Michael’s, the California restaurant transplant and magnet for boldface names, is marking 35 years in New York. An estimated 300 or so of those hotshots will be on hand to raise a glass and nibble hors d’oeuvres on Nov. 13 to celebrate. Michael McCarty, the vivacious party-loving host, will be in the thick of it.
As for the original in Santa Monica, Calif., it’s going on 45 years and counting. “Michael genuinely loves people,” said Jonathan Waxman, who became executive chef of the Santa Monica restaurant soon after it opened. “It’s a real passion.”
It still is. Mr. McCarty, the founder and owner with his wife, Kim McCarty, won’t call it a day. At 71, his shoulder-length bob is grayer, his blazers and linen trousers a larger size. But when he’s in his restaurant on either coast, which is often, he’ll be working the room, greeting figures in publishing, media, art and real estate with a smile and boundless enthusiasm in New York, and Hollywood heavy-hitters in Santa Monica.
“When we opened in Santa Monica everyone was there: Lillian Hellman, Ronald Reagan, Mel Brooks, Bruce Paltrow, amazing people,” Mr. Waxman said. “It was the greatest time of my life.” Mr. Waxman, who went on to open Jams in New York in 1984, bringing California style to the city’s restaurant scene, and even tearing a page from Mr. McCarty’s playbook with art by Frank Stella, among others, on the walls. He said that Michael’s in New York was different from its California parent, drawing more of a publishing and media crowd, mostly for lunch.
The original Michael’s was innovative. Mr. McCarty, then a brash young 20-something with chef’s training in Paris, organized a team of other American chefs, also in their 20s, including Mr. Waxman, Ken Frank, Nancy Silverton, Jimmy Brinkley, Mark Peel, Roy Yamaguchi and also Sally Clarke, who is English, to get his restaurant ambition off the ground. He developed the menus with the chefs. The setting was light, airy, minimalist and decorated with contemporary art, often by customers like David Hockney and Richard Diebenkorn. The dining room contrasted heavily upholstered Los Angeles restaurants like Scandia and Chasens.
“Michael set an example for a guy like me,” said Drew Nieporent, who blazed a trail in TriBeCa with Montrachet in 1985. “He gave me confidence that I could do it, too.”
Mr. McCarty, who is from Briarcliff Manor in Westchester County, went to cooking and hospitality schools in Paris and studied wine there with Steven Spurrier. He graduated in Gastonomy from the University of Colorado in Boulder and then made his way to California, where for a time he had a duck farm and made foie gras.
By the time he got to New York, some young American restaurateurs and chefs had already started down the same path as he did, also following the example set 30 years before by the revolutionary Four Seasons restaurant. Trendsetters like Larry Forgione and Charlie Palmer, as well as Mr. Nieporent and Mr. Waxman, revolutionized New York’s dining landscape, defining what was more broadly new American, not just Californian. They sought local ingredients that were often handled with French techniques combined with grilling. Mesquite became a craze.
“Businesswomen started coming in for lunch, for Cobb salads,” said Kim McCarty, who also is an artist. “We began serving main-course salads.” Those, including a niçoise and a kale Caesar, are assembled by the chef Kyung Up Lim, who has headed the kitchen for more than 20 years.
His audience, including Diane Sawyer, Anderson Cooper and Gustavo Dudamel (on both coasts), shows up for the buzz and dishes like the burger and the king salmon with spinach and beurre blanc.
The essence of Michael’s food remains local, contemporary and fresh, though that classic beurre blanc has been served at both restaurants since day one. It endures; a nod to Mr. McCarty’s Francophilia no matter his allegiance to American food.
Joining Michael’s in celebrating this year are a number of other restaurants, but they’re lighting 30 candles, not 35, having opened in 1994: Nobu, Il Buco, Virgil’s Real Barbecue and Gramercy Tavern among them. Michael’s was ahead of this pack.
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