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Authors: Harry Cipriani
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person in the world who had been named after a bar should at least have made me suspicious.
I finished high school in 1949, and we discussed as a family what I would do in the future. Discussed in a manner of speaking, because very little attention was paid to my opinions in these family gatherings. Personally I would have liked to become a race-car driver, but there was absolutely no place for that sort ofthing in either of the only two broad categories my father would allow: study or work.
ft was decided without further ado that I would study law at the University of Padua, partly because there was a law office over Harry’s Bar where I could work as a legal apprentice. I think the vicinity of the bar had some influence on my father’s decision. After all, he probably thought, if that doesn’t pan out, he can always come downstairs and work,
My life in those years is a dream that I have happily cherished all these years.
In our free time, and there was a lot of it in Padua, we played billiards. We went to the retired officers’ mess for lunch, not just because it was inexpensive, 150 lire, but mainly to try to date a couple of very blond waitresses who were the sole ornaments of that austere place. We were not concerned with the great social issues. Our leader, Tribuno, was a third-year medical student who sat himself down in the anatomy professor’s chair at the beginning of the first lecture of the academic year. When we had elections at school we used punches and shoves instead of votes to support our candidates. 1 don’t know if that was right or wrong, but it was certainly more congenial to the modest political capabilities of our brains. In the evening I usually dragged my drowsy twenty-year-old self to Harry’s Bar so my father could take a break. And that was how things went until exam time, without a care in the world.
The Foundations of Private Law was the first reef I encountered in law school. It was there that my legal career actually came to an end. I barely passed the exam. That was at three in the afternoon. At six o’clock I walked down the stairs from the law office and got up on the stool behind the cash register in Harry’s Bar.
END OF THE INTERMEZZO BETWEEN CHAPTERS TEN AND ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In which Harry Cipriani wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and begins a new day
,
Many historians have gone to a great deal of trouble to recount the deeds of the Prince of Conde. One of the best-known details is how incredibly calm he was the night before the battle of Rocroi. The Great Conde slept soundly through the night without a moment’s interruption. His admirers, however, have gone to any length to foster a cult of personality and they have almost always glossed over certain details that might actually have been extremely important. No one, for example, has ever told us what the prince ate for dinner that night before he went to bed. There is no way of knowing now, but it seems doubtful that our hero had much more than a steak and a salad. If, for example, his orderly had arranged for the cook to prepare spareribs and sauerkraut, there is no doubt that the Spaniards would have fared better in the battle, and history might have taken an altogether different course.
Harry Cipriani, the owner of Harry’s Bar in Beirut, woke up about four in the morning. He was covered in perspiration and breathing heavily: A horrible dream had been tormenting him for an hour. The main character in his nightmare was Raspetti, the awful food critic who was the darling of the upwardly mobile classes.
Harry’s dream was that the
Times’
Bryan Miller was having dinner and shouting across the room as he waved an enormous cockroach he said he found in his fish soup. Raspetti and four
Michelin Guide
inspectors were at the next table, and when they saw what was happening they burst out laughing. Several customers got up and walked out in disgust. And Harry, immobilized by shame, was stammering meaningless
I finished high school in 1949, and we discussed as a family what I would do in the future. Discussed in a manner of speaking, because very little attention was paid to my opinions in these family gatherings. Personally I would have liked to become a race-car driver, but there was absolutely no place for that sort ofthing in either of the only two broad categories my father would allow: study or work.
ft was decided without further ado that I would study law at the University of Padua, partly because there was a law office over Harry’s Bar where I could work as a legal apprentice. I think the vicinity of the bar had some influence on my father’s decision. After all, he probably thought, if that doesn’t pan out, he can always come downstairs and work,
My life in those years is a dream that I have happily cherished all these years.
In our free time, and there was a lot of it in Padua, we played billiards. We went to the retired officers’ mess for lunch, not just because it was inexpensive, 150 lire, but mainly to try to date a couple of very blond waitresses who were the sole ornaments of that austere place. We were not concerned with the great social issues. Our leader, Tribuno, was a third-year medical student who sat himself down in the anatomy professor’s chair at the beginning of the first lecture of the academic year. When we had elections at school we used punches and shoves instead of votes to support our candidates. 1 don’t know if that was right or wrong, but it was certainly more congenial to the modest political capabilities of our brains. In the evening I usually dragged my drowsy twenty-year-old self to Harry’s Bar so my father could take a break. And that was how things went until exam time, without a care in the world.
The Foundations of Private Law was the first reef I encountered in law school. It was there that my legal career actually came to an end. I barely passed the exam. That was at three in the afternoon. At six o’clock I walked down the stairs from the law office and got up on the stool behind the cash register in Harry’s Bar.
END OF THE INTERMEZZO BETWEEN CHAPTERS TEN AND ELEVEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In which Harry Cipriani wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and begins a new day
,
Many historians have gone to a great deal of trouble to recount the deeds of the Prince of Conde. One of the best-known details is how incredibly calm he was the night before the battle of Rocroi. The Great Conde slept soundly through the night without a moment’s interruption. His admirers, however, have gone to any length to foster a cult of personality and they have almost always glossed over certain details that might actually have been extremely important. No one, for example, has ever told us what the prince ate for dinner that night before he went to bed. There is no way of knowing now, but it seems doubtful that our hero had much more than a steak and a salad. If, for example, his orderly had arranged for the cook to prepare spareribs and sauerkraut, there is no doubt that the Spaniards would have fared better in the battle, and history might have taken an altogether different course.
Harry Cipriani, the owner of Harry’s Bar in Beirut, woke up about four in the morning. He was covered in perspiration and breathing heavily: A horrible dream had been tormenting him for an hour. The main character in his nightmare was Raspetti, the awful food critic who was the darling of the upwardly mobile classes.
Harry’s dream was that the
Times’
Bryan Miller was having dinner and shouting across the room as he waved an enormous cockroach he said he found in his fish soup. Raspetti and four
Michelin Guide
inspectors were at the next table, and when they saw what was happening they burst out laughing. Several customers got up and walked out in disgust. And Harry, immobilized by shame, was stammering meaningless
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