Every generation makes its own version of downtown New York in the late seventies
An interview with Keith McNally, the the restaurateur who invented downtown
Welcome to Inside Cover, a column about literary goings-on.
For this edition of Inside Cover I went to Balthazar, drank a glass of free champagne, gossiped with the bartenders, and asked the owner, Keith McNally, a few questions about his memoir, I Regret Almost Everything.
McNally founded Balthazar, Pastis, Minetta Tavern, Pravda, Schiller’s Liquor Bar, Morandi, Cherche Midi, Lucky Strike, Nell’s, Cafe Luxembourg, and the Odeon, plus the staggeringly unsuccessful pizzeria, Pulino’s, (his words, not mine).
His Instagram bio is 'Deadbeat New York Restaurateur' but The New York Times called him 'The Restaurateur Who Invented Downtown'.
You can decide for yourself after reading the memoir, which details his accidental rise from busboy at Serendipity, to maître d' at One Fifth, organizing SNL after-parties and serving a young Patti Smith ('incredibly rude to the servers') and Robert Mapplethorpe ('friendlier without the leather jacket'), to opening his first restaurant.
His playlists are infamous, so I put a few songs from the Balthazar book launch party playlist at the top of the interview for you to listen to while you read. I asked him for the playlist, so that I wouldn’t get put on blast like Jeans:
