder gay Bottom.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It has to be, Yeah, because I don't really see
Keith Bottom and such a young age and experimenting bottoming.
I think it would be a lot more comfortable for
him to be this kind of well sprightly young Okay,
But I could also see this very just kind of
like frottage and.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Blow a lot of oral to start out with.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
It was side central over there.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, I think it was a side.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's side Eaton's green, lad. I don't. I don't know
because also though, because there's something about this reallyationship is
very very ancient Greece like that, because you have this
older man who's like this the tutor, and then the
younger man who was eager to learn in his feet,
and those relationships the classic, you know, pederasty relationships. The
(19:15):
older man was always the top, the younger man was
always the bottom, and that was like why it was
acceptable socially. So I do wonder if some of that
played out as well, and Alan was like I'm the
teacher here, you're the student, and it only makes sense
for me to penetrate it.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I think penetration absolutely happened. I'm just kind of I
was more thinking about the early The early hooking up
was probably like pretty.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oral and then like maybe you think that they're like
not having full sacks their first name. Yeah, it was
they were pet They were petting for three weeks.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It was a petting for three weeks, and then it
was so like, I kind of feel like anal happened
after the Dreary Tea from the flask.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well, yeah, I mean, but that's he said was the
first time they slept to go Oh, the dreary tea
was when he realized he was in love with them,
and then they slept together in the night. So that
would be the that would be the first time. That
wouldn't be weeks of petting.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Hmmm. Well, I guess we'll never know. I know, I
just I want to Yeah, I guess I want to
have it for a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I want to have an opinion on the top bottom though.
I want to come down on a side here.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And I think it is classic, but now I'm just like,
don't you think old?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
So it was like a young British boy maybe like
he was excited by the fact that he could like
fuck your guy in the ass and was like, let
me try.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I feel like that's such a modern like idea. Well no,
not really. Well okay, here's like here's what I also think. Like,
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Actually when you're younger, is when you are more verse
before you're.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Like right, you're clay ready to be molded. I also
think though that we if we assume that he would
be the top, because he like ends up being a
straight guy, so we're like, well, hole, it's a hole,
so he can fox. He can do that job. However,
something I learned on the Tyra Banks Show once many
years ago was that a lot of the gay for pay,
like porn stars, are often bottoms because you don't need
(21:12):
to be hard to bottom. And so if he's not
actually as gay as Alan Bennett, the whole sexual act
isn't relying on his erection. If he's going to be
the bottom, what.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
About this cut to the whole pod just being about this?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
When so he goes on this huge hitchhiking trip very
like seventies, literally goes like Catman do.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, hitchhikes the Catman do from London. It's iconic. You
can never do this today, It's like.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Literally never do it.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
He's always been like, oh, the Afghans are so such
good hosts. And he falls in love with like so
many girls in bookstores who like sell maps.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
And when he comes back, Alan is a little bit like,
so I'll be starting up again, yeah, And he realizes, like,
you know, after falling in love with so many map girls.
He's like, I don't really want to, but he also,
like I think, really appreciates and loves Alan as a friend,
so he feels bad totally ending the physical relationship.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, so I could see him coming back and bottoming.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh you think he was like almost like guilt guilt bottoming.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, in the when he returns from the big hit.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So he was topping before Catman do guilt bottoming after, Okay,
and that it's ultimately going to be the truth that
we're gonna have to say.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Right, that's where we've kind of sided on and feel
free to get in the comments after reading this. But
it's beautiful because they stay literally like bestie is throughout
his whole life and actually, of course in restaurants, right Lynn,
his first wife becomes even better friends yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
With Alan, and they're all just being like, oh God,
of course we're all former lovers. But we'll have to
say business partners forever, kind of like.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
You and me, right, sorry, we have to stay business.
We have to open up a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
This road trip which is like so iconic and like
there's this thing where you can send a letter to
any city in the world.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
How cool is that? And you just go to the post.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You just go to the post. Yeah, and it just
like has a name on it, just like a person's name.
You just send a letter to Keith McNally in timbucktoo,
and then you go to timbuckto and you're like, oh,
here's my letter.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I actually acted like that exists in the world today.
If I made tangent for one second, I was acting
like Keith. I ordered a T shirt off of T
Pop and I it said it was delivered, but I
couldn't find it. And then I saw I had in
my dpop a wrong address listed.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So I just went to the building. I was like,
is there a package for me here?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
No, that's exactly the same thing as mailing a letter
to timbuk two.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
But I'm just saying as I was being so like, hello,
I'm here, my name is Lily. Where's my package?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
And this like old woman was just like get off
my lawn.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
It was a little like younger woman with like a
doll being so sketch by me.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, just call it the package. So I love when
he's talking about being in Istanbul, like at the pudding
shop and like there was so many hippies and drifters,
because like there was a lot of like hippies doing
the old like like the Silk Right.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Everyone hitchhike to then you do row Darling.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
No, the pudding shop sounded so iconic. It was like yeah,
like a cool place for hippies that did serve like
Middle Eastern food, but it also was being like they
were playing like the New rock and role that he
had missed because he was away right on his like hitchhiking,
and there was like all these books there that you could.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Like love right and you could like get out like
a pamphlet from Fuco. Like the was like rolling around
at the coffee shop. I was just like if this
were today, It's like if you were doing this Silk
Road today in the pudding shop, I mean, it would
all just be like I mean, first of all, you
wouldn't build hitchhig you would have to be like paying
for so many like e visas and like down leaving
(25:00):
like absolutely awful apps like in every country. And I'm
sure just like Ron has like a really shitty app
like it's difficult to us and that I would say that,
and then you would just be with like all these
content creators like to put.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
The phones out at the pudding shop would be crazy,
and it would be like the new Boy Genius being
played and someone being like, oh my god, you've been
on the Silk Road.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You haven't heard any song.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
And then are you like the books being left? Are
you like picking up the new like actually like trick
Mirror or whatever. At I'd be like, oh, I'm having
I kind of missed this one. It's like de Transition,
baby Mirror.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I'm reading The Guest by Emma Kleine in istan Pool.
Well while I'm like filming my TikTok, just being like
sexty countries and a hundred's come with me.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I love.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The Turkish people are so kind. You have to go
to this mom, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Follow me for more chips about jerky.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
This is a really dope bookshop. They had all these
really cool books. They've never heard of Transition.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
If you go through this curtain, all of a sudden
it's a record shop.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
And if you go through another curtain, yeah, it's a
vintage clothing store where you can find tons of dead stock.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Carhard and then one more curtain you're in the Ace
hotelis stock Pool. Oh god, you know there's shades of
I kind of like this book to me felt a
little bit like a mix of Verna Hoozog's book and
Anthony Bourdines book, like you have like Anthony Boardines like
(26:43):
really misanthropic, like like fuck this system, but man, there's
nothing better than this, like in New York City and
counting your tips at the end of the night with
all the busts.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
But it's so, what's so funny about Keith mcdally, would
she what?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I like? He's more kind of self aware than Anthony Boardame,
where he's like, I've literally never been a chef. I
I've just been dying to become like a filmmaker, which
kind of happened but didn't really Like I'm so and
he's like my best memory End of the Night odeon
nineteen eighty eight watching all the service counter tips, drink
beer and smoke, and man we had some.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Laughs and talk shit about the customers. That's what I's
all about. Okay, wait, can we talk about the celebrity
the unnamed celebrity actress that he sleeps with x X.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Okay, I have some guesses.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I have some guesses. So he this woman like comes
and sleeps with him, and she arrives at his house.
They like talked on the phone like a couple of times.
Then she comes to New York. She rives in his
house with two huge suitcases at one in the morning
and she's bringing.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
A baseball high and he's discussed.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
He goes, nothing puts me off sex more than a
woman with a huge suitcase case.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Best line, literally the best line. And he was like,
caps are discussed.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
He was already like caps are disgusting and a woman
with a suitcase and he was like he was. She
said she was tired, which I thought man code for sex,
but he was like, she actually did want to fall asleep,
which thank god because with that suitcase, in my vision,
I wouldn't be able to get hard.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
He hates hats because I feel like half the people
at Bulta Thar are so with their little moment the
moment yeah, I was literally about to say that with
the moment design store, like yeah, I literally want to
throw up. So he says that she's an actress and
a television show that teenagers watch, and Night sent him
it's nineteen ninety eight tapes.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
She sent him tapes of the show for him to
watch so.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Here are my guesses. Shoot, Katie Holmes, Nev Campbell, Party
of Five, Michelle Williams Dawson's Creek or then I was like,
what if it's Heather Locklear from Monroe's Place teen show? Okay,
because Heather Locklear is so like sexy and badass and
like kind of would be with big suitcases. Maybe, but
(29:16):
I could also see Michelle Williams being kind of suitcase.
But I could also see Nev Campbell being so I'm
coming in the night.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I think it's a more Nev. Michelle is like, I
don't can she carry two suitcases?
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Well? No, that's why he had to carry them up
the stairs. She was rolling it.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Probably I was imagining it someone from maybe Nino to
and oh, I'm just like Shannon Doughty Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Something's so funny to me about the name Jenny Garth,
and like always will be. Wait, maybe it is Shannon
Darty and that's.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Why he hooked up with Derinda. He likes blonds.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
He hooked up with Derinda.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, they had a quote unquote tour affair for three
months in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Wait, he didn't mention that in the book.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, But it like he that was one of his crazies.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I feel like that's just like him saying something crazy
on Instagram that can't be true. I mean also, they
are like the same age. That does make sense, right,
it's not that weird.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
She is always like dating a huge like fat guy.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Okay, Jenny Gary Spelling, Jenny Garth, Heatherlocklear, Shannon Doherty, Alyssa Milano, charmed.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Milano is because he's so she At one point she
says the thing, She's like, you just tell it like
it is, and he's just like, oh, that's like she's
too dumb, like also because I don't tell like it is,
and I feel like I'm such a faker and like
I can't like keep this going. And he brings I
could see a Lissa Milano being like, you really tell
it like.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
It is, right, Like I love your honesty.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
That's her, and he brings her to his son hockey
games and staring Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
I just wanted to beat Jenny Garth. Let's go with
Jenny garrandom so random.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
She said it kid use like tapes, but by ninety
eight might have been over already done.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, I don't know, and but like all the teens
at his kid's hockey game are recognizing her, So it's like,
would they be recognizing the Campbell? I mean they would
where they be recognizing how they're Lockley or maybe not,
because that was kind of I think is too old,
too old, And like melrose Place was also like you
had to be an older team to watch it, not
a younger team.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Right, So it's like ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Dawson's Well, that's why I'm saying, like, was it Katie.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
William or Michelle or Katie? Katie makes a lot of.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Sense, yeah, and like Katie is looking for like an
older man to like make her feel safe, safe family.
He also said that they were photographed in the post
together at one point, so I'm like, maybe we can
just look it up, right.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Dawson's Creek premier in ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
We're gonna have to do some more deep diving on this.
We'll continue our investigation.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Drop your ideas in the comments about who you think.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But that really riles up Elena and she then is
like so fucking pissed at him, but they get back
together after that. He actually has this quote that is
so true. He said a couple always breaks up or
usually breaks.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Up when they finally get their dream home.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
M yeah, unless you're Ellen and Porsche and Porsias has
an ankle monitoring on and she's not pready to leave,
and then you can just buy another house and make
that your dream house, you know.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Because he meets his first wife Lynn at working at
one fifth Ave, which he says also like started what
it was.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Like to have a first down and didn't fIF that
become auto.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Oh no, yeah auto, but Tali's more where your actual
friend worked. Literally maxin friend worked when we first moved
to New York, and she would bring us home like
so much family meal Penney. Yeah, and that I guess
opened her world of you know, downtown New York food,
and honestly say with us because I feel like then
we like got to go to restaurants again. Some fucked
(33:03):
up so kind of did the same thing that did
for keeping.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, Like the one fifth was our like entry point
into like the glamorous world of like restaurants, food and
restaurants and artists and publishers and writers going to.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Restaurants over there.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
And so at one fifth Ave is where his first
bad interaction happens with Maplethorpe and Patty Smith.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, and he sees her reduce a waitress to tears,
yeah for not bringing bread.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Patty Smith is a huge bitch who's shocked.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Who is shocked, And it's like, the funny thing is
he also talks about Maplethorpe being still a bitch, but
less of a bitch, and he's like, actually, when he
had his leather jacket on.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
He was more of a bitch.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh yeah, wait this It was like this costume that
he had on to be this you know, bad boy photographer,
and he was like and I saw it off.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Of him once and it was like he was totally
different and kind of.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Under He goes, although Maplethorpe with this tough boy leather
jacket image could be terseed with the service, he never
charged to belittle them the way Smith did. The only
time I saw Maplethorpe without his leather jacket, when the
restaurant's air conditioning broke down, he seemed strangely reduced and
like a policeman out of uniform, surprisingly ordinary looking. Maybe
it was coincidence, but without the leather jacket, he was
(34:17):
also friendly to the staff. I mean he's just like
making up this narrative, but I.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Mean, yeah, I think it's probably very true.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
A little bit of truth to that. It's like, I'm
sure the difference between being nice to the staff and
like Keith's story and him not being nice is just
being like, oh, we have the check and just like
I'll take the check, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
It's like a pretty mean I think it's this classic
like downtown observation people have where it's like, you know,
maybe you see someone in Dime Square and you think
they're like so intimidating.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
This isn't me, of course, I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
One, Oh, of course you've never been intimidated by anyone
in Dimes Square, which is actually.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
I'm always like so intimidated by someone, and then it's
just like and then you see them in this other
context and you're kind of just like, oh right, you're
like actually normal, You're not like the king of Downtown,
or maybe you are, but you're not as scary as
I thought.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, I mean I feel like, you know, Keith has
this very like he's like intentionally iconoclastic. I guess it's
like he has this view of himself where he's just
like I'm such a rakish, I hate everyone. I'm like
an ugly, nasty man. I'm not having a fucking restaurant tour.
And like it's you know, and it's it is quick
(35:25):
to a joke, and you know, I think that's that's beautiful.
But you know because because he has this like working
class ship on his shoulder, right, and he's constantly referencing
the best not going upbringing, and how like he's never
felt at home in these settings and yet is so
clearly enamored with this world of a well and it's
(35:48):
like and is absolutely bragging about all of his relationships
within a winterur and like and also like dropping so
many it's like he'll be like he'll reference like you know,
we just we just like you know in this Camu novel.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Or no right, it's the classic proof that he has
now read and he collects art and he takes Limos
to see every year.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Right, and he's like, oh, you know, he's like personally
I love the Fovists and like, I mean abstract expressionism
not really for me. And you're like, okay, so like
that's not very working class and like he would maybe
admit that that's an affectation that he's doing like because
he has the chip on his shoulder. But like, there
also is I don't know, as much as like he
is honest about it, there is also this just like
kind of never ending performance of being just like I
(36:33):
actually am really pretentious and I'm pretending that I'm the
most salt of the earth person, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Which is he couldn't be who he is.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah, I don't think if he was, you know, salt
of the earth, he couldn't create the most like popular restaurant,
literally the most popular restaurant in the.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Right because he wouldn't have the taste level.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Right if I made this quote about Anna Wintour when
he befriended her at One Fifth f So she came
in and order eggs benedict. That was her order every time,
which I think now has changed because I saw a
video now.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
She why is she so obsessed with always having like
one because like her whole thing in like Devil Worre's
product has she only gets the steak and mashed potatoes.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Right, which is true, And I've heard actually it's not
even a steak, it's just a hamburger with no bun,
no bun. Although I made, so he's making He asked
the chef to make her eggs and they're like, fuck off, no,
like my services done, so he goes. Although I made
a hash and the eggs benedit, the incident itself had
rich consequences. The young woman was future Vogue and Earn
(37:28):
chief Anna Wintour, and despite coming from opposite ends of
the English class system, we became friends. Nothing romantic happened
between us, yet we'd often watch movies together in the afternoon, which,
outside of the bedroom, is the most intimate thing two
people can do at.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
That time of day.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I love that line.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
He has a lot of amazing, like just really really
brilliant observations that he just like drops with such authority.
I like, right. I love that when he said I'm
like many divorced fathers. I spent most of the time
I have with my kids in and around sports, just
like you have to have this like activity to do
with your driving, picking up, picking up.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Also, the day when Anna Wintour was just watching Taxi
Driver at a theeder on Houston with Keith at four pm.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Because because New York City used to have theaters Bay
it used to have cinemas, it used to have everything.
I mean, this is why he's such a like figure
of our time. And like you know, we all like
he became like very famous, like the Instagram and then
like he does talk about his Instagram later on the
book and the whole James Corden thing, and like I
like that he admits to being so like thirsty for.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Likes, but like he was good.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
He's such a retro fetishist and like, you know, there
is this real overlap with the whole like you know,
downtown New York City, like whether it's dimesquare reactionary or
it's just the whole general like trend of all like
restaurants and bars and everything being retrotinged. He is one
hundred percent of that moment and like he is like
he's still doing that and people are still fucking living
(39:08):
for it, and they're still just like I want to
red both on a martini. What a fucking photograph of
a nineteen forties boxer framed above that?
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Like no, you talk like and I think, I mean
we've talked about this a lot, but it was like
the thirst for what the McNally universe creative.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, at the end, like coming out of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
That is all people want it because they wanted state.
They wanted you know, vodka and red meat, you know,
and the excess and what he's created and leather jackets
and red booths and as he says, and.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Thin girls dancing, like let's say.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
That because girls dancing within booths and part.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Of his like I'm photographing like women who've had kids
or whoever he describes like a woman not being thinn
like is because like what he really loves and what
like the whole world he's creating it is about like
thin girls dancing and it is it's like this more
like raventist you know America. Yeah, like fetishism, which.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
We have to if we can now lead into talk
about a place I've never been of his. I think
it was closed before my time, Pravda.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I mean the name Pravda alone.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's like I so sex and the city time to
go to Pravda.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
This was his like eastern block like themed bar and
soho that where he hired like sexy waitresses and it
was like so many like canisters flavored vodka. And I
looked at this old Pravda ad it just it brought
me back to being a teenager looking at ads. Yeah,
(40:46):
like absolute ads, being like I can't wait to move
to New York City. And it's like women's mouths laughing.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It's a joke, block letters women and heals and well.
When he describes meeting his second wife, Elena, who was
half Japanese, although she was born in awais Shoud grew
up be to Aska with her mother and three siblings.
And this was at the next time. I was two
weeks later at Pravda, a subterranean vodkabar.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
I owned the phrase a subterranean subterranean.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
It was raining heavily, the night in the place was
packed and steamy. I was helping they made her DC
customers and Elena walked in with some girlfriends. I took
a break and sat down with them. It's like, it's
the most sex in the city scene you could describe. Sorry, Alena,
she's half Japanese and so glamorous, and she's like you
can just picture this wearing this like sheath red dress,
little she dress, long, straight hair side inside, coming in
(41:39):
with all her girlfriends and their keels closed and they're laughing.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
And it's like soaking wet outside and Carrie it's like
voice over comes in and being like there's only one
place to be on a rainy Saturday night, Pravda, the
downtown Russian themed.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Vodka he goes.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Just before closing time, the DJ played a Cat Stephens
song Moonshadow. Elina said she loved Cat Stevens because he
had such integrity to bring us closer, and said, I agreed, No.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
He's such a cat.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
But hearing his voice, that's funny, Like he actually does
sound kind of this is pretty stroke.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
He does sound kind of gay, not just in like
a British people are gay way, but it is.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Like, so this brings us back to the guilty bottom
the post Catman do a guilty bottom.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
And a lot of times he says in this book,
which I think is also true maybe of like a
middle aged bricking class man rose up in ranks, is
he's afraid of hanging out with men as a group
straight men.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yes, yes, he's very fearful of that.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
And you know there's this hole there's which was a
famous Instagram post of his where there was a group
of you know, Wall Street traders who ordered the most
expensive bottle of wine, a bolts Us Bolt Boltzar.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Oh yeah, and this isn't the book, Yeah, this is
a yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And then a couple who ordered the pino on the menu,
and the.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Couple saw the Wall Street guys getting their Chateau Child
like three decanted, and they were like, wait, can we
have ours decanted? And so they kind of has a joke,
and so they decanted their pino and then somehow the
it was it was switched, and so the Wall Street
guys get the cheap pino.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And they're swirling it being like the Tannins.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
And then the and then the couple is swirling the
Chateau muton Roth's Child, not realizing that it's like a
three thousand dollars bottle of wine, and they're pretending to
be like, oh the tanni.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
When actually and then so the you know, the waiter
realizes his mistake and calls Keith, and Keith comes down
to the restaurant. Keith is like, I was afraid of
even approaching.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
The Wall Street traders, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Because like I'm afraid of a group of men. Yeah,
and what do I do in this situation?
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Do I tell the truth?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
And he did he did because he was like, I
mean I think he realized like obviously he loved the
kind of romance of like letting them believe it.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
But I think he's so funny to kind of like
play a prank on these things.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
If they found out, like they would be so mad
and it would be like such a liability. But I
really like this thing where he goes so knowing he's
talking about the couple. So when the actor like, they
fixed the mistake, so they then they give the the
rich guys like they open another bottle. So he's kind
of out two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Right, but he's like it's worth it. And his also
his fear was that he didn't want to also embarrass
the trader.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yes, so that they would have to admit. But then
of course they all immediately a like, oh I knew
it wasn't a rothschild. But then he goes talking about
the couple. So the couple just gets to keep drinking
the fancy wine that they accidentally open for them, knowing
they were drinking expensive wine for real. They switched from
acting out drinking expensive wine in jest to acting out
in earnest, which was a pity in ways I couldn't explain,
(44:52):
which is.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
That such an amazing sentence it's a he's kind of
watching like how he has changed.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
And yes, yes, yes, exactly, he's watching how he does
exactly it.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
It's like he's being like, oh, but the romance of
making fun of rich people, it's all gone because now
you are literally just being there.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yes, oh, oh my god. That is brilliant, doctor Lily.
That that's exactly what it is. He's he's seeing his
own selling out or is it cashing in? He would say,
there's a difference that is there, and that is the
end of part one of our Key McNally episode. Stay
(45:34):
tuned for next week when we discuss chillers, Minetta Tavern,
the rules of service at Balthasar Class, analysis of salvage
workers versus antique store owners. Keith McNally is an anti
woke icon, the deep rift between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket
and mythologizing the past, which is something we love to
(45:57):
do here. On the thought. To hear that episode, which
will be out next Wednesday, quit to patroon dot com
slash tvc the pod where you also get new episodes
every Friday. There's another one this Friday too, so it's
a lot of content
Celebrity Book Club. Hey club kids, did you miss us?
We're handing out a free app this week. It's part
one of our epic two parter on Downtown Restaurant or
Keith McNally. If you want part two, honey, you're gonna
have to head over to patreon dot com slash CBC
the pod that's dropping next week, But for now, this
one's on us. Love you. Who's that knocking at the door.
(00:26):
It's all your friends, you filthy whrse. Your husband's gone
and we've got books and a bottle of wine to kill.
It's Hollywood, it's books, It's gossip. I'm shook. Its memoirs Martini,
Celebrity poof Club. Come read it while it's hot. Celebrity
poof Club. I'll tell your secrets.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
We won't talk celebrity books.
Speaker 1 (00:50):
No, boys are a loud celebrity boo.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Say it loud and pound.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
Celebrity Book Club.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
Buzz me in. I brought the queer foe. Hey, best
friends friend?
Speaker 1 (01:02):
How the hell are you?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Hey, best friend? It's so it's so good to say it.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Yes, yes, because we don't get to say it as
much now, But it's still true.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Mama, right and you have to make sure you're like
is it true.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Yes, yes, check in, check in with your bestie's out
there ladies, and make sure you guys are still each
other's number one, because sometimes those rankings can shift.
Speaker 3 (01:24):
No, they can totally fall, and in life sometimes things
do fallt yes, and we all go through phases with
wives and children.
Speaker 1 (01:33):
And friends and friends and restaurants.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
And lovers that become friends.
Speaker 1 (01:38):
And then wives that become business partners.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
Exactly and close confidence.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So yeah, I think you'll be able to tell by
the fact that you're listening to this episode on a
Wednesday and that we said, hey, best friend.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
We're doing a book.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
We're doing a book. Isn't it good to be back
in the old library.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
A book that literally comes out and say it with
me today or yesterday's this week?
Speaker 3 (02:00):
No, no, it comes out yesterday. Okay, wow, you listening to
this it comes out yesterday.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
So be impressed by the fact that we railed this
in twenty four hours. Oh wait, no, we got the
arc ma man.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Oh yes, I'm talking about that galley bitch with big
confidential letters across the page.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
It's like a slight gray diagonal letter that' says confidential
for review purposes only on every I will admit, well,
I am not ashamed to admit that when I was
reading this on the subway, I definitely was just like
just taking it out a little bit more solely, just
in case anyone was curious as to the cover. Be like, yeah,
that's right, this book that comes out next month. I'm
(02:38):
reading it.
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, you're like holding it so hard, hold like a
completely yeah holding galley.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
Yeah, impressed, And then like letting people see the confidential
review purposes only. Yeah, that's right. If your eyes wander
over to my lap, yeah, keep your eyes off my crotch, asshole,
I'm reading a galley.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I wonder if anyone at Call Lord today when I
was reading it in the waiting room, was like so fucking.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Impressed, so fucking horny.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, it was just like, WHOA is that an arc?
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah? Maybe they would have been impressed if it was
like Ocean Wong's new book or something, or like the
sequel to a Little Life or something something in the
queer lit canon in which this book is not, I.
Speaker 2 (03:22):
Would put this in the cannon.
Speaker 1 (03:25):
Wait, I guess, I guess one is, but like by
accident in this way that's so like not gay that
I really love.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
But right, it's so not gay that it is gay,
but it's also.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Like way gayer and more honest than like any other
ship book. Okay, who are we talking about?
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Let's say it.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
You know him as the restauranteur who invented downtown Acquardant
to New York Times, he is the owner of Baltasar.
It's so funny that you say Baltussar and not balt Bazar.
Can we unpack? You know?
Speaker 3 (03:52):
I was watching this interview of him when he's talking
about opening up the London version, which we'll get into
this episode, and I realized he's saying Baltzar, and then I.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Will whoa, Now you just really clipped it. You just
made that two syllables. You just said Baltzar.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
Well that's what he was kind of saying in this interview.
He was like Boltsar, Yeah, balts Are. He was like, well,
I hope to make the London bolts Are, you know,
like the New York But you know, expectations. It's like
when you know a woman hears it you're good.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
In bed and and and then you sleep with her
and you're not good in bed.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Baltzar. I mean that's a really clipped well of course
English working class bethnal Green, like you know those clipped vowels,
right Boltza.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
So okay, so how do you say it?
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I say both bizarre?
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Oh, both are.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Both bizarre, you know the soft the soft.
Speaker 3 (04:45):
And I'm giving it kind of a baltazar.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Most times that I've heard it spoken in my circles
as a member of the downtown New York literati, I
hear people saying both.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Thesar, bothre.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Bazaar, come over here, both tazar, come over here. No,
I want my next group of fish. I want to
name pestis bald bizarre shillers, Kathy Luxemburgva.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Is a really good name for fish.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
School. Okay, who are we talking about if you don't
know already.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
None other than Keith McNally and.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
His spanking fresh from the Kitchen.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Book I regret almost everything. And here he has on
the cover and I wool having bone overcoat, sort of
gazing somewhere in the distance. Looks like he's on a
sidewalk in New York City, maybe just thinking about his life.
Black and white photo. It was probably in four days
in this shot. Eye.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, he has this kind of cool spiky hair in it.
That kind of name feels very fifties.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Yes, but the photo is probably from the early two thousands.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
Maybe I just have to say I ate this book up.
Honey doored it.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
It was fucking eight course meal devoured.
Speaker 2 (06:17):
Obviously, this is like actual like catnip for us.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah, I mean, it's restaurants, it's drama, it's celebrities, it's.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Martini's Sick, it's Martini's, it's fall Gral, it's Patti Smith.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
And he's a great writer, and I mean he really
you know, Tina Brown was talking about this on her substock,
you know that one humiliation that everyone now is suffered.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
So crazy that Tina Brown has a substock.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
It's just like, wow, we really all just got to
be out there begging for cash digitally panhandling. And she
said she was like, reading this book, I realized I
should have hired him as a writer at Vanity Fair.
I mean, he just has he has voice, he has
a gift for voice. And you know, the structure of
the book is quite compelling. So it begins with his
attempted suicide after his stroke.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
So it's kind of these these tragedies one after another
where he's it's like bam, And a lot of us didn't.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Even know that he had an attempt at suicide.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
No, in my community, in your community of Keith watchers, No,
I didn't know about the suicide either. And I you know,
obviously by the stroke, because if you follow him on Instagram,
he's a voracious Instagram poster, partly because he had a
stroke that took away his faculties with speech and he
kind of speaks in his more slurred way now, and
so Instagram lets him express himself much more easily.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And I feel like that was also why many of
us out there were so excited for this book, because
we all got this taste of you know, and he
writes these long, detailed posts and kind of these these
humorous but sad and you know lately, you know, in
some of the gossip, you know, he's a famous.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
Poster in this book, but you know, but a lot
of it's posting. He's always posting about his restaurants, and
like with this very kind of romantic, cantankerous misanthrope like
viewer is just like, oh and you know, another terrible
night at both this are We did six hundred covers
and so he's you know, there's a transparency. He's like
pulling the curtain back and telling you about like all
the money they made. Be He's always like has this
(08:10):
kind of like faux disdain for like you know, powered
and celebrity and wealth and like you love to like
take people down a peg, even though obviously he's like
completely enamored with celebrities and also like creating a space
that is like a place to go spend your money
and wants people to be rich and glamorous.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
Like right, it's like his whole kind of I would say,
like style of restaurant is for a celebrity to go
to in jeans. Yes, he's so, which I think comes
from his generation because he is like maybe like a
younger boomer. So it like comes out of this like, oh, well,
(08:47):
the French restaurants of New York of the sixties where
you know, you had to put on a tie and
and jacket and there weren't really these big French of
bistros where you could wear a leather jacket and jeans
and have steak free.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
You know what's funny about him? So I thank you
for me them about because I feel like you know,
like somewhat early in the book, he does he imagines
himself as like reinventing the wheel and restaurants, and literally
every restaurant thinks that they've reinvented the wheel, and he
thinks he's the first person to be like French cuisine
was so stuffy and uptown and menus had the longest
(09:20):
titles of dishes on them and way too many dishes
on them. And I said, what if we made a
brasserie that was a little more accessible, okay, or you
could just go get a good steak frets in the
neighborhood and a glass of champagne. It's like, that's literally
what every restaurant or has ever thought ever. They're like,
what if the food is really good but it's actually
like kind of casual, kind of casual and more down
(09:43):
to earth like even to this day, like every new
like small Plates rethinks that they're doing the same thing
of being like, you know, we saw every other place
was supertentious, and we were like, how about we just
do some like seven things really good good And what if.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Sorry, what if this what if it was just fucking
bankots a zinc bar right now Vintage mirrors from Burgundy
from seventeen ninety.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
And then we wrote them menu on the mirrors. What
about that? What about that?
Speaker 3 (10:12):
But what's not to really jump ahead here, But while
we're on the subject of kind of RESTAURANTSS being rocketed
to head. The two chefs he hired for both the
czar who you know, became partners, you know, ended up
becoming partners.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
In Minetta and then Pastisee. They opened up, Vodoor, they opened.
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Up and French Chatte, where we had a lovely meal
at Lily by the way, let's just say.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
Let's just say we had a lovely meal there after
leaving Odeon.
Speaker 1 (10:41):
Oh my god, his former restaurant with his former ex
wife Lynn Weggencock or wow. No, I mean it's impossible
to escape as New York if you live here and
you're in the know, as of course we are.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
This is but I guess sorry, just to thread my
point is that those two restaurants are trying to bring
back a little little bit of the stuffiness. His ex
chefs are trying to bring back a little bit of
the stuff in Malagy. Yes, in their newer French restaurants. Yes,
Vodor is spelling against but it's also.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Like, I mean, I haven't been to Vodor, you know,
because I might as well. I'm the biggest loser on earth,
and like you should run me over with an NYC
garbage truck. But like I have been to the Rock,
which is also theirs, and like rock is I'll say this,
it's fine for like a pre dinner, the pre theater meal.
I'm not like rushing to go back. It's like really
expensive and like I don't think it's so worth it.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
It's exactly what my his mom said, Well ARPI okay, but.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
Like they're also thinking that they're reinventing the wheel by
going fancy again, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (11:41):
They're like, what if we were fancy?
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Do you remember the days of the nineteen sixties when
men with them jackets?
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Okay, so, but Balthazar, as you were describing, has like
a zinc bar. It's like a French brasserie. It's like
the concept is like, it's not it is not reinventing
a single wheel. When he talks about the when this
attorney goes The idea for Balta came about while I
was living in Paris, seven years before I built the place.
Although it's hard for me to come up with good ideas.
(12:09):
A few decent ones I've ever had come about by
pure accident. I was searching for vintage curtains at a
Paris flea market in nineteen ninety when I suddenly spotted
an old CPIA photo of a turn of the century bar.
Behind the bar zinc counter one hundreds of liquor bottles
stack twenty feet high, flanked by two towering statues of
semi naked women carved in the classical Greek style. It's like, sorry,
(12:31):
you saw a photo of a bar with liquor bottles
behind it, and it gave me the idea for her restaurant.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
All of his inspiration is a photo of a naked
woman's isn't thin?
Speaker 1 (12:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:43):
The way?
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Yes, she went, how do I say this bottle cheli esk?
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But he was like, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
It wasn't one of those models. She had curves and
she was leaning. I literally drank every time he says
zinc in this book. But it's like and bottles stashed.
I guess what he's time as he's not time about
just two shelves. He's talking about balls to the wall.
Speaker 2 (13:06):
Liquor.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
Yeah, I'm still just like and he's it, and it's
like a photo of a bar, isn't an idea for
a bar? That just is a photo of a bar,
And then you're just doing a concept that exists already,
which is just like French brasserie like but mirrors.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Like I'm also like always seeing a photo of a
vintage bar, being like, wait, I have an idea.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Bar, but it's old.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The concept is bar.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
And then in this trip, so he gets like when
he creates a restaurant, he admits very wildly, like it
it takes a lot of money, honey.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
Yeah, he's always running out, it's always going in a debt.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
And because so he goes to France and he finds
these vintage luggage racks and like French luggage racks to
put on like the ceiling of baltasar and he buys
them in like greater and then he comes back and
the guy has like shined them and polished them so
they don't look vintage anymore.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
And he's like, I've never been more.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
Upsetting, absolutely furious.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
And then at Kathy Luxembourg, he like he was like, wait,
what if we have the idea to do like the
postcard with a check that's like a funky postcard of
the restaurant. And then he's like, let's do a photo
shoot with Zoftig women like right the bar. But then
they accidentally hired these fucking Vogue models, right, So.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
He calls like a model agency, right, and they said,
have these Vogue models and he's like, absolutely not what
I want. So he's like, no, I want like curvy,
big Luxembourgian curls.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
And he was like and it was perfect.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
I was wondering about the postcard thing, where I was like,
people were probably doing it, but that was another thing
where he was like, would it be so crazy if
we gave people a post card?
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Yeah. I feel like he's probably lying about coming up
with that idea because obviously lots of restaurants do that,
and you know, it does add to the experience. It's
like another point of branding that I think, you know,
helps sell the overall narrative of the restaurant and you know,
leaves the consumer with like just like a little bit
of a closer relationship to the brand. But I can't
(15:22):
imagine that he came up with that idea. It's like,
obviously other people.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Were doing that, right, but yeah, just to take it
back a little now, like to the seventies. So the
big reveal in this book is in his early twenties
he had a homosex wood relationship.
Speaker 2 (15:41):
Yes, play right. Alan Bennett, the famous.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Celebrated British playwright Alan Bennett, author of the Madness of
King George, is part of.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
The Beyond the Fringe group now.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
And he was just a working class boy, you know,
from bethnal Green and but he wanted to be he
wanted to be a filmmaker. You want to be sund
by the intellect. And he started hanging out with Alan
Bennett and he was like, it's so cool the way
you talk about art and culture and plays.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
And I feel like he was like just experiencing like
gay guy criticism.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
So he says he was seventeen when they met, or no,
he says he was like eighteen when the relationship started.
But I kind of think maybe he's lying about that
just to protect on. I think he was seventeen. It's
groom central. But you know what I'm you know, I
feel like he's really like grateful to have been groomed.
And I feel like he's like I learned like so
(16:33):
much from this guy who I got to be around
him and his playwright friends, and it was like it
was such an education. He says.
Speaker 3 (16:41):
I've had two homosexual relationships in my life. The first
was with an actor when I was sixteen. The second
and more serious one was with the English play right
Alan Bennett.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
So and they're doing that. I left his like so
like and like after the plays they would have right Sorry.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Supper was always simple, a light salad and a chunk
of pete or cold chicken that Alan and.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
Had roasted before the theater.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
During the meal, we talk about that night's play, but
to avoid getting serious too quickly, Alan would preface his
thoughts on the play by gossiping about the actors.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
He was quite funny about short actors, with Edward fox
Off in his main target.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
That's something so seventies and also British of it, calling
something just like, oh, just a chunk of pettis.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
Chunk of pette. It's giving cat food, you.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Know, it's very gay cat food.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
So six weeks after our theater go and routine began,
Alan drove me to see a small Anglican church in
the countryside. On our return we stopped the car arrestop
to eat sandwiches and drink tea from a flask. It
was a dreary day, and Alan seemed unusually melancholy. It
was then that I sensed he was in love with me.
Not long after that, I stayed the night at his house.
Sleeping with Alan felt like a natural progression of our friendship.
(17:51):
It was uncomplicated. I never once felt guilty about it.
After that first night, I'd say two or three times
a week and I'm just like, okay, so sorry, Na Pride,
what were you all doing? You know?
Speaker 2 (18:01):
I was almost up.
Speaker 3 (18:02):
Because I was like, Okay, he's you know, he's very upfront,
but he's also like he talks about sex a lot, but.
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Like, can you talk about the positions?
Speaker 1 (18:11):
Yeah? Is twenty five? Who's topping?
Speaker 2 (18:15):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Like was there? Boy butter involved? Was there? Chunk Pete and.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Chunks was so twink?
Speaker 1 (18:26):
It's Twink Top elder gay Bottom.
Speaker 3 (18:28):
It has to be, Yeah, because I don't really see
Keith Bottom and such a young age and experimenting bottoming.
I think it would be a lot more comfortable for
him to be this kind of well sprightly young Okay,
But I could also see this very just kind of
like frottage and.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Blow a lot of oral to start out with.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
It was side central over there.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
Yeah, I think it was a side.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's side Eaton's green, lad. I don't. I don't know
because also though, because there's something about this reallyationship is
very very ancient Greece like that, because you have this
older man who's like this the tutor, and then the
younger man who was eager to learn in his feet,
and those relationships the classic, you know, pederasty relationships. The
(19:15):
older man was always the top, the younger man was
always the bottom, and that was like why it was
acceptable socially. So I do wonder if some of that
played out as well, and Alan was like I'm the
teacher here, you're the student, and it only makes sense
for me to penetrate it.
Speaker 3 (19:31):
I think penetration absolutely happened. I'm just kind of I
was more thinking about the early The early hooking up
was probably like pretty.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Oral and then like maybe you think that they're like
not having full sacks their first name. Yeah, it was
they were pet They were petting for three weeks.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
It was a petting for three weeks, and then it
was so like, I kind of feel like anal happened
after the Dreary Tea from the flask.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Well, yeah, I mean, but that's he said was the
first time they slept to go Oh, the dreary tea
was when he realized he was in love with them,
and then they slept together in the night. So that
would be the that would be the first time. That
wouldn't be weeks of petting.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Hmmm. Well, I guess we'll never know. I know, I
just I want to Yeah, I guess I want to
have it for a few weeks.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
I want to have an opinion on the top bottom though.
I want to come down on a side here.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
And I think it is classic, but now I'm just like,
don't you think old?
Speaker 3 (20:24):
So it was like a young British boy maybe like
he was excited by the fact that he could like
fuck your guy in the ass and was like, let
me try.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
I feel like that's such a modern like idea. Well no,
not really. Well okay, here's like here's what I also think. Like,
I think it's.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Actually when you're younger, is when you are more verse
before you're.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
Like right, you're clay ready to be molded. I also
think though that we if we assume that he would
be the top, because he like ends up being a
straight guy, so we're like, well, hole, it's a hole,
so he can fox. He can do that job. However,
something I learned on the Tyra Banks Show once many
years ago was that a lot of the gay for pay,
like porn stars, are often bottoms because you don't need
(21:12):
to be hard to bottom. And so if he's not
actually as gay as Alan Bennett, the whole sexual act
isn't relying on his erection. If he's going to be
the bottom, what.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
About this cut to the whole pod just being about this?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
When so he goes on this huge hitchhiking trip very
like seventies, literally goes like Catman do.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Yeah, hitchhikes the Catman do from London. It's iconic. You
can never do this today, It's like.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Literally never do it.
Speaker 3 (21:40):
He's always been like, oh, the Afghans are so such
good hosts. And he falls in love with like so
many girls in bookstores who like sell maps.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:50):
And when he comes back, Alan is a little bit like,
so I'll be starting up again, yeah, And he realizes, like,
you know, after falling in love with so many map girls.
He's like, I don't really want to, but he also,
like I think, really appreciates and loves Alan as a friend,
so he feels bad totally ending the physical relationship.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Yeah, so I could see him coming back and bottoming.
Speaker 1 (22:15):
Oh you think he was like almost like guilt guilt bottoming.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, in the when he returns from the big hit.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So he was topping before Catman do guilt bottoming after, Okay,
and that it's ultimately going to be the truth that
we're gonna have to say.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
Right, that's where we've kind of sided on and feel
free to get in the comments after reading this. But
it's beautiful because they stay literally like bestie is throughout
his whole life and actually, of course in restaurants, right Lynn,
his first wife becomes even better friends yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
With Alan, and they're all just being like, oh God,
of course we're all former lovers. But we'll have to
say business partners forever, kind of like.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
You and me, right, sorry, we have to stay business.
We have to open up a restaurant.
Speaker 1 (23:04):
This road trip which is like so iconic and like
there's this thing where you can send a letter to
any city in the world.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
How cool is that? And you just go to the post.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
You just go to the post. Yeah, and it just
like has a name on it, just like a person's name.
You just send a letter to Keith McNally in timbucktoo,
and then you go to timbuckto and you're like, oh,
here's my letter.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I actually acted like that exists in the world today.
If I made tangent for one second, I was acting
like Keith. I ordered a T shirt off of T
Pop and I it said it was delivered, but I
couldn't find it. And then I saw I had in
my dpop a wrong address listed.
Speaker 2 (23:40):
So I just went to the building. I was like,
is there a package for me here?
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (23:45):
No, that's exactly the same thing as mailing a letter
to timbuk two.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
But I'm just saying as I was being so like, hello,
I'm here, my name is Lily. Where's my package?
Speaker 1 (23:56):
And this like old woman was just like get off
my lawn.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
It was a little like younger woman with like a
doll being so sketch by me.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Yeah, just call it the package. So I love when
he's talking about being in Istanbul, like at the pudding
shop and like there was so many hippies and drifters,
because like there was a lot of like hippies doing
the old like like the Silk Right.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Everyone hitchhike to then you do row Darling.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
No, the pudding shop sounded so iconic. It was like yeah,
like a cool place for hippies that did serve like
Middle Eastern food, but it also was being like they
were playing like the New rock and role that he
had missed because he was away right on his like hitchhiking,
and there was like all these books there that you could.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
Like love right and you could like get out like
a pamphlet from Fuco. Like the was like rolling around
at the coffee shop. I was just like if this
were today, It's like if you were doing this Silk
Road today in the pudding shop, I mean, it would
all just be like I mean, first of all, you
wouldn't build hitchhig you would have to be like paying
for so many like e visas and like down leaving
(25:00):
like absolutely awful apps like in every country. And I'm
sure just like Ron has like a really shitty app
like it's difficult to us and that I would say that,
and then you would just be with like all these
content creators like to put.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
The phones out at the pudding shop would be crazy,
and it would be like the new Boy Genius being
played and someone being like, oh my god, you've been
on the Silk Road.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
You haven't heard any song.
Speaker 3 (25:31):
And then are you like the books being left? Are
you like picking up the new like actually like trick
Mirror or whatever. At I'd be like, oh, I'm having
I kind of missed this one. It's like de Transition,
baby Mirror.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
I'm reading The Guest by Emma Kleine in istan Pool.
Well while I'm like filming my TikTok, just being like
sexty countries and a hundred's come with me.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
I love.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
The Turkish people are so kind. You have to go
to this mom, it's amazing.
Speaker 2 (26:03):
Follow me for more chips about jerky.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
This is a really dope bookshop. They had all these
really cool books. They've never heard of Transition.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
If you go through this curtain, all of a sudden
it's a record shop.
Speaker 3 (26:15):
And if you go through another curtain, yeah, it's a
vintage clothing store where you can find tons of dead stock.
Speaker 1 (26:21):
Carhard and then one more curtain you're in the Ace
hotelis stock Pool. Oh god, you know there's shades of
I kind of like this book to me felt a
little bit like a mix of Verna Hoozog's book and
Anthony Bourdines book, like you have like Anthony Boardines like
(26:43):
really misanthropic, like like fuck this system, but man, there's
nothing better than this, like in New York City and
counting your tips at the end of the night with
all the busts.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
But it's so, what's so funny about Keith mcdally, would
she what?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
I like? He's more kind of self aware than Anthony Boardame,
where he's like, I've literally never been a chef. I
I've just been dying to become like a filmmaker, which
kind of happened but didn't really Like I'm so and
he's like my best memory End of the Night odeon
nineteen eighty eight watching all the service counter tips, drink
beer and smoke, and man we had some.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Laughs and talk shit about the customers. That's what I's
all about. Okay, wait, can we talk about the celebrity
the unnamed celebrity actress that he sleeps with x X.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Okay, I have some guesses.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I have some guesses. So he this woman like comes
and sleeps with him, and she arrives at his house.
They like talked on the phone like a couple of times.
Then she comes to New York. She rives in his
house with two huge suitcases at one in the morning
and she's bringing.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
A baseball high and he's discussed.
Speaker 1 (28:01):
He goes, nothing puts me off sex more than a
woman with a huge suitcase case.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Best line, literally the best line. And he was like,
caps are discussed.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
He was already like caps are disgusting and a woman
with a suitcase and he was like he was. She
said she was tired, which I thought man code for sex,
but he was like, she actually did want to fall asleep,
which thank god because with that suitcase, in my vision,
I wouldn't be able to get hard.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
He hates hats because I feel like half the people
at Bulta Thar are so with their little moment the
moment yeah, I was literally about to say that with
the moment design store, like yeah, I literally want to
throw up. So he says that she's an actress and
a television show that teenagers watch, and Night sent him
it's nineteen ninety eight tapes.
Speaker 2 (28:52):
She sent him tapes of the show for him to
watch so.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Here are my guesses. Shoot, Katie Holmes, Nev Campbell, Party
of Five, Michelle Williams Dawson's Creek or then I was like,
what if it's Heather Locklear from Monroe's Place teen show? Okay,
because Heather Locklear is so like sexy and badass and
like kind of would be with big suitcases. Maybe, but
(29:16):
I could also see Michelle Williams being kind of suitcase.
But I could also see Nev Campbell being so I'm
coming in the night.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
I think it's a more Nev. Michelle is like, I
don't can she carry two suitcases?
Speaker 1 (29:28):
Well? No, that's why he had to carry them up
the stairs. She was rolling it.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Probably I was imagining it someone from maybe Nino to
and oh, I'm just like Shannon Doughty Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
Something's so funny to me about the name Jenny Garth,
and like always will be. Wait, maybe it is Shannon
Darty and that's.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
Why he hooked up with Derinda. He likes blonds.
Speaker 1 (29:51):
He hooked up with Derinda.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Yeah, they had a quote unquote tour affair for three
months in nineteen ninety six.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
Wait, he didn't mention that in the book.
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No, But it like he that was one of his crazies.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
I feel like that's just like him saying something crazy
on Instagram that can't be true. I mean also, they
are like the same age. That does make sense, right,
it's not that weird.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
She is always like dating a huge like fat guy.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
Okay, Jenny Gary Spelling, Jenny Garth, Heatherlocklear, Shannon Doherty, Alyssa Milano, charmed.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
Milano is because he's so she At one point she
says the thing, She's like, you just tell it like
it is, and he's just like, oh, that's like she's
too dumb, like also because I don't tell like it is,
and I feel like I'm such a faker and like
I can't like keep this going. And he brings I
could see a Lissa Milano being like, you really tell
it like.
Speaker 2 (30:51):
It is, right, Like I love your honesty.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
That's her, and he brings her to his son hockey
games and staring Jenny Garth.
Speaker 1 (31:01):
I just wanted to beat Jenny Garth. Let's go with
Jenny garrandom so random.
Speaker 2 (31:08):
She said it kid use like tapes, but by ninety
eight might have been over already done.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
Yeah, I don't know, and but like all the teens
at his kid's hockey game are recognizing her, So it's like,
would they be recognizing the Campbell? I mean they would
where they be recognizing how they're Lockley or maybe not,
because that was kind of I think is too old,
too old, And like melrose Place was also like you
had to be an older team to watch it, not
a younger team.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
Right, So it's like ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Dawson's Well, that's why I'm saying, like, was it Katie.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
William or Michelle or Katie? Katie makes a lot of.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Sense, yeah, and like Katie is looking for like an
older man to like make her feel safe, safe family.
He also said that they were photographed in the post
together at one point, so I'm like, maybe we can
just look it up, right.
Speaker 2 (31:55):
Dawson's Creek premier in ninety eight.
Speaker 1 (31:57):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
We're gonna have to do some more deep diving on this.
We'll continue our investigation.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
Drop your ideas in the comments about who you think.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
But that really riles up Elena and she then is
like so fucking pissed at him, but they get back
together after that. He actually has this quote that is
so true. He said a couple always breaks up or
usually breaks.
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Up when they finally get their dream home.
Speaker 1 (32:21):
M yeah, unless you're Ellen and Porsche and Porsias has
an ankle monitoring on and she's not pready to leave,
and then you can just buy another house and make
that your dream house, you know.
Speaker 3 (32:32):
Because he meets his first wife Lynn at working at
one fifth Ave, which he says also like started what
it was.
Speaker 1 (32:39):
Like to have a first down and didn't fIF that
become auto.
Speaker 3 (32:43):
Oh no, yeah auto, but Tali's more where your actual
friend worked. Literally maxin friend worked when we first moved
to New York, and she would bring us home like
so much family meal Penney. Yeah, and that I guess
opened her world of you know, downtown New York food,
and honestly say with us because I feel like then
we like got to go to restaurants again. Some fucked
(33:03):
up so kind of did the same thing that did
for keeping.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Right, Like the one fifth was our like entry point
into like the glamorous world of like restaurants, food and
restaurants and artists and publishers and writers going to.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Restaurants over there.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
And so at one fifth Ave is where his first
bad interaction happens with Maplethorpe and Patty Smith.
Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, and he sees her reduce a waitress to tears,
yeah for not bringing bread.
Speaker 1 (33:31):
Patty Smith is a huge bitch who's shocked.
Speaker 3 (33:35):
Who is shocked, And it's like, the funny thing is
he also talks about Maplethorpe being still a bitch, but
less of a bitch, and he's like, actually, when he
had his leather jacket on.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
He was more of a bitch.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
Oh yeah, wait this It was like this costume that
he had on to be this you know, bad boy photographer,
and he was like and I saw it off.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Of him once and it was like he was totally
different and kind of.
Speaker 1 (33:56):
Under He goes, although Maplethorpe with this tough boy leather
jacket image could be terseed with the service, he never
charged to belittle them the way Smith did. The only
time I saw Maplethorpe without his leather jacket, when the
restaurant's air conditioning broke down, he seemed strangely reduced and
like a policeman out of uniform, surprisingly ordinary looking. Maybe
it was coincidence, but without the leather jacket, he was
(34:17):
also friendly to the staff. I mean he's just like
making up this narrative, but I.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Mean, yeah, I think it's probably very true.
Speaker 1 (34:25):
A little bit of truth to that. It's like, I'm
sure the difference between being nice to the staff and
like Keith's story and him not being nice is just
being like, oh, we have the check and just like
I'll take the check, you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
It's like a pretty mean I think it's this classic
like downtown observation people have where it's like, you know,
maybe you see someone in Dime Square and you think
they're like so intimidating.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
This isn't me, of course, I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (34:47):
One, Oh, of course you've never been intimidated by anyone
in Dimes Square, which is actually.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
I'm always like so intimidated by someone, and then it's
just like and then you see them in this other
context and you're kind of just like, oh right, you're
like actually normal, You're not like the king of Downtown,
or maybe you are, but you're not as scary as
I thought.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Yeah, I mean I feel like, you know, Keith has
this very like he's like intentionally iconoclastic. I guess it's
like he has this view of himself where he's just
like I'm such a rakish, I hate everyone. I'm like
an ugly, nasty man. I'm not having a fucking restaurant tour.
And like it's you know, and it's it is quick
(35:25):
to a joke, and you know, I think that's that's beautiful.
But you know because because he has this like working
class ship on his shoulder, right, and he's constantly referencing
the best not going upbringing, and how like he's never
felt at home in these settings and yet is so
clearly enamored with this world of a well and it's
(35:48):
like and is absolutely bragging about all of his relationships
within a winterur and like and also like dropping so
many it's like he'll be like he'll reference like you know,
we just we just like you know in this Camu novel.
Speaker 3 (36:03):
Or no right, it's the classic proof that he has
now read and he collects art and he takes Limos
to see every year.
Speaker 1 (36:10):
Right, and he's like, oh, you know, he's like personally
I love the Fovists and like, I mean abstract expressionism
not really for me. And you're like, okay, so like
that's not very working class and like he would maybe
admit that that's an affectation that he's doing like because
he has the chip on his shoulder. But like, there
also is I don't know, as much as like he
is honest about it, there is also this just like
kind of never ending performance of being just like I
(36:33):
actually am really pretentious and I'm pretending that I'm the
most salt of the earth person, you know.
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Which is he couldn't be who he is.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Yeah, I don't think if he was, you know, salt
of the earth, he couldn't create the most like popular restaurant,
literally the most popular restaurant in the.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Right because he wouldn't have the taste level.
Speaker 3 (36:48):
Right if I made this quote about Anna Wintour when
he befriended her at One Fifth f So she came
in and order eggs benedict. That was her order every time,
which I think now has changed because I saw a
video now.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
She why is she so obsessed with always having like
one because like her whole thing in like Devil Worre's
product has she only gets the steak and mashed potatoes.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Right, which is true, And I've heard actually it's not
even a steak, it's just a hamburger with no bun,
no bun. Although I made, so he's making He asked
the chef to make her eggs and they're like, fuck off, no,
like my services done, so he goes. Although I made
a hash and the eggs benedit, the incident itself had
rich consequences. The young woman was future Vogue and Earn
(37:28):
chief Anna Wintour, and despite coming from opposite ends of
the English class system, we became friends. Nothing romantic happened
between us, yet we'd often watch movies together in the afternoon, which,
outside of the bedroom, is the most intimate thing two
people can do at.
Speaker 1 (37:45):
That time of day.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
I love that line.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
He has a lot of amazing, like just really really
brilliant observations that he just like drops with such authority.
I like, right. I love that when he said I'm
like many divorced fathers. I spent most of the time
I have with my kids in and around sports, just
like you have to have this like activity to do
with your driving, picking up, picking up.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
Also, the day when Anna Wintour was just watching Taxi
Driver at a theeder on Houston with Keith at four pm.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Because because New York City used to have theaters Bay
it used to have cinemas, it used to have everything.
I mean, this is why he's such a like figure
of our time. And like you know, we all like
he became like very famous, like the Instagram and then
like he does talk about his Instagram later on the
book and the whole James Corden thing, and like I
like that he admits to being so like thirsty for.
Speaker 2 (38:44):
Likes, but like he was good.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
He's such a retro fetishist and like, you know, there
is this real overlap with the whole like you know,
downtown New York City, like whether it's dimesquare reactionary or
it's just the whole general like trend of all like
restaurants and bars and everything being retrotinged. He is one
hundred percent of that moment and like he is like
he's still doing that and people are still fucking living
(39:08):
for it, and they're still just like I want to
red both on a martini. What a fucking photograph of
a nineteen forties boxer framed above that?
Speaker 3 (39:18):
Like no, you talk like and I think, I mean
we've talked about this a lot, but it was like
the thirst for what the McNally universe creative.
Speaker 2 (39:27):
Yeah, at the end, like coming out of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (39:30):
That is all people want it because they wanted state.
They wanted you know, vodka and red meat, you know,
and the excess and what he's created and leather jackets
and red booths and as he says, and.
Speaker 1 (39:41):
Thin girls dancing, like let's say.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
That because girls dancing within booths and part.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Of his like I'm photographing like women who've had kids
or whoever he describes like a woman not being thinn
like is because like what he really loves and what
like the whole world he's creating it is about like
thin girls dancing and it is it's like this more
like raventist you know America. Yeah, like fetishism, which.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
We have to if we can now lead into talk
about a place I've never been of his. I think
it was closed before my time, Pravda.
Speaker 1 (40:16):
I mean the name Pravda alone.
Speaker 2 (40:18):
It's like I so sex and the city time to
go to Pravda.
Speaker 3 (40:26):
This was his like eastern block like themed bar and
soho that where he hired like sexy waitresses and it
was like so many like canisters flavored vodka. And I
looked at this old Pravda ad it just it brought
me back to being a teenager looking at ads. Yeah,
(40:46):
like absolute ads, being like I can't wait to move
to New York City. And it's like women's mouths laughing.
Speaker 1 (40:52):
It's a joke, block letters women and heals and well.
When he describes meeting his second wife, Elena, who was
half Japanese, although she was born in awais Shoud grew
up be to Aska with her mother and three siblings.
And this was at the next time. I was two
weeks later at Pravda, a subterranean vodkabar.
Speaker 2 (41:10):
I owned the phrase a subterranean subterranean.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
It was raining heavily, the night in the place was
packed and steamy. I was helping they made her DC
customers and Elena walked in with some girlfriends. I took
a break and sat down with them. It's like, it's
the most sex in the city scene you could describe. Sorry, Alena,
she's half Japanese and so glamorous, and she's like you
can just picture this wearing this like sheath red dress,
little she dress, long, straight hair side inside, coming in
(41:39):
with all her girlfriends and their keels closed and they're laughing.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
And it's like soaking wet outside and Carrie it's like
voice over comes in and being like there's only one
place to be on a rainy Saturday night, Pravda, the
downtown Russian themed.
Speaker 2 (41:53):
Vodka he goes.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Just before closing time, the DJ played a Cat Stephens
song Moonshadow. Elina said she loved Cat Stevens because he
had such integrity to bring us closer, and said, I agreed, No.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
He's such a cat.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
But hearing his voice, that's funny, Like he actually does
sound kind of this is pretty stroke.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
He does sound kind of gay, not just in like
a British people are gay way, but it is.
Speaker 1 (42:18):
Like, so this brings us back to the guilty bottom
the post Catman do a guilty bottom.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
And a lot of times he says in this book,
which I think is also true maybe of like a
middle aged bricking class man rose up in ranks, is
he's afraid of hanging out with men as a group
straight men.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Yes, yes, he's very fearful of that.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
And you know there's this hole there's which was a
famous Instagram post of his where there was a group
of you know, Wall Street traders who ordered the most
expensive bottle of wine, a bolts Us Bolt Boltzar.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Oh yeah, and this isn't the book, Yeah, this is
a yeah.
Speaker 2 (42:57):
And then a couple who ordered the pino on the menu,
and the.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
Couple saw the Wall Street guys getting their Chateau Child
like three decanted, and they were like, wait, can we
have ours decanted? And so they kind of has a joke,
and so they decanted their pino and then somehow the
it was it was switched, and so the Wall Street
guys get the cheap pino.
Speaker 2 (43:23):
And they're swirling it being like the Tannins.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
And then the and then the couple is swirling the
Chateau muton Roth's Child, not realizing that it's like a
three thousand dollars bottle of wine, and they're pretending to
be like, oh the tanni.
Speaker 3 (43:38):
When actually and then so the you know, the waiter
realizes his mistake and calls Keith, and Keith comes down
to the restaurant. Keith is like, I was afraid of
even approaching.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
The Wall Street traders, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
Because like I'm afraid of a group of men. Yeah,
and what do I do in this situation?
Speaker 2 (43:54):
Do I tell the truth?
Speaker 1 (43:56):
And he did he did because he was like, I
mean I think he realized like obviously he loved the
kind of romance of like letting them believe it.
Speaker 2 (44:03):
But I think he's so funny to kind of like
play a prank on these things.
Speaker 1 (44:06):
If they found out, like they would be so mad
and it would be like such a liability. But I
really like this thing where he goes so knowing he's
talking about the couple. So when the actor like, they
fixed the mistake, so they then they give the the
rich guys like they open another bottle. So he's kind
of out two thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
Right, but he's like it's worth it. And his also
his fear was that he didn't want to also embarrass
the trader.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yes, so that they would have to admit. But then
of course they all immediately a like, oh I knew
it wasn't a rothschild. But then he goes talking about
the couple. So the couple just gets to keep drinking
the fancy wine that they accidentally open for them, knowing
they were drinking expensive wine for real. They switched from
acting out drinking expensive wine in jest to acting out
in earnest, which was a pity in ways I couldn't explain,
(44:52):
which is.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
That such an amazing sentence it's a he's kind of
watching like how he has changed.
Speaker 1 (44:59):
And yes, yes, yes, exactly, he's watching how he does
exactly it.
Speaker 2 (45:04):
Right, it's crazy.
Speaker 3 (45:05):
It's like he's being like, oh, but the romance of
making fun of rich people, it's all gone because now
you are literally just being there.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yes, oh, oh my god. That is brilliant, doctor Lily.
That that's exactly what it is. He's he's seeing his
own selling out or is it cashing in? He would say,
there's a difference that is there, and that is the
end of part one of our Key McNally episode. Stay
(45:34):
tuned for next week when we discuss chillers, Minetta Tavern,
the rules of service at Balthasar Class, analysis of salvage
workers versus antique store owners. Keith McNally is an anti
woke icon, the deep rift between Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket
and mythologizing the past, which is something we love to
(45:57):
do here. On the thought. To hear that episode, which
will be out next Wednesday, quit to patroon dot com
slash tvc the pod where you also get new episodes
every Friday. There's another one this Friday too, so it's
a lot of content
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