I should declare my bias up front: I have a strong antipathy towards theater restaurants—Sardi’s, Joe Allen’s, The Ivy in London, and all the other eateries favored by members of the theatrical profession over the years. I have dined at some pretty swank joints in my time and, let me tell you, Buckingham Palace isn’t half as hung up on placement and precedence as the average showbiz hang-out. There is the area for the professionals and the area for the civilians, and they are ruthlessly demarcated. When I was a young man about town, I’d occasionally dine with a producer or an actress or some such at Joe Allen’s. We’d be ushered past the nobodies and into the elite area, where Joan Collins once stumbled and fell on top of me. The next week I’d take a young lady to the theater, we’d drop by Joe’s afterwards, the maitre d’ would say, “How nice to see you again”—and then he’d seat us in the losers’ section! Even worse, tall celebrities of one’s acquaintance would spot you across the crowded room and wave sympathetically. After years of therapy, I’ve learned not to dwell on these humiliations, so let me say simply that theatrical restaurants bring out the Rosa Parks in me.

However, the above-mentioned establishments at least delineate their bantustans discreetly. At the so-called Polish Tea Room in the Hotel Edison in Manhattan, they don’t mess around: the VIParea is roped off. There is, of course, something inherently absurd