Whining and Dining : Its No Longer Enough to Know the Hottest Chefs and the Trendiest Cuisines--For True Foodie Status, You Have to Bend Them to Your Will

Pasquale and Anna Morra consider themselves accommodating people, but this was too much to ask. The man at the corner table wanted penne arrabiata with a twist: He wanted smoked mozzarella added to the spicy tomato sauce. And some clams. And some sun-dried tomatoes. All mixed together.

Pasquale listened glumly to the order. He tried to convince the customer that it was a mistake on several levels. The sauce didn’t need smoked cheese. Even if it did, he would never combine cheese and shellfish. And the sun-dried tomatoes were too strong. Wouldn’t the man reconsider?

The diner held his ground. He knew what he wanted, and what he emphatically didn’t want was a lecture about regional authenticity or appropriate flavor combinations. The customer, after all, is always right.

Morra retreated to the kitchen at Da Pasquale, the Beverly Hills trattoria he and his chef wife, Anna, opened in 1989, and confessed his anguish to her. He knew it was wrong to serve such a dish, but the man wanted it and nothing else. If he fed the guy, he would hate himself. If he didn’t feed the guy, he was going to send an angry man out into the world to bad-mouth his restaurant.

He considered his wife an artist in the kitchen, but he had a business to run. Morra had to compromise. Ten minutes later he appeared at the man’s table with two plates--one bowl of penne arrabiata with a reasonable amount of smoked cheese mixed in, and a separate side order of clams and sun-dried tomatoes.

“Here,� he said. “Now I’m going to turn my back and go into the kitchen. You can do whatever you want.� At which point the man mixed his customized dish and devoured it.

This is the world of menu manipulation, a far cry from the half-caff two-step immortalized in Steve Martin’s comedy “L.A. Story.� In the movies, food tweakers are a joke, whether it’s Meg Ryan being prissy in “When Harry Met Sally. . . .� or Jack Nicholson demanding a chicken salad sandwich on toast, hold the chicken salad, in “Five Easy Pieces.�

The real world is not quite so adorable. Demanding diners have descended on what remains of Los Angeles’ recession-ravaged eating scene. They’re no longer looking for the hot chef or the snooty menu. They don’t need to have an intimate relationship with either the cook or his dishes. Status, now, comes from knowing what you want and getting it. Today’s diner is after personal satisfaction, however idiosyncratic, however weird. That’s the point. He wants what he wants, centuries of culinary wisdom notwithstanding. He wants to be acknowledged; he wants to be unique.

It is decidedly a buyers’ market. It is the era of what Piero Selvaggio, owner of Valentino, Primi and Posto, calls “ Chicca --the little things people want to do.� Let the restaurateur beware.

*

The sauce-on-the-side movement began innocently enough with people like my mother, who started families in the antiseptic 1950s and came to value clean consistency above all else. Machine-cut frozen green beans were a dependable status symbol, proof that moms had more important things to do with their time than wash, top and tail the real thing. We had conquered nature--cleaned it, sliced it on the diagonal in absolutely uniform little chunks, and wedged it into a nice little white box that fit quite snugly in a stack of other nice little white boxes. Forget language. What set us apart from the apes was frozen produce.

Predictability was patriotic, too. Plain meat and potatoes were aggressively American, a hefty emblem of the middle class, proof that life was better here. Maybe our immigrant ancestors had to smother a tough cut of meat in an ethnic sauce, but not us. It was slab cuisine: Heat the meat, thaw the sides, and eat. We distrusted any chef who tried to mask the entree with a sauce--did he think we couldn’t afford the very best?

And when the offspring of the convenience generation went off to college, what did the ‘60s generation get? Groovy vegetarian grub, mile-high sandwiches that were three-quarters alfalfa sprouts and nothing that required the execution of a fellow mammal. They rebelled against soulless technology and made pals with the planet again. It was the era of conscience cuisine.

By the time the ‘70s were over, we were crazy for a good meal.

Perhaps it was all that extremism that led to the binge mentality of the 1980s. Everyone who was anyone had to have a favorite high-end restaurant, where they dined so often that they didn’t even need to open the menu. They knew all the dishes by heart and made a point of being blase about things like skate wing and sweetbreads.

Such behavior is now considered politically incorrect; these are the lean 1990s, a decade of restraint and responsibility, of quality time and downsized expectations. So all those food-circuit big shots are forced to find a new way to channel their power urges. And the casualties, the ones whose arteries were lined by a blanket of Brie, have become convinced that the city’s cooks are out to murder them by degree. The only safe haven is an off-the-menu meal.

There are two kinds of troublemakers these days. The players of the last decade need to feel spoiled without seeming pretentious. A favorite story on the restaurant circuit concerns a particular character actor who likes to go to Italian restaurants, glance at the menu and then ask if the chef couldn’t possibly make up something special for him--say, some pasta with tomatoes, garlic and basil, as though such a dish weren’t part of the fundamental alphabet of every Italian restaurant. It’s probably on half the menus the actor pretends to read, but asking for it as a special dish, and getting it, provides the illusion that he is a singularly important fellow.

And the health fascists, who could do everyone a favor and either stay home or bring their own food with them to restaurants, seem determined to make everyone bend to their will. It would be easy enough to locate the lower-fat items on a menu and stick with those, but a considerable number of these folks want to have their cake, eat it too--and not have it show up on their cholesterol test. More than one chef has had requests for risotto with no butter or oil, which is something like asking for a brick wall, hold the mortar.

The most frustrating diner is the classic Los Angeles hybrid, the one who acts like a Pritikin devotee for the first two courses and then undoes all his good deeds come dessert. One Drago customer, who took the long view, ordered a salad with dressing on the side and pasta with smoked salmon, vodka and cream, but without the cream, just so he could dive into the tiramisu with abandon. Another asked if she could have a decaf tiramisu ; she didn’t want the espresso-soaked dessert to keep her awake at night.

(Italian restaurants are particularly vulnerable to the revisionist eater. They’re victims of their own image: Italian cuisine is accessible, informal, healthy; it’s far less intimidating than the last decade’s darling, classic French cuisine. And Los Angeles diners are particularly enthusiastic about altering menu reality; maybe it’s that pioneer spirit. “They’re spoiled,� says Celestino Drago, owner of Drago in Santa Monica. “In New York, it is what it is--take it or leave it. This is Hollywood--everybody’s used to getting what they want.�)

Food has become the image toy of the 1990s; people fool around with it just to prove that they can. Whenever I hear someone loudly instructing the waiter--or, more aggressively, the chef, who’s been summoned tableside for a public humiliation--about what he wants to eat, I wonder. Does he really like a combination of smoked clams and shellfish because it tastes good? Or does he like it because it’s not on the menu? I mean, think about what he’s saying. He’s telling the chef that nothing he’s serving is good enough, that his years of experience and study pale next to a customer’s imagination. And the dressing-down is public; everyone within hearing distance knows that this diner is important enough to demand attention.

I suppose there’s a nice democratic edge to all of this. Unlike more ostentatious trinkets, like a big BMW or an outsize house, a custom-built meal is something almost anyone can afford--you can assert yourself at the local trattoria as easily as at a more chic eatery. Maybe that’s what the low-rent ‘90s are all about. It’s the people’s decade. Anyone can have an attitude.

*

It wasn’t always this way, of course. In the halcyon days of the restaurant boom, back in the early 1980s, diners worshiped at the whisk of a favored chef. Cooks could be bullies, then. And to be fair, some of them were. Waiters took orders as though they were listening for secret passwords. If you ordered smart, you were treated well; if you ordered what they thought was a wrong combination, you were barely tolerated. Diners gratefully ate what was offered and impressed their friends with their ability to pronounce the names of the dishes.

Chefs were celebrities; they knew best. Mark Peel is now the chef and co-owner of Campanile with his wife, pastry chef and baker Nancy Silverton, but he recalls with relish his days as an angry young man, working at Ma Maison when Wolfgang Puck was the chef.

Puck often served lamb, and every now and then a hapless diner would incur the staff’s disdain by requesting mint jelly, a clear sign of an unenlightened palate. One employee brought in a little bottle of the stuff as a joke, and soon after, a waiter noticed it and asked if he could serve it.

With the jar in plain sight, Puck politely explained that the restaurant did not have any mint jelly. The waiter persisted. Again, Puck apologized. Just to make trouble, Peel said, “But Wolf, it’s right here.� Puck picked up the mint jelly and threw it against a tile wall, where it shattered.

Mint jelly dripped down to the floor. Puck smiled at the waiter and said he was sorry. There was no mint jelly at Ma Maison.

But those days are gone forever. The balance of power has shifted. If diners sometimes used to pay for the privilege of feeling like a fool, now they can pay for the chance to act like one. People go out to eat less often than they used to, so when they do decide to splurge, the chef had better be ready to accommodate their wishes. Peel, now older and more diplomatic, offers a butterflied, grilled chicken seasoned with cracked pepper, fennel seed, cumin and spicy chile on his menu. He gets orders for it steamed, no skin, no salt, no fat, which he grudgingly fills.

But surrender can backfire. “You hear them when they’re leaving, complaining that they don’t know what the fuss was all about; the food was so bland,� he says, with a rueful laugh. “Of course it’s bland. They took away all the things that make it taste good. They could have ordered it the way we cook it and then just take the skin off themselves.�

His wife has a shorter fuse. When a customer requested a scoop of chocolate ice cream on top of her lemon tart, Silverton sent the waiter back, twice, to gently suggest that while these were the woman’s two favorite flavors, they would not be a happy mix. The woman refused to back down, so Silverton did. The very memory makes her wince.

“There are times,� she sighs, “when I’ve been tempted to say, ‘Forget it.’ But then I think, ‘Just turn your back and give them what they want.’ �

Piero Selvaggio, who opened Valentino, his first restaurant, in 1972, has become a specialist in the culinary non sequitur: He’s taken orders for risotto porcini with the mushrooms on the side, gnocchi with Gorgonzola cheese with the cheese on the side (“I just like to mix in the cheese myself,� customers say) and a veal chop in orange juice and Grand Marnier. His chef made a pasta sauce of orange juice and tomato sauce for one man who loved the results so much that he wondered why Selvaggio didn’t immediately add the dish to the menu.

Selvaggio has been at it long enough to develop a sense of humor about such requests, but mostly he feels sorry for people who miss tasting a dish the way it was meant to be made. “Risotto with no butter?� he asks. “How can you swim and not be in the water? Someone thinks you can do the whole thing with olive oil, but he misses the thick moistness that butter brings.�

The one-shot diner can be frustrating, but it’s the repeat offenders who make life truly difficult for the restaurateur. How do you tell your regular customers that they don’t know what’s good for them?

Selvaggio dubbed one twice-weekly diner “Our Lady of the Overcooked Vermicelli,� because no matter how long the chef boiled the angel hair pasta before he mixed in the pesto, it wasn’t long enough. He indulged her for years, but on what turned out to be her last visit she was particularly demanding.

“We ran it under the hot water a few times and took it back and she still said it wasn’t right,� recalls Selvaggio. “I can’t go back to a professional chef and say, ‘Cook this more.’ He’ll say, ‘Cook what?’ �

He decided to sacrifice a customer: “For the first time in 20 years, I said, ‘Look, we just can’t please you.’ � Selvaggio never saw her again, except for one visit, when she was a guest at a large dinner hosted by someone else.

“Sometimes,� he sighs, “you have to ask, ‘Are we Valentino or a house of prostitution?’ �

*

Now that I’ve insulted every finicky diner in the greater Los Angeles area, let me defend your rights--within reason. Not the power rangers; they get high on pushing people around, and the only consolation chefs have is the knowledge that they aren’t the only ones being hassled. The same person who snubs a chef undoubtedly exhibits disdain for his mechanic, his doctor, his agent and anybody else who’s technically in a service industry.

But people with health problems have a real issue to face. No one is suggesting that you have to order the pasta in vodka and cream if you’re are a teetotaler with a family history of heart disease. I understand limitations. My husband is allergic to onions unless they’ve been cooked forever. My dad, who was diabetic, had to plot his day’s diet in advance just to be able to eat a scoop of ice cream at dinner.

Sometimes, people just have to make small adjustments. But with luck, we can inspire a chef to come up with a dish he wants to make again. Tonino Morra, Pasquale’s older brother and the owner of Caffe Toto in West Los Angeles, was the pizza chef at Il Forno when a regular customer came in, devastated by a doctor’s recommendation that he forgo pizza in deference to his cholesterol count. The man had a pizza jones. He implored Tonino to make a pie that wouldn’t kill him.

So Tonino invented a pizza with tomato sauce, no cheese, lots of basil, garlic and shiitake mushrooms--and named it Pizza Ken after the customer (who, ever grateful, has followed him to his new digs). Other customers saw it, tried it, liked it and order it whether they need to or not.

If you believe that fat is the devil in oleaginous form, by all means pick a dish that seems light on the oil and butter--or buy a copy of “Healthy Dining in Los Angeles,� which analyzes dishes at 85 area restaurants--and order strictly by the numbers.

But there’s a difference between reasonable caution and fundamental conservatism. Fear of the unknown: It’s the one thing that big shots and health hard-liners have in common. They just don’t want to take a chance. I always knew I disliked Roy Cohn, the House Unamerican Activities Committee lawyer, but what clinched it for me was the revelation that he brought his own can of tuna when he lunched at New York’s Le Cirque--and the chef accommodated him by opening the can and plopping the tuna on a plate. This is not about lunch or taste buds or health. This is about control and the false safety of habit.

It is not dining out.

A restaurant is supposed to be an adventure. If I have one dining tenet, it’s always to order something I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, make myself. In the days before pre-washed spinach, I ordered a lot of spinach; let somebody else stand up to his wet elbows in silt. I like to order duck, since my single attempt to cook that deceptively difficult bird almost lost me four good friends.

And when I’m feeling up to the occasion, in a particularly celebratory mood, I make the one special request that chefs are happy to honor. I ask them to feed me, no strings attached, to see what they like to cook when the constraints of pleasing the crowd are removed. If something looks suspicious, I follow the rule of my childhood: Try one bite, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to finish it. I would have missed a lot of great food if I’d chickened out and ordered only the dishes that were already in my data bank.

Now, I wouldn’t ask any of my favorite chefs to write this piece for me. You surely wouldn’t let them compose your legal brief, negotiate your three-picture deal or fit the porcelain veneers on your most demanding celebrity patient. But that’s my point: You have your profession. So does the cook. Trust him to make your taste buds happy.