IN 1981, MY GOOD friend from high school, and later Provincetown,
Sam G., became the chef de cuisine of Work Progress. A once trendy
restaurant on Spring Street in SoHo, the place had fallen on hard times.
It was now under new ownership and Sammy—one of us!—was in
charge of putting the kitchen together. It was what a lot of us had been
waiting for, our own thing, and the call went out to all our old cronies.
From Provincetown came Dimitri, finally enticed from off-season exile
at the tip of the Cape by excited promises of culinary history in the
making. I would share sous-chef responsibilities with my mentor. From
West Village saloons, we recruited every young, pot-smoking, head-
banging hooligan we'd ever worked with, filling their heads with dreams
of glory. "We're forming . . . like . . . a rock and roll band, man, an all-
star group of culinary superstars . . . kinda like Blind Faith. We're going
to tear a new asshole into the New York restaurant scene."
We fancied ourselves the most knowledgeable and experienced young
Turks in town, and our hearts were filled with hope and the promise of
enviable futures. We thought we were the only cooks in New York who
could quote from the Larousse Gastronomique and Répertoire de la
Cuisine, who knew who Vatel, Carême and Escoffier were, what Bocuse,
Verge and Guerard were doing across the water, and we were determined
to replicate their successes and their fame. There was no one on the
horizon we could see who could touch us.
Okay—there was one guy. Patrick Clark. Patrick was the chef of the red-
hot Odeon in nascent Tribeca, a neighborhood that seemed not to have
existed until Patrick started cooking there. We followed his exploits with
no small amount of envy.
"Born under a broiler," people said.
"He's screwing Gael Greene," claimed others.
There were a lot of stories, most of them, like most chefs' gossip,