The Palace: Splendor in the Foie Gras

The Palace: Splendor in the Foie GrasWell, no one has ever accused Frank Valenza of
The Palace hustled into being one year ago with angrace. To him, the Palace’s first birthday was not
acute sense of terminal decadence. Was there evermerely an occasion to celebrate. It was a time to
more an obscene moment to launch the mostgloat. Loyal patrons and friends were invited to a
expensive restaurant in town? The Dow Jones wasparty, tariff $125. Enemies were invited, too,
so low its chin pinched its toes?  Breakfasts grewespecially competitors who said he’d never make
bitter at the specter of swollen Mauritanian belliesit; even, by accident, one who was dead. A ransom
haunting the morning paper. All summer New Yorkin truffles was marinated for weeks. Two bottles of
City teetered on the edge… a fat rotten apple.pear brandy at $18.75 each went into the silken ice
It was a time to buy gold, talk poor and postponethat unjaded guests’ palates between the baby
that new sable. Even the very rich economized,lamb and the terrine of wild duck; Valenza opened
patching the old Porthault sheets to make them lasttwo priceless bottles of 1897 Lafite-Rothschild;
another season, limping along in last years Mercedes,poured Margaux ’53 in magnum and
canceling summer in Cap d’Antibes, making dueRomanée-Conti ’33 with the cheese.
with an $18,000 beach rental in the Hamptons. WouldThe dinner was flawed. It’s a challenge to serve
anyone be crass enough to boldly patronize thegreat food to so many at once. The pace was slow,
Palace’s Trimalchian bouffé? Surely he’dfinally a torture in its fifth hour. And still Claude’s
be heckled and stoned by bands of rovingsainted touch shone in the sublime
unemployed.sweetbread-and-truffle stuffed puff pastry tourte;
A gossipy cabal of French restaurateurs sneered.the salmon-trout, plump with pike mousse, skillfully
Proprietor Frank Valenza of the Bronx, a failed actorsauced and wittingly garnished; and a celestial
and the creator of the gimmicky Proof of theconfection of savarin and soufflé perfumed with
Pudding restaurant, would never pull it off, theyrum in fragile crème anglaise.
gloated – he was neither professional nor French.But I’d been indulged by a sybaritic friend at
In my set, where it’s my mouth that counts, thedinner ($227.30) only the week before. So my sense
Palace was anticipated as sheer hype.of what the Palace can be was still fresh. It had been
Well, the Palace has survived. No doubt some comeone of those sense-tickling times. We came near
to bask in its cachet as the most expensive fuelingweeping over the mussel soup with its tiny skeins of
stop in town. Oiled Arabs, weary of toting all thesecarrot and celery and its sweet bay scallops afloat.
greenbacks around, are grateful to have their walletsAnd giggled inanely all through the parade of sweets,
so sweetly lightened. Six customers have earned thesuccumbing to simple silliness and a dozen wicked
house’s eighteen-karat-gold credit card bypetits fours.
spending $10,000. One enthusiast has droppedWho knows if the Palace can survive another year?
$19,000 so far. IRS whimsy finances a lot of freshWill Claude cave in? Will Valenza abandon gastronomic
truffles.philanthropy if the house fails to pay its way? Will
But the Palace survives because it is not merelypuritans, moralists, and revolutionaries lurk in wait to
good, it is dazzlingly splendid. I don’t know amow us down as we stagger from dinner?
restaurant in America anything like it. For sheer luxuryThe Palace tells us more than we may care to know
and excess, for exquisite detail, for its caviar, its wildabout who we are. I am not Albert Schweitzer or
mushrooms, its pastry baskets sculpted in sugar, forMother Cabrini. I have yet to meet a single saint in
the innocent unhaughtiness of its style and itsthis town sworn to poverty, chastity, and cottage
nouveau-riche glitter, nothing else comes close. Itcheese. There are men and women noble and true,
may not yet be the best, but it is certainly…thededicated to research or music or evangelism or
most.chasing the bogeyman from traumatized psyches,
Two driven egos rule: Valenza the incurable ham, andand they spend their income on horses and houses
Claude Baills, his brilliant young chef. Theirs is a trueand Halstons and hatcheck girls. I buy 99-cent
folie à deux, a duet in madness. Each makesstockings at Alexander’s so I can feel
outrageous demands on the others. Frank roars.comfortable paying $6 a pound for goat cheese. I will
Claude threatens. Frank smoothes everything withcontinue to spend small checks to CARE and buy
green paper – it’s only money. He countsdatebooks from UNICEF and be a Friend of the
every penny, telling anyone and everyone how muchLibrary. But I won’t apologize for being a saint to
it all costs, amazed at his own extravagance…my stomach.
spending, spending. And Claude delivers. “He has420 East 59th Street, 355-5150.
the eyes of a saint,” says Valenza.