It’s Not Just Where You Eat, It’s Where You Sit When Eating

Close to the harpist. Near the waiter’s station. Next to the kitchen.

Spots to get the very best food service?

Hardly. Spots the cognoscenti say are simply “Siberia” inside of power restaurants.

At Antoine, that divinely chic salon that perches like a royal jewel box inside Le Meridien hotel in Newport Beach, you will never see a power couple like Renee and Henry Segerstrom sipping vintage bubbly in the same chamber as the woman strumming the heavenly strings. Never. Never. Never. The Segerstroms are always escorted to Table 21, in a chamber once removed from the harpist.

At Antonello in Santa Ana, where Orange County supervisors dine frequently, and where Forbes 400 member George Argyros regularly sinks his teeth into power lunches, you won’t see heavy hitters at Table 1, the “worst seat in the house,” says a laughing Antonio Cagnolo, the debonair Italian who owns the place. “That’s next to the waiter’s station.

“The A spot is Table 27. It sits in the corner of our villa area and has all the things an A table should have: it’s up front enough to have a view of the dining room but private enough to keep people from bothering you.”

Argyros, Cagnolo says, frequently requests Table 6, a larger table where more power folks can dine and still see, and be seen, but not be pestered. When Henry Segerstrom was courting the powers-that-be of Tiffany & Co., he requested round Table 6.

Never-never land at the Ritz restaurant in Newport Beach is around Table 20, located immediately outside the kitchen exit, manager Craig Schisler says. “The A table is No. 38, the booth that sits under an oil painting of Auguste Escoffier.”

An A table never had it so good. Sitting under the toque-topped, dashing master of French cuisine, guests get to sip an extra-dry martini and drink in the panorama of the smart set as they dine in the plush main room. And one also gets to gawk at the goings-on within the clubby bar (where, overhead, owner Hans Prager has posted the saying: “It’s my life. I live it. I love it. Critics be damned.”)

Other power spots at the Ritz include the posh Ritz Brothers’ room, where the power booths are 10, 11 and 12. And then there are those ritzy, curtained tables in the piano room that look rather like posh church confessionals. (Irvine Co.’s Gary Hunt--billionaire Don Bren’s right arm--and Forbes 400 megadeveloper William Lyon were recently spotted there doing a power lunch behind drawn curtains.)

At the private Center Club in Costa Mesa, the only table is Table 56, the spot where diners can pick at poached salmon while gazing upon the curvy bronze sculpture “Sun Glitter” by Sweden’s Carl Milles, located in the water gardens.

“It’s the ocean view of Costa Mesa,” says the club membership chairwoman, Susan Stebbins.

Siberia at the Center Club, Stebbins says, is Table 70, the first table you see as you enter the dining room. “If you sit there, you feel like everyone is coming directly at you, like you’re about to throw a huge dinner party!”

Dear Miss Manners: What do you do when the star of your party, a celebrated New York society queen who just happens to be the wife of Henry Kravis--the corporate buyout king--calls to say, boo-hoo, she has the flu? Janice Johnson knows. You smile at your guests as they sweep into your cliff-hung Laguna Beach home. You bubble. You make sure everyone has a drink.

And you have a tiny nervous breakdown before guests arrive. “It’s embarrassing, “ said Johnson on Wednesday after learning fashion designer Carolyne Roehm would not attend her patron party that night. The sparkling soiree kicked off “The Guilds Take Manhattan,” a benefit for the Orange County Performing Arts Center that, on Thursday at the Irvine Hilton, featured Roehm’s breathtaking spring collection and netted more than $70,000. “But Carolyne called me personally and she sounded very sincere. She said she was from the Midwest and never breaks a promise, that she would be at her fashion show on Thursday night.” Among the 100 missing Roehm at the patron bash were: Johnson’s husband Roger, CEO of Western Digital; Willa Dean and William Lyon; Gus Owen and Kathryn Thompson; Harry and Shari Esayian; Barbara and Jim Glabman and Bob and Gayle Anderson.

Hot Stuff: Watch for the Round Table West, a high-level book club that formerly met at the now-defunct Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, to begin meeting at the Balboa Bay Club (Fay Wray plans to promote her new book there soon) . . . Pilar and Aissa Wayne, along with author Joseph Wambaugh, will be among the celebrity waiters Monday night at Dizz’s As Is restaurant in Laguna Beach to benefit the Orangewood Children’s Foundation . . . Watch for designers Bob Mackie and Oscar de la Renta to make back-to-back charity appearances at the Amen Wardy boutique at Newport Center Fashion Island this spring. De la Renta will appear at a luncheon May 12, and Mackie will appear the next night at a black-tie soiree. Both events will be staged by Angelitos de Oro, a highly sophisticated support group of Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Orange County.