The Never-Ending Power Lunch

At the center of New York's mogul universe, the Four Seasons restaurant attracts a formidable crowd looking for the right table

Mitchell Fink
From the Print Edition:
The Best Places to Gamble, Sep/Oct 02

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But with a finite number of tables and only so many days in the week, it is a club that not everyone can get into. And another thing: it's pricey. Niccolini likes to say that a typical lunch in the Grill Room can cost $55 per person, with a typical lunch in the Pool Room costing $20 more because people tend to languish there longer. The menus suggest otherwise. In truth, it's probably closer to a C-note per person in both rooms.

But that surely hasn't stopped the flow of customers who seemingly want to be there in practically any economic climate. "Do people who can't get in get angry?" Niccolini asks rhetorically. "Most of the time when they get upset, it's because they're here for the first time, or the only time, and they heard about the Grill Room at lunchtime, and they want a reservation and they want to be seated downstairs. And most of the time I have to tell them I'm really sorry. If I have a table, I'm more than happy to give it to them. And if I don't, that's the way it is. I would hope they understand, and if they don't, it's too bad."

Of course, there's always the Pool Room with all the "normal" people and Dan Rather, whom Niccolini also places in the Grill Room from time to time. This spring, the water was removed during New York's serious water shortage, but it was restored in early summer after the rains came. Water or no water, the aesthetic inconvenience didn't stop former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley from having a quiet lunch in the Pool Room while McCall and Jordan were busy being big shots in the Grill Room.

As for Niccolini, he never even bid farewell to Bradley that day because he was too busy thinking about New York Jets owner Robert Wood Johnson. "I have to give him a good table," he says. "Last week he brought in Bush, the father, the former president. I'll put him in a booth, absolutely."

In the end, it probably makes little or no difference where any of these people sit. Deals are made every day in the Pool Room and in the Grill Room. Even on the balcony. On one recent day, two businessmen -- both of whom were decidedly more "normal" than famous -- walked together down the balcony steps after lunch. Each man was smiling with obvious satisfaction until one of them said, "Remember, happiness can't buy you money."

The great thing about the Four Seasons is that it appears to be brimming with both, although in reality it's probably a little less of one and a lot more of the other.

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