The stove is barely warm, and the waiters are still in shirtsleeves, fid-dling with their ties. My wife and I believe entrees are tastiest before the sun goes down, and so we were inevitably at the door of whatever restaurant we had chosen promptly at the opening bell, knocking loudly and demanding admittance. I felt like one of those ladies who line up outside department stories on sale days to try on half-price shifts.
One Sunday night, we chose the restaurant of our hotel, the Orfila, a small, lavish, entirely admirable nineteenth-century palace. We were the first to be seated, and then I realized we were also the last to be seated. The restaurant is not unpopular. In fact, we had been unable to obtain a table on a Friday or a Saturday evening, and it was nearly full for Sunday lunch.
On the night we were there, the restaurant had only two other bookings, and neither of the couples showed up or called to cancel. In America, staff and management would have been outraged at such dis-courteous behavior, but our waiter, whose name was Santiago, said, “Is normal in Spain.”
That left three of us allied for the evening: my wife, Santiago, and me.
She wasn’t pleased. “I don’t like it so empty that I’m self-conscious,” she said. Under more advantageous conditions—for example, had I been with a woman other than my spouse—I could have entertained her with delightful bons mots, but after years of marriage no man sounds witty to his wife. She added, “I like a minimum of three tables to be occupied. That gives the waiter two extra things to focus on but not enough to detract from the service. I don’t like just one other table.
I get competitive. I ask myself if the waiter likes the people at the other table better than he likes us.” Whenever Santiago and the second waiter on duty stood whispering to each other, she was certain they were talking about us.
Santiago was every bit as uncomfortable. He compensated by try-F O R K I T O V E R
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ing too hard. He rushed over with bread, and then, concerned that he hadn’t done enough, he brought dishes of bar snacks—potato chips and salted almonds. The quiet was overwhelming. We could hear the ice in our wine bucket melting and shifting, the swinging door to the kitchen creaking open and whumping closed. Creak. Whump. Creak. Whump.
I realized I had to take charge of this floundering dinner party before my wife (as well as Santiago) fled, victims of the unbearable pressure.
I am not making reference to the cuisine of the hotel when I say I felt as though I were in command on Pork Chop Hill and my unit was pinned down.
First, I took my wife for a stroll through the restaurant, impossible when others are present. We admired the walls, because they were fabulous, some covered with trompe l’oeil marble-patterned wallpaper, others with yellow-striped wallpaper of woven cloth. Then we looked over the artwork, still lifes that appeared to her to be moving faster than this meal. When the excursion was over and we had started to eat, I recognized that my next task was to make Santiago understand that we were in this together and even if the room echoed with loneli-ness, we would have the time of our lives.
Luckily for all of us, I dropped a forkful of fish. It didn’t seem fortunate at the moment, because the staff would certainly know the identity of the dolt who had dropped his cod on the carpet. (It would not have been chivalrous to point to my wife and shake my head reproach-fully, although I was tempted.) The word would spread through the hotel: “The guy in room 32 can’t hold his cod.” So I bend down to pick up the fish at the precise moment when Santiago arrived with a plate and a napkin to save me from the demeaning task. Our heads banged under the table. A bond of friendship and international goodwill was forged.
The rest of the evening passed without incident or discomfort. The food was easily the best I experienced during my three days in Madrid.
The bacalao, or dried cod, was superb, the skin crisp and the flesh soft, the flavor enhanced with bits of sausage and a few scattered olives and tomatoes. The pigeon breast was rare, sliced and arranged around a 6 0
A L A N R I C H M A N
well-cooked leg atop a layer of artichoke bottoms, and the breast of duck came in a light, yellow-tinted sauce made with carrots and ginger that looked Indian but tasted Asian.
Afterward, I concluded that I had behaved so exquisitely, head butting notwithstanding, that it had become my duty to prepare a brief guide to dining in an empty restaurant. As a public service I offer this advice:
1. If the restaurant has a piano player, tip him immediately. These guys are morose enough without having to play to a single table of uninterested patrons. If there’s a piano and nobody’s playing it, you must. Learn a song if you don’t know one. Mine is “The Little Shoe-maker,” a ditty I perfected when I was nine years old.
2. Reign over the restaurant. Do not cower in a corner. Insist on a table in the center of the room. Overflow with benevolence. Lavish praise and attention on the staff so at the end of the evening they will remember you forever, grateful for having had the opportunity to serve you, a baron of the dining arts.
3. Treat your consort as though she were a queen. Remember that alcohol and excess are your allies in getting through a potentially awkward evening. Order champagne as quickly as possible.
4. Do not whisper, although you will be tempted to do so. Speak more forcefully than usual, as though you were in the banquet room of your château. Certainly the waiters
