Page 39 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Eight

Shut Up and Eat!

Midtown Manhattan Mess Hall
Merits Menacing Moniker

By Amber Grisselle, Times restaurant critic

Krafft-Ebbing and Kraft cheese? I hadn’t put the two together
until a dear old friend (who must remain anonymous) invited me
to accompany him to a dining hall without a name at a location I
have sworn not to disclose.
The intrepid diner may find tucked away in our great
metropolis, cheek-by-jowl with Lespinasse, The Four Seasons,
and Kuruma Zushi, a vast world of odd eateries, many exerting a
reverse snob-appeal. One thinks of slow-motion mastication,
miniature tasting menus of sanctified vegan heirloom imports,
slabs of just-defrosted haunch from the Siberian mammoth trove.
Not your everyday fare, and the limits are one’s attitude and
expense account.
I’ve tried them all. But nothing could prepare me for this
experience.
The establishment can’t be telephoned, won’t take reservations,
accepts cash only and seats no one who arrives after 5:30 p.m.
The dress code is slacks; ladies in dresses will be turned away. My
friend cautioned me not to stick with him once we got off the
elevator and to obey instructions once we arrived. His last words
to me were a warning: follow directions!
We passed first into a room where a grim matron took our
money and wordlessly issued each of us a baggy ochre jumpsuit.
Mine was clean although shadows of old stains dotted the front.
It fit over my street clothes well enough, but a smaller size would
have done better. I was left with the feeling of getting a hand-
me-down from a rather sloppy and aesthetically-challenged older
sibling.
Then another rather dour lady in an apron approached and said
gruffly, “Let me see those hands!”