Quo Vadis | |
---|---|
Restaurant information | |
Established | 1946 |
Closed | 1984 |
Previous owner(s) |
|
Food type | French, Italian |
Street address | 26 East 63rd Street |
City | New York City |
Country | USA |
Coordinates | 40°45′57.2″N73°58′9.7″W / 40.765889°N 73.969361°W |
Quo Vadis was a fashionable restaurant in New York City located at 26 East 63rd Street near the corner with Madison Avenue. It operated from 1946 until 1984. W magazine referred to it in 1972, as one of "Les Six, the last bastions of grand luxe dining in New York." The other five named were La Grenouille, La Caravelle, La Côte Basque, Lafayette, and Lutèce.
The restaurant was established in 1946 by two Italians, Gino Robusti and Bruno Caravaggi, who met when they were both working in Spa, Belgium. They had originally come to the United States in 1939 to work in the Belgian Pavilion's restaurant at the 1939 New York World's Fair and stayed on to work at Brussels Restaurant on 26 East 63rd Street. Founded by Albert Giambelli who had run the Belgian Pavilion's restaurant, it was located on the ground floor of the Leonori Building, one of the first large apartment buildings in New York to convert their ground floor into retail space. [1] In 1946 Robusti and Caravaggi bought the Brussels and renamed it Quo Vadis. The new restaurant's opulent decor featured Roman columns, Italian mosaics, and walls covered in red velvet. The Quo Vadis logo printed on their menus and matchbooks was an elaborate crest in red and green featuring a drawing of the Capitoline Wolf inside a large letter "Q". The two owners always wore tuxedos and their male customers were required to wear a coat and tie. [2]
Within two years of its opening, Alexander Mackall's restaurant guide, Knife and Fork in New York, described Quo Vadis as "a delightful new restaurant unveiled by a couple of young paragons of politeness whose virtuosity as suggesters, carvers, servers and general pleasers is quite extraordinary." In 1968, Craig Claiborne wrote in The New York Times that it was one of the finest kitchens in Manhattan and awarded it four stars. [2] Quo Vadis had its own publicist, Lanfranco Rasponi, who was also the publicist for The Colony, [3] and in its heyday was frequented by numerous celebrities and socialites including Diana Vreeland, Lee Radziwill, Paulette Goddard, Jacqueline Kennedy, Frank Sinatra, Truman Capote, Andy Warhol as well as president Gerald Ford and Richard Nixon. Bob Colacello recalled that many of the celebrity interviews for Warhol's magazine Interview were taped at Quo Vadis because its vaulted ceiling and velvet-covered walls made for good acoustics. Amongst the interviews they recorded there were those with Truman Capote, Jack Nicholson, Burt Reynolds, and Mick Jagger. According to Colacello, Quo Vadis exempted Nicholson, Reynolds, and Jagger from its coat and tie requirement. [4] [5]
In 1975, New York Magazine's restaurant critic, Gael Greene, observed that while much of the cooking at Quo Vadis was still "impeccable", the quality of its service had declined and some of the dishes were undistinguished. She characterised the restaurant as "an aging grande dame in yellowed ermine." [6] Robusti and Caravaggi retired in 1981 and sold Quo Vadis to Romeo Mattiusi and Bernard Norget, who also owned the nearby La Folie restaurant. However, the new owners filed for bankruptcy within two years. Robusti and Caravaggi briefly came out of retirement and resumed operation of the restaurant, but closed it definitively in 1984. [2] [7] A new restaurant, QV, then occupied the site, but it soon closed and in 1987 became Orsini's. [8] Since 1996 the site has been occupied by Club Macanudo, a cigar bar. [9]
The restaurant described its cuisine as "Continental", combining classic French dishes with Italian ones. Their specialties included fondue bruxelloise (cheese croquettes with fried parsley), steak Diane, bollito misto, rare rack of lamb carved at the table, and eels in green sauce. [5] [4] [7] [6] Its Head Chef and Sous-chef in the 1960s were Marcel Grange and Leon Herviou.
Andy Warhol was an American visual artist, film director and producer. A leading figure in the pop art movement, Warhol is considered one of the most important American artists of the second half of the 20th century. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silkscreening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell's Soup Cans (1962) and Marilyn Diptych (1962), the experimental films Empire (1964) and Chelsea Girls (1966), and the multimedia events known as the Exploding Plastic Inevitable (1966–67).
Truman Garcia Capote was an American novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and actor. Several of his short stories, novels, and plays have been praised as literary classics, including the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's (1958) and the true crime novel In Cold Blood (1966). His works have been adapted into more than 20 films and television productions.
Brigid Emmett Berlin was an American artist and Warhol superstar.
Answered Prayers is an unfinished novel by American author Truman Capote, published posthumously in 1986 in England and 1987 in the United States.
Exposures, also known as Andy Warhol's Exposures, is a 1979 book by the American artist Andy Warhol and his collaborator Bob Colacello. The first edition of the book was published by Andy Warhol Books, an imprint of Grosset & Dunlap.
Interview is an American magazine founded in 1969 by artist Andy Warhol and British journalist John Wilcock. The magazine, nicknamed "The Crystal Ball of Pop", features interviews of and by celebrities.
Bob Colacello is an American writer. He began his career writing for TheVillage Voice before becoming editor-in-chief of pop artist Andy Warhol's Interview magazine from 1971 to 1983. As part of Warhol's entourage, they collaborated on the books The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975) and Exposures (1979). Colacello has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair since 1984 and has been a special correspondent since 1993.
Nancy "Slim" Keith, Lady Keith of Castleacre was an American socialite and fashion icon during the 1950s and 1960s, exemplifying the American jet set. Keith was married 3 times; first to American film director Howard Hawks, second to American producer Leland Hayward, and finally to British banker and aristocrat Kenneth Keith, Baron Keith of Castleacre.
La Côte Basque was a New York City restaurant. It opened in the late 1950s and operated until it closed on March 7, 2004. In business for 45 years, upon its closing The New York Times called it a "former high-society temple of French cuisine at 60 West 55th Street."
The Andy Warhol Diaries is the dictated memoir of the American artist Andy Warhol and edited by his longtime friend and collaborator Pat Hackett. The book was published posthumously by Warner Books with an introduction by Hackett.
Regine's was a nightclub at 69 East 59th Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It was operated by Régine Zylberberg from 1976 to 1991. She also opened a bistro alongside the nightclub called Cafe Reginette.
Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar is a 2010 feature-length documentary film about Candy Darling, pioneering trans woman, actress and Andy Warhol superstar. The film was written and directed by James Rasin and features Chloë Sevigny as "the voice of Candy Darling", reading from Candy's private diaries and letters. Patton Oswalt voices Andy Warhol and Truman Capote. It also features interviews with Factory regulars such as Paul Morrissey, Vincent Fremont, Bob Colacello, Gerard Malanga, Pat Hackett, George Abagnalo, and Fran Lebowitz as well as an archival interview with playwright Tennessee Williams. Louis Durra composed the score.
La Grenouille was a French restaurant at 3 East 52nd Street between Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Founded in 1962 by former Henri Soulé apprentice Charles Masson Sr. and his wife Gisèle, later with sons Philippe and Charles, La Grenouille became a location of choice among New York, U.S., and eventually international diners, including designers from the nearby Garment District of Manhattan.
Maxwell's Plum was a bar at 1181 First Avenue, at the intersection with 64th Street, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City. A 1988 New York Times article described it as a "flamboyant restaurant and singles bar that, more than any place of its kind, symbolized two social revolutions of the 1960s – sex and food". Owned by Warner LeRoy, it closed abruptly on July 10, 1988.
Quo Vadis is a restaurant and private club in Soho, London. It primarily serves modern British food. It was founded in 1926 by Peppino Leoni, an Italian, and has passed through numerous owners since then, including the chef Marco Pierre White, and is currently owned by Sam and Eddie Hart, also the owners of Barrafina. The restaurant is named after the Latin phrase Quo vadis?, meaning "Where are you going?"
Local Color is the third published book by the American author Truman Capote, released in the Fall of 1950. Local Color includes notes and sketches about persons and places, including travel journal-style essays on cities and countries Capote had lived in or visited.
Henri Soulé (1903–1966) was the proprietor of Le Pavillon and La Côte Basque restaurants in New York City. Soulé also operated The Hedges in East Hampton, New York.
Lanfranco Rasponi was an Italian author, critic, and publicist. He is primarily known for his writing on opera and opera singers, especially his 1982 book, The Last Prima Donnas. Born in Florence, he was the son of an Italian aristocrat and an American mother. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s Rasponi was the publicity agent for many opera singers as well as for socialites and fashionable restaurants in New York City. For a while, he also owned the Sagittarius Gallery in Manhattan which specialised in introducing contemporary European artists. After a financial scandal in 1963, he left the United States for Italy and dedicated himself to writing. He spent his last years in Rio de Janeiro where he died at the age of 68.
Lafayette was a French restaurant in New York City located at 202 East 50th Street. It was established in 1965 and closed in the late 1970s. W magazine referred to it in 1972, as one of "Les Six, the last bastions of grand luxe dining in New York." The other five named were La Grenouille, La Caravelle, La Côte Basque, Quo Vadis, and Lutèce. In its heyday the restaurant was known for the quality of its cuisine, its celebrity clientele, and the legendary rudeness of its proprietor, Jean Fayet.
Ma Maison was a restaurant opened by Patrick Terrail in October 1973 at 8368 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, California. It closed in November 1985. It is credited with launching Wolfgang Puck's career and for starting the trend in cuisine known as "California nouvelle". According to the Los Angeles Times: "By using ingredients sourced from the local farmers markets that highlighted the glory of California's produce and pairing it with French technique, they created a new type of cuisine." Ma Maison was also known for being a hot spot for celebrities and Hollywood figures of the time. Celebrity chronicler Robin Leach noted "it truly became the favorite culinary playground for Hollywood's rich and famous".
{{cite book}}
: |magazine=
ignored (help){{cite book}}
: |magazine=
ignored (help)