Pasta Connection

New York – September 4, 2000

Da Silvano may not be the fanciest restaurant in New York, and it’s far from the hippest, but under the manic supervision of its owner, Silvano Marchetto, it’s quietly remained the trattoria of choice for the city’s media, fashion, and art-world elite for 25 years.

And then there is Da Silvano. Tonight, this cozy 108-seat Italian eatery is fully packed, the celebrity quotient as high as the marked-up Tuscan reds on the wine list. Michael Caine, in a black shirt and black slacks, is holding court at the front window table with his elegant wife, Shakira, and four friends. Across the aisle, Fran Lebowitz schmoozes with two women, within eavesdropping distance of John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, who needed a larger table after running into Paul Schrader at the door. “I’ve been coming here for fifteen years,” muses screenwriter Schrader. “Who would have thought this place would still be hot?”

Wander into the next room, and over by the brick wall, Anna Wintour, wearing pearls, a simple peach top, and crisp white trousers, is having a quiet heart-to-heart with a girlfriend, while two tables away, Susan Sontag is laughing so hard that her throaty peals can be heard above the restaurant’s din.

Wait, there’s more. Out in front, the record producer Babyface and friends linger over coffee, discreetly glancing at model-of-the-moment Sophie Dahl, who is languidly sprawled on a bench on Sixth Avenue with her entourage, waiting for a table. Meanwhile, fashion photographer Patrick Demarchelier, who looks like he slept in his rumpled clothes, anchors a corner, looking up between bites of dinner to people-watch.

Da Silvano is not a pretentious suit-and-tie or diamonds kind of place like Le Cirque; it’s not so trendy (think Pastis) that civilians have to make reservations weeks in advance or call an unlisted phone number to get in; sometimes there is an annoying hour’s wait between appetizer and entrée; and yet it’s got a mystique, a special niche, a reputation as a place where things happen. “It’s the downtown Elaine’s,” says New York Post ”Page Six” editor Richard Johnson, a regular who frequently runs items about the action on the premises — an August sighting of Keanu Reeves dining with Winona Ryder, or Jessica Sklar last fall gleefully showing off her diamond engagement ring to girlfriends shortly after Jerry Seinfeld proposed. “I get constantly bombarded by restaurant publicists,” says Johnson, “but I’ve never gotten a press release from Silvano. I either see things on my own or people see stuff and call me.”

There is always a lot to see here: daily dramas, fragments of people’s lives, some of them famous, many of them not. The businessman screaming into his cell phone on the losing end of a negotiation; the tipsy blonde careening into tables, much to her date’s amusement; Tommy Mottola and his girlfriend, Thalia, a Mexican soap-opera star with waist-length hair, ducking out after 45 minutes; a woman comforting another over breaking up with a bad-news boyfriend; Jeanne Tripplehorn in a pink sweater set and black skirt waiting on the bench out front.

[read whole article at New York]

Source: New York ,  Restaurants Feature