A Polished Act

Most diners would rather have their maitre d’ than their president feel their pain. When something unordered shows up on the bill; when the table is too small, too close, too far or, worst of all, not ready. First we want a little commiseration. Then some action.

Silvio De Mori, co-owner of Mimosa Restaurant on Beverly Boulevard, is a master of such moments. He is not the sort of front-of-the-house man who communicates with pinched nostrils and pursed lips. If you’re waiting, he winces along with you as a table makes motions to leave but then settles back down. His whole body English, as a table starts to rise, is that of a baseball slugger imploring the ball to stay fair.

“I cannot bring myself to ask people to leave,” he says, his face darkening at the clearly unspeakable image he is about to put into words. “Even when, after coffee, they bring out a photo album.”

This is the great maitre d’ paradox: the thrill of the place being full versus the constant need for tables to seat arriving customers.

“Your weapon is to know how to make people wait,” De Mori says.

At some restaurants, a brushoff to the bar with a vague approximation of waiting time is enough. Not for De Mori.

“Eye contact” is good, he says. “Constant information” is better. But “free drinks” are best of all. He keeps champagne on ice right at the front desk, along with some French aperitifs.

“So it costs me $50 a night for a few bottles,” he says of what is obviously a solid investment.

At Mimosa, the moment you’re told your table isn’t quite ready, De Mori is pouring. He’ll pour one for himself, too. He’ll toast, spend a few minutes in happy conversation.

In a town where even valet parkers can have attitude, this affability is refreshing. It is one of the reasons Mimosa has become one of the most popular restaurants in town since it opened last January.

De Mori is a handsome man with light blue eyes and a high, aristocratic forehead. Married for 25 years and the father of two grown children, he has the air of a man about town, favoring open-necked tattersall shirts, double-vented suits and fine leather loafers.

And in the dining room, he is a throwback to an earlier time. His is an old-fashioned presence, based as much on discretion as on showmanship.

“You never mention a customer’s name too loudly,” he says. “And you never, ever say when they were here last.”

Asked for some of the famous names who have walked through the door, he simply flashes an expert’s smile and says, “I don’t really pay attention.”

The restaurant reflects this same restrained elegance. The walls are painted a deep, tawny yellow that De Mori says reminds him of his native Tuscany. There are red banquettes along the walls “because ladies always like to look out at a room,” and mirrors hanging above them “because men like to keep an eye on what’s going on in the room behind them.”

Mimosa is very cozy. It is also tiny.

“We can sit 45 inside and 40 outside,” says De Mori, sounding almost surprised himself by the smallness of the room.

He shows a visitor the reservation book. There are several columns of names, divided into half-hour slots. It is booked solid, but not overbooked. All the same, it looks like trouble. There are 200 reservations for the 85 seats.

Simply put, a successful restaurant like Mimosa seats a lot more people every night than it has room for. The reservation book is what modulates the flow.

“Everyone wants to eat between 7 and 8,” says De Mori, rubbing his forehead.

And how does he accommodate them? “We avoid taking 6:30s,” he says, meaning that if you call for a 6:30 reservation, the hostess will probably tell you there isn’t a table even if there is one. Instead, she’ll suggest you take a table at 6.

In the restaurant business, this is not called lying; it’s called seating.

The goal is twofold. First, it maximizes occupancy by selling the table as often as possible over the evening. Second, it gets a head start on the crowd control that the rest of the service will require. If there’s a good first seating at 6, by 7:30 you head into your second seating with tables freeing up and 60 or 70 of your night’s 200 diners already taken care of.

That’s the theory--now the practice. It is 6:20 at Mimosa on a Friday night and there are only two tables taken. The entire first seating is running late. A busboy kills time by folding napkins. Waiters pace in the back corridor, one shares the fact that Billy Wilder has a good appetite.

Outside, the valet parkers lean against the parking meters. One of them describes how Tom Cruise likes to have his car kept right in front (a service that runs about $40). There’s the atmosphere of waiting for an ambush.

The tension is highest in the kitchen. The cooks know how ugly it’s going to get when the crush comes. But all they can do now is wait. They look out through the bars of the expediting counter. They rap their knuckles against cutting boards. If anyone starts to whistle, the atmosphere will be 100% Sergio Leone.

The first-seating patrons arrive and are seated immediately. The customers are oblivious to what their collective late arrival has done to the night’s carefully thought-out plans.

“You look good, Morty,” says an older gentleman wearing white shoes, slapping a friend on the back.

“This is such a happy restaurant,” says a young woman, leaning forward to a friend and positioning herself for a good, long conversation.

The waiters try to make up for lost time by taking orders quickly but without appearing to “push” the table.

If anyone is slowing things down, it’s De Mori. He greets friends warmly, kissing men and women on both cheeks, making introductions. He is enjoying himself. After all, he’s been involved in restaurants where the problem was too few customers.

De Mori is a restaurant veteran. Since his arrival in Los Angeles in 1984 to work at Rex during the Olympics, he has ridden the Italian restaurant wave. He has owned or managed Pane Caldo, Boboci, Tuttobene and the eponymous Silvio.

It hasn’t been all risotto and truffles.

“At one restaurant I took in $30 on opening night,” he says.

Since then, the local economy has rebounded, and De Mori points to his wine list to prove it. “I’m selling $185 bottles of Pichon-Lalande,” he says happily. “I could never do that a few years ago.”

As much as he loves Italian food, he feels it has been overexposed and overthought.

“These people take half an hour to make a risotto,” he says. “I can make you one in five.”

He knew he wanted his next restaurant to be French. He studied philosophy in Paris and speaks French fluently. When he met Jean-Pierre Bosc (former chef at Lunaria), he knew he had found his partner.

The food flying out of Mimosa’s kitchen is classic bistro fare. Food runners bolt through the open door carrying plates of whole steamed artichokes, rilletes and jars of cornichons. Waiters weave between the tables carrying casseroles of bouillabaisse and copper platters of grilled prime rib served with “Brittany Salt Flower and Virgin Olive Oil.”

People eat with relish. The one problem: They’re still eating when the second seating starts to arrive.

The valet parkers are now in high gear. There’s a line of arriving cars on Beverly Boulevard and a backup of people at the front desk.

“Not quite ready,” De Mori informs one couple. “Just a few minutes,” says the hostess at his side.

There’s the impression that for all of the staff’s efforts to make up for lost time, the carefully planned slots on the reservation book are starting to blow, like the rivets on a doomed submarine.

What’s driving De Mori to distraction is that he has two free tables where he can’t seat anyone. One is reserved for a party recommended by the concierge of the Bel Air Hotel--you never want a hotel concierge to get a bad report--and the other is for a very good customer who can’t bear to wait.

The Bel Air party shows up only a few minutes late, but the VIP party does not.

This is one of the tight spots of the restaurant business. A group of six young people crowd around one empty table, obviously thinking that they would fit quite nicely into those six seats.

De Mori is aware of all this. He keeps up the eye contact, he distracts them from the table and he pours. Fifteen minutes later, when the group is finally seated, he comps them a plate of charcuterie and makes several goodwill trips to the table until he’s certain the memory of the wait has been expunged.

The VIP party finally shows up. There are two men in black T-shirts and expensive jackets and two leggy women. They are shown to their reserved table. The first thing they do is reject the wine. De Mori mutters at the desk. “Instead of six, they’re four; they show up 45 minutes late, and they send back the wine. No problem.”

He is feeling too good about the evening to really care. There was no mutiny among the waiting customers and now every table is full and there’s a lively buzz in the room.

The old man in white shoes is telling a story of old Hollywood. Across the room, a table of young men in fitted shirts is laughing heartily and splashing out wine. A woman in a Chanel suit squeezes past a busboy and peers into the kitchen. The food is flowing. Out in the dining room you can hear the pantry cook shouting, “86 rilletes!”

De Mori shares a relieved smile with a passing waiter, one of 42 Mimosa employees.

Then two couples arrive in a new Cadillac and the men head straight to the front desk.

“This is Silvio,” one of them says, proud to be able to introduce his friend.

De Mori beams with pleasure and shakes hands all around.

“How long for our table?” the man asks, almost as an afterthought.

Ever smiling, De Mori quickly scans the room. He reaches for the ice bucket and starts pouring the champagne.