by Chrissy Iley
For me Barney’s New York IS New York. It is so quintessentially Manhattan. And Barney’s seems such a perfect metaphor for the city; it is edgy, it is chic, beautiful and busy and always with a high fashion content.
When I was in Barney’s in NY a couple of months ago I had lunch at their restaurant Fred’s. It was heaving busy, and I had a great lunch. I was with my friend Roger Friedman who regaled me with tales of his friend Aretha Franklin. Roger loves a diva. He used to have a cat called Aretha and another one called Tina. I learned more about him in this lunch than in all the years I have known him.
Sometimes a great lunch in a great restaurant can make something magical happen. I also met at the same lunch Freddie Hancock, a beautiful woman who once was married to Tony Hancock. She made me laugh a lot. The lunch was so good I can`t remember what we had. It is just imprinted in my head that it was the perfect complement to our warm conversation that was occasionally spicy.
I remember French fries that were crispy on the outside and fluffy on the in, and I remember a soup, I think it was Freddie who had it. It was yellow. No idea what was in it other than we liked it. At the end we had a portion of profiteroles. There were three of them. Fluffy cream on the inside, intense chocolate on the outside. I remember them because there was one each and that was cosy.
We had a great table in the busy restaurant, Freddie`s table. I thought the restaurant was named after her. The perfect English woman in NYC, such wit and style, why wouldn’t it be named after her?
Cut to two, months later Freds opens in Barneys LA. I was excited to try it as my memories of the NY version were so happy. I had been told that it was super vegetarian friendly. I had been told they have been going for the fresh local farm to table vibe.
Again the restaurant is on the top floor but it could not be more different to its NY counterpart. It is airy and spacy with a huge patio. It was missing the buzz of Freds NY. It was missing people. It was missing busy. As we sat outside we gaze into the lovely sunset. Dusk and twinkling lights on the hills.
The maître d’ came over and announced, `What a view! I just love capitalism.’ I was puzzled as to what the sunset had to do with capitalism but he went on to look at Burberry and then I think he referred to the bank. At this point it occurred to us that he looked just like Professor Snape from Hogwarts and then he started calling me young lady. This way out-creeped Alan Rickman, who does Oscar winning creepy. Young lady? Surely nobody over 11 should be called young lady. I felt nauseous, so condescending.
The menu itself looked inviting enough but I was overcome with a feeling of what happens in NY should stay in NY. That some concepts just don’t transport. Like a soufflé in an airplane this Freds looked a little flat.
Our waitress was super smiley. Good choice she cooed when I ordered the Hen of the Woods with arugula, Parmesan and balsamic glaze for $17.50 for my appetizer. My friend had Freds garden salad, $18, both were absolutely gigantic. The mushrooms had a slightly wetter texture, like oyster mushrooms, the flavour was more intense like a cep. The greens were stacked high and were nice and vinegary. It was a lovely salad. My friend also liked hers, particularly the butternut squash. Everything tasted super fresh and flavourful.
We had a long and in the end pointless discussion with the waitress about should we have broccoli or broccoli rabe as a side dish. The rabe version is apparently slightly bitter. We went for regular broccoli which she entirely forgot to bring despite us asking for it twice. Not that we were hungry, our pastas were massive, they were still massive in the fridge three days later. `They keep amazingly` – another lie.
At the time though we were full from our salads but kept on going with the pasta. It was hearty and strangely addictive. My pasta was penne with vegan Bolognese penne tossed in a twelve vegetable tomato sauce. There is no doubt it was a good sauce but I had to keep on asking for more cheese, which arrived in tiny finger bowls. I excused them because they might not expect to serve cheese with vegan pasta. It was $24 and for that much money I wanted cheese. For that much money you could get pasta escargot which is world class. This was not world class; it was not even California class.
My friend`s pasta was called Freds spaghetti, also $24, it did not have much of a sauce, it had a spattering of pesto and my friend tried hard to find the shitake mushrooms, asparagus and sundried tomatoes. They were there, but they were tiny. I did not like her pasta at all. Too much pasta, too much pesto, not enough texture, or sauce.
The smiley waitress kept coming by and smiling, and Professor Snape kept on slinking. We weren’t unhappy; we had cosy food and a beautiful view. And we had started off with rather nice cocktails. Mine was called Thirst. It was a vodka and cucumber affair, perhaps named because it was thirst quenching. My friend had one called The Troublemaker, which was vodka, soda, lime and strawberry. Perhaps called because too many and you make trouble. The smiley waitress said they were the most popular cocktails maybe because they had the best names.
The smiley waitress wanted us to try the profiteroles. But somehow because I had them in their NY state I did not want to try the Californian version. I felt the same about the NY cheesecake. But the gelato that they had delivered every day from Santa Barbara definitely appealed. It was salted caramel with truffles. You can’t really go wrong with that and they didn’t.
Fred’s Beverly Hills, 9570 Wilshire Boulevard, CA 90212. Tel: (310) 777-5877.