Well, that's it. All the expectation and feverish excitement has come and gone as fast as you can say "Another bottle of champagne, please".
We had a millennium eve party with 20 friends in our private dining room. Everyone looked fab. We drank champagne all night, ate foie gras with truffle sauce, roast duck, chocolate and Amaretto torte and finished late with gorgonzola and mulled wine pears. We danced on the tables, listened to Macy Gray's hit I Try over and over, watched the superb fireworks in the street and rang everyone we know. We just about managed to stay up to see the dawn of the new millennium.
We grabbed a few hours sleep and the next day came into the restaurant to clean up the debris. Most of us then had a rendezvous in the Moorings at four to recount stories of the previous night, after which we descended upon the Chinese and then to the local night-club where we danced to the Eighties greatest hits all night. Then, as if we hadn't had enough, back to our apartment to finish off the rest of the champagne - and I think we saw the dawn of January 2nd as well!
So, as I am writing this I am glad to be going back to work for a rest. Two days of revelry is about as much as I can manage these days. I must be getting old. Still, only another week to go and we are on holidays.
January is a good time for restaurant folk to go on holiday. As we are building our house at the moment we can't go too mad, so we've decided on four days in New York with some friends and another four in Chicago with Maire's sister, Emer. That leaves us with a week or so at home afterwards tending to the restaurant. The floor needs sanding and varnishing, and the walls need to be repainted.
Whatever time is left over will be spent finalising details of our house, which we hope will be ready in March. After almost three years of renting an apartment, the icing on the cake will be to live in our own home again. I'm visualising the parties already.
While in Chicago we have decided to eat at Charlie Trotter's restaurant and just managed to secure an 8 p.m. table for four. We had heard the waiting list is usually three months and we were lucky to get in, even though we booked in October - lucky Charlie. Although not that well known on this side of the Atlantic, Charlie Trotter is the US's culinary phenomenon. With only five years of self-training behind him he opened his restaurant in 1987, when in his late twenties. He has produced numerous beautiful cookbooks and was recently voted America's best chef by the James Beard Foundation, an eminent body of American gourmets.
His wine list is one of the best in America with a selection of 1,300 bottles and his staff is reputed to be as devoted and knowledgeable as the master. Charlie Trotter's is also reputed to be phenomenally expensive so we may have to take a rain check on the sitting-room curtains and perhaps even the flooring for a while, but by all accounts it will be worth it.
In Ireland, we have come a long way in the past 10 years or so as regards service but the Americans still have the edge. When in an Irish restaurant, Americans may be perceived as demanding, awkward customers. One fully understands their demands when we are put into an American restaurant situation. The emphasis is on what the customer wants - no matter how outrageous - and not what the chef or owner wants to give them. Their waiters are used to getting what we think are unusual requests, which they fulfil without flinching, calmly and efficiently.
We recently had a party of Americans in our private room one Saturday night. The following is an email that Maire sent to a friend in the business after service. Some mild expletives have been omitted for the sensitive reader but guaranteed, all those who are in the restaurant business will understand. And customers, sometimes underneath that calm exterior lies a feverish panic-stricken person on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"Well it all started off lovely, fully booked, nicely timed, full upstairs, party of 16 Americans downstairs (from Los Angeles and New York). I'm flying along, lovely, lovely, lovely people everywhere. I'm in a good mood, everyone is gorgeous. Then the Americans arrived. `I'll have a vodka Martini, make that a double, on the rocks - no, rocks on the side, with two olives, on the side, actually change that, I'll have a double Bombay gin, no rocks, twist of lemon, oh - if you're having that I'll have a dirty Martini straight up, no rocks . . .' (What the hell is a dirty Martini, I'm thinking.) On and on it went.
In the meantime, while making these drinks - all different I might add, I had to run down to the flat to get the proper olives for Martinis, just don't ask - I thought I was going to have a heart attack. "I don't like this glass, give me that glass, what are these olives? This isn't a dirty Martini. Is Absolut vodka the best vodka you have? Where is my twist of lemon? Do you have any lime? Is my wine Irish?" (Hello??!!). Sweat pouring off me, Paul and the chefs laughing at me. Then I cut my finger opening a bottle of wine. Blood everywhere.
Just finished doing their round of drinks, my nervous breakdown complete and they ordered the same again . . .
So, how was your night?"
I don't think we are ready to open in LA yet. Nights like these make us appreciate the customers we have. By the way, we found out (by ringing another restaurant in the middle of making the drinks) that adding a little of the brine of the olives to the Martini makes a dirty Martini. I bet you wouldn't get through the week without that useful piece of information.