Phil Rosenthal, Nancy Silverton confab about Larchmont diner
RESTAURANT partners Phil Rosenthal and Nancy Silverton at Osteria Mozza.
•Diner in homage to Phil Rosenthal’s parents
Osteria Mozza—with its prestigious Michelin Star and Michelin Green Star—sits on the corner of Highland and Melrose avenues, next door to its cousin, the equally famous Pizzeria Mozza—restaurants every neighborhood wants. It’s there that we had the good fortune to speak with Nancy Silverton and Phil Rosenthal. For those people who live under a rock, Nancy is the world-famous chef behind the aforementioned Mozza restaurants and previously La Brea Bakery and Campanile. Phil Rosenthal is the creator of “Everybody Loves Raymond” and who also stars in Netflix’s “Somebody Feed Phil,” a show about food and families. Silverton and Rosenthal have teamed up to create something for our families—a diner on Larchmont Boulevard called Max and Helen’s, where everyone will be welcome.
While we wait for Nancy to finish a strawberry sauce in the kitchen, Phil arrives to discuss the duo’s latest venture.
H. Hutcheson (H.H.): You’re from New York, right? How did you get into the food world Phil?
Phil Rosenthal: I grew up in Queens, the Bronx and then Rockland County. My parents both worked, and we didn’t have a lot of money or a lot of great food at all—they weren’t talented in that way, let’s say. They were great in every other way, but food just wasn’t it. Until I left that house, I didn’t have food with what we called “flavor,” but when I left…it was like, you know in the “Wizard of Oz” when Dorothy opens the door and now the movie’s in color? That’s what life became! Like when music hits us at that coming-of-age point in life—it becomes our music. This was my music.
When I was 23 I got a courier flight to Europe and the top of my head came off! I went to Paris and Florence and I came back changed. The experience [with food] was like a gateway.
H.H.: Some people who don’t grow up with exotic foods or flavors keep simpler palates, like a bit of fear [I gesture at my husband, Andrew, and laugh about how being from Scotland he doesn’t eat a lot of exotic things—think only eating meat and potatoes].
A. Hutcheson (A.H.) grimacing: I don’t eat sushi.
Phil: But will you try?
A.H.: Usually not.
Phil: I found that I like most things, so I wasn’t afraid of trying. Now I’m not Andrew Zimmern, where the point of his show is said in the title [Bizarre Foods], and yet the more I do my show, the broader my horizons get. I tried an ant in Tokyo—it came on a salad. The salad had what looked like great, big carpenter ants on it. The first thing I thought was, we should call the exterminators—this restaurant has a problem. The person I was sitting at the counter with said, “These are great!” And I’m like, you gotta be kidding! The chef leaned over the counter and said, “They taste like lemon,” and I said, “Oh really? If it’s lemon flavor we’re going after, could I have some lemon?” He said, “You should try them.” We’re filming—I feel like if I talk the talk, I have to walk the walk. I have to do this. I didn’t want to do it. I picked up this ant, and with all the courage I could muster, I put it in my mouth and I crunched down. And it crunched. And I thought I was gonna pass out. But, it was like somebody put a lemon drop on my tongue. I couldn’t believe it. So now all the questions! Do you baste these in lemon? Is that why they taste like this? No! These ants—these particular ants from this particular forest in Japan—these taste like lemon. Who found this out?
A.H.: Somebody had to eat it.
Phil: Somebody had to eat a lot of ants to find the lemon ant!
H.H.: Are you fearless in general, Phil?
THE FAMILY arrives for a menu tasting. (From left) Nancy Silverton, Elizabeth Hong, Jeremy Shartar, Phil Rosenthal, Lily Rosenthal, Mason Royal, Ben Rosenthal and DeLaney Harter.
Phil: I’m just telling you, I was scared to death to do it.
H.H.: Yes, but you did it. Would you jump off a cliff into the water?
Phil: My brother pushes me out of my comfort zone [Rich Rosenthal, executive producer on “Somebody Feed Phil”]. It’s a good thing, because there’s things I don’t wanna do. In fact, every single thing he suggests, I don’t wanna do. First of all, I’m old. Second of all, I didn’t grow up an adventurer. In fact, the whole show came from me watching Anthony Bourdain. I sold the show with one line, “I’m exactly like Anthony Bourdain if he was afraid of everything.” Ted Sarandos [co-CEO of Netflix] will tell you that sold the show. Because you get it from that one line.
A.H.: You seem happier than Anthony Bourdain.
Phil: I’m joyful mainly because I get to live this life. Listen, we’ve all come from somewhere. I didn’t wake up that way—I wasn’t born that way, but things seemed to have worked out so far…I’m the luckiest guy you’re ever going to meet. That’s really how I feel, and I wake up in the morning with 100% gratitude, and if you start there, everything else is gravy. I was so lucky I found success in a sitcom and a lot of people think that is why I got “Somebody Feed Phil.” But it took 10 years in between [“Everybody Loves Raymond”] and this show. In Hollywood, they’re not crazy about you switching lanes so…I really worked hard at this. It just proves that if you’re single minded, if something is a priority in your life, you simply won’t stop until you make it happen. And the day that you stop going for it, I guess it means it’s not the priority. But if you don’t care about the suffering of waiting and trying and trying and trying, you’re going to make it happen. It’s a fact of life.
H.H.: Do you live in the neighborhood by the way?
Phil: Of course! I live in Fremont Place. I lived in Silverlake when I first moved here in ‘89, then Beachwood Canyon, then Los Feliz, then our next house when we had kids was on Hudson Place and Second Street. I was gonna live there the rest of my life—unless something opened in Fremont Place, because that seemed to be the ideal spot in all of L.A. I thought if we lived there, my kids could have the same childhood I had, outside playing with their friends. It took two years to find and two years to renovate. We made it the dream house for us. We moved in. The kids never went outside once. Instead they play video games on those things. But they could if they wanted!
“I feel like the diner can be the center of a community, and maybe the disappearing diner means the disappearance of community, which means even the disappearance of democracy. You know how they say, ‘Think globally, act locally’? So, this is our way of acting locally, and selfishly!”
— Phil Rosenthal
We talk about the great history of Windsor Square and Fremont Place—Phil mentions Muhammad Ali’s house and its Tiffany awning over the front door and glass foyer.
Phil: I walk to Larchmont every day with my dog. It’s 1.3 miles each way—I get my exercise, the dog gets his exercise. I go to Go Get Em Tiger, have a cup of coffee—I’ve made friends there.
H.H.: Like a small town.
Phil: Like a small town. And it’s the whole reason I want to put this diner on the street.
As if on cue, as the subject of their next business venture together comes up, Nancy Silverton walks in.
A.H., to Nancy: I actually saw you this morning when I was walking my dog in the neighborhood.
Nancy Silverton (Nancy): What house is yours? Let’s look at a picture of it [on Maps] so then I know—I know not to TP it.
We exchange familiarities of the similar things we’ve all lived through in the neighborhood for 20 to 30 years; kids’ schools, chickens in our yards, even the schools Nancy and I went.
Nancy: By the way, I pay my yearly dues to the Larchmont Chronicle. I love it!
Phil: It’s the town crier.
ROSENTHAL doing what he does best.
Photo courtesy of Netflix
Nancy tells us her partner, Michael Krikorian, is a journalist. However, today he was sent on an errand to bring back bananas “that are not green.” She eagerly awaits them…
Nancy: He bought—and don’t hold it against him—green bananas. I wanted to use finger bananas—you know, the small ones—for the banana split. So I sent him back out—he should be coming soon. [On another subject] He wrote about the speed bumps on Van Ness!
Yes, those speed bumps, with the impossibly sharp edge to them. Of course the speed bumps, or lack there of (on other blocks), becomes a giant conversation because, as anyone who lives in the neighborhood knows, these are the things we all love to talk about and debate. Neighborhoods can feel like family, and being with Nancy and Phil feels energetic and fun like that.
Nancy: One thing is true about small neighborhoods, Larchmont being one of them. Every day Phil wanders in to Go Get Em Tiger. There’s the group of people that are there…I call them the club, but they have the same club at Pete’s and the same club all around…I think that’s wonderful about the neighborhood.
A.H.: Each coffee place has its own gang.
Phil: And wars. [laughs] And it’s based upon if you like that coffee or not—the people come second.
Nancy: Yeah, but I think you wouldn’t have joined that club if you didn’t like the people you talk to right?
Phil: The first thing is, you’re attracted to the place, and then you like the community. Now we’re getting to the point of the diner! So we both live in the neighborhood, like you, and you know there used to be diners on that street; there used to be a couple.
A.H.: Café Du Village.
Phil: And Café Chapeau.
Nancy: The only reason I know Chapeau is because I was living above La Brea Bakery [at the time] and it was one of our first customers…I used to have to write on the [bread] bags “For Chapeau.”
Phil: Diners are disappearing from the world. I feel like the diner can be the center of a community, and maybe the disappearing diner means the disappearance of community, which means even the disappearance of democracy. You know how they say, “Think globally, act locally”? So, this is our way of acting locally, and selfishly! I think we both want this in the neighborhood as a place we want to go, with food we want to eat. Like every day.
H.H.: Andrew’s from Scotland, sounds kind of like having the pub in Scotland…there’s a mailbox there, food, friends, gossip and a pint.
Phil: And you get the full Scottish breakfast in the pub!
Nancy: Yes, like the espresso bar in Italy—Mauro Vincenti used to say L.A. doesn’t have an espresso bar. [Vincenti is recognized in the restaurant community as a hero of sorts, having introduced L.A. to contemporary Italian food. He owned many restaurants, like Rex il Restorante and Alto Palato. He passed in 1996.] If you think of the coffee places, they’re relatively new…I don’t even know if there was a Starbucks here when he was around.
Phil: Our coffee is going to be red pot and blue pot—decaf and regular. I think it will be the cheapest coffee on the street.
Nancy: And bottomless!
H.H.: Oh! A whole new gang!
If you look up the name Nancy Silverton, it’s truly staggering what she has done in the world of food. Like anyone who is great at what they do, it begs the question of what steps she took to get to where she is now. Some of those steps can be surprising.
H.H.: Nancy, when you were starting out, why did you pick a cooking school in England?
Nancy: When I dropped out of school as a senior, my father [who was a lawyer and could’ve disowned me] could’ve said, “You have to finish the year and then we’ll talk”—that kind of thing. Without missing a beat, he said, “OK,” because he understood people’s passion. But he said, “Do me a favor: would you please go to the Cordon Bleu?” I didn’t even know what it was. There were two campuses—Paris and London. I didn’t speak French, so that’s why I picked London.
A.H.: The reason Hedy specifically asks about the school in London is because the food in London, at that time, was so bad [1977].
Nancy: It was! And now it’s fantastic.
It seems the food gods were guiding her (for us).
A.H.: So how did you two decide to do this together?
Nancy (pointing to Phil): He decided to do it.
Phil: We met years ago. Nancy was one night a week going to Jar [on Beverly Boulevard], which was the first restaurant I was involved with. Monday nights, Nancy was coming in and she was pulling fresh mozzarella at the bar. Now, she was already famous because of La Brea Bakery and Campanile [Silverton worked at the time with her then husband the late Mark Peel], but I didn’t know her. Just sitting at the bar we got to know each other, and everything she was giving me was phenomenal! I learned that she was rehearsing for her own mozzarella bar…she was going to do it in conjunction with Mario Batali from New York. So forget everything else you know about him [Batali was accused of sexual misconduct during the #MeToo movement], at the time, he was the great Italian superstar in America…and the two of them teaming up?! I say this all the time: I held her leg and wouldn’t let go, and she let me invest in this place!
Nancy: As Phil likes to say, his wife [Monica Horan] is the philanthropist, and you, [points to Phil] the restaurant backer.
Phil: There is the connection! We support the arts!
Nancy: Yes, exactly.
Phil: [Waves his arms about] This is my favorite art!
“SOMEBODY FEED PHIL” story moment with Phil Rosenthal (right) and chicken man. Photo courtesy of Netflix
Phil recounts that when they opened Osteria Mozza, he decided to put the bar—and Nancy—dead center, because she is the star!
Phil: We [at the bar] had this wonderful experience of just tasting the pizza that came out. She worked on the dough for a year. The first day she said, “Do you want to try it?” Yeah I wanna try it! My daughter [Lily] was 8 years old then…I gave her a piece and she said, “No offense to Italy, but this is a little better.” It was the best pizza I’ve ever had in my life. The first day I had it, it was absolutely perfect, and it’s the pizza you have today.
H.H.: Speaking of dough, you know how people always talk about the water in New York…how it makes the pizza and the bagels?
Phil: It’s all bullshit. It’s true—she’ll tell you why.
Nancy: That’s what Parisians used to say about a baguette. Anywhere else but France [you can’t get a proper baguette]because you don’t have the right flour. Then I went and did a small baking class in France for five days before I opened La Brea Bakery. The French import so many types of flour themselves. I think it’s a way of discouraging people from competition. It’s just in their heads…you need to manipulate anything for the better [no matter the local ingredients].
H.H.: Do you use L.A. tap water?
Nancy: Yes, but our water is filtered.
Phil: But she will tell you, a baker makes adjustments for everything, including the humidity in the air. It’s all science.
Nancy: You know, Phil and I, both of us…our favorite baker in Los Angeles is Courage Bagels. Have you ever had them?
H.H.: No. Where are they?
Nancy: On Virgil.
Phil: It has reinvented the bagel.
Nancy: I just call it a good bagel…everybody wants to know what style is it. They say it’s Montreal—I’ve never been to Montreal.
Phil: No, it’s not. It’s its own thing. Most bagels, when they do bagels, they’re imitating a bagel. They’re starting from, “We know what’s in a bagel to.” They [at Courage Bagels] started from a baguette. So the exterior is crispy but a light crisp and the inside is soft and fluffy, not dense and chewy.
Nancy: And it has flavor.
Phil: We got them to give us one for the diner They can’t do more because they’re busy, so they’re giving us the sesame bagel.
Nancy: You know what you have to have! What I always say about having a successful restaurant is you have to figure out the things to get people in the seats. So you have to create whatever that comeback dish is. In the Osteria here—I know from working at the mozzarella bar and hearing people talking—it’s the orecchiette. People would sit down and go, “I woke up this morning and all I could think about was your orecchiette.” That’s what you have to have. Not everything is going to be that. I don’t know what ours is going to be, but hopefully we create one that brings people back.
Phil: She’s being modest. I’ve been tasting her food, and the problem is it’s going to be everything.
Nancy: You know, anything you can do to bring somebody in. It’s like, “Where do I want to go? Do I want to go to Great White? Or do I want to go to Max and Helen’s? Let’s go to Max and Helen’s!”
Phil stops and thinks a moment, looks at Nancy.
Phil: After 30 years now, we are a family. I couldn’t think of anyone else I would want to work more with. And she’s my favorite chef.
Nancy, pleased, smiling: You also have to understand when something is right. We are both in search of the perfect “right.” And you need someone like that. It can’t be, “Oh, it’s fine,” or, “Good enough.”
Phil: For me, coming from my background, it is like putting on a show—”Everybody Loves Raymond” was about a family, for families, and eventually it was made by a family. I feel like we’re starting with the family, and it’s going to be about families. It’s even called my parents’ names.
A surprise to us, the Larchmont diner will be named after Phil Rosenthal’s parents, Max and Helen Rosenthal.
Nancy: Oh, did you not know that yet?
A.H.: No.
Phil: Yes, it’s called Max and Helen’s. They were on “Somebody Feed Phil” for the first five seasons while they were alive. I would Skype call them from wherever I was, talk to them—they were easily the best part of the show. I have this idea that we should have a bulletin board—there will be my folks’ pictures on there, but there should be your folks’ pictures on there [to Nancy], and everyone who works in the kitchens parents should be on there, and then the town’s! Anyone who wants to come in and give us a photo to put on the wall! What a tribute! And it goes to the heart of what it is, which is about community. You know when you honor your parents, you’re honoring the past as well, and the diner, the proverbial diner, is connected to the past.
H.H.: Oh, I love that!
Phil: I feel like it’ll just be a place of love in a world where there’s not much. And so if we can restore and maintain our community and protect it from the gentrification that is soulless and businesslike and have a place where you want to come with your family and you want to come with your friends and be proud of your town—it’s the exact same thing you’re going to do with the paper! Let’s be proud of where we live! Let’s fix where we live! And in that way, we are thinking globally and acting locally.
“What I always say about having a successful restaurant is you have to figure out the things to get people in the seats. So you have to create whatever that comeback dish is.”
— Nancy Silverton
Nancy is smiling. They both have a job with this diner, and are meant to do this together.
Phil: What we love about the diner is it’s the most democratic of restaurants—with a small ‘d.’ We all want that comfort food—we want breakfast all day! We want a hot, open, turkey meatloaf. Wait till you taste the meatloaf!
Nancy: Oh, we’re doing soups today. Do you like soups?
Phil: I love soups!
I would want to feed Phil too with how excited he is about soups—and everything frankly.
Nancy: I never made soup before.
Phil: It’s a very small kitchen [at the new Larchmont location]. There will be an omelette of the day, a soup of the day… pie, cake of the day…
Nancy: But pie might be a fruit…a custard style, I don’t know…
Phil: We’ve got to have a chocolate cake. That has to be a staple. [He whispers] When Nancy Silverton makes chocolate cake, it’s the best chocolate cake in the world.
Nancy smiles.
Phil: We’re going to have those tall parfait glasses for sundaes. You know like at Peter Luger‘s [Steak House in Brooklyn]?
Nancy: Oh yeah, Kate [Operations director] ran out to get a glass, Phil, but we don’t have the right glasses yet, so you’re going to just try flavors today. [The glass] it isn’t tall enough yet.
Phil appears to daydream a bit.
Phil: Oh my god! With the long spoon! Fudge coating the glass, the ice cream…and the top third is schlag.
Nancy: My favorite sundae was always Wil Wright’s [ice cream parlors in Southern California famous for serving early Hollywood stars]. You don’t know because you’re from New York. There was one in Beverly Hills.
Phil to Nancy: Did you like C.C. Brown’s [1929-1996 on Hollywood Boulevard]?
Nancy: Yeah, but they used C.C. Brown’s hot fudge. I love it but, it’s C.C. Brown’s hot fudge.
Phil, eye’s light up: Are you making hot fudge?
Nancy: Yeah, I have it. But I don’t know, it might be too bitter, because that’s my hot fudge.
Nancy, points to someone who works with her: She keeps trying to tell me I have to go to McDonald’s and try theirs.
Phil: God knows what’s in it. You know, I saw a thing about Oreos, and I love Oreos, but they hit it with a blow torch and it won’t burn. That’s how artificial it is.
Nancy, smiles and recalls: We went on a milkshake and malt run to Pasadena, and our favorite one was Fair Oaks Pharmacy…
MAX AND HELEN — Phil’s parents, and the namesakes of the new diner.
I pause here to point out that I feel this is probably how they banter all the time. It really is like seeing the world through different eyes—the world experienced through food. And can you imagine how fun it’d be to go on a milkshake/malt run with these two?
Michael Krikorian, Nancy’s partner, arrives with finger bananas that aren’t green. Now it really feels like a party, talking about everything in the neighborhood, and the world—food and non-food. Phil and Andrew talk about the great pleasures of food and the beauty of meals together with friends and family. Back to the diner…
Phil: I featured Palace Diner from Maine on the show [“Somebody Feed Phil”]. It inspired me to open a diner. The chefs from the Gramercy Tavern took over an old railcar for a space and left the menu exactly as it was 100 years ago. They just elevated it through being great chefs.
Nancy: Better sourcing, better ingredients.
Nancy explains she’s planning on a similar approach at the diner using a chef’s technique to up the game.
Nancy: Did you ever eat at Ship’s [Coffee Shop that use to be in L.A.]? I loved Ship’s coffee. But growing up on the West Coast, we don’t know diners. We had coffee shops—not today’s coffee shops like Go Get Em Tiger, but coffee shops like Du-pars [an L.A. classic coffee shop since 1938] and Norms [another L.A. classic since 1949].
Phil: In New York, I think it’s three names for the same thing: diner, coffee shop and luncheonette. When our designer asked me what I was looking for, I said, I wanted it to look like we found a 100-year-old diner. A place that’s always been there.
The fun, festive party atmosphere keeps growing as a group of jovial young adults walk in.
Phil: Oh, here’s my daughter Lily!
Lily and Ben Rosenthal (chidren of Phil), Mason Royal, Jeremy Shartar, DeLaney Harter—all family and friends—arrive. Elizabeth Hong (culinary director of the Mozza Restaurant Group and developer of the menu—with Nancy—of the diner) greets all the kids excited to come in and eat whatever it is that they’re all there to eat—menu testers.
As we leave, we feel lucky to have been part of the fun and family for an hour. I’m pretty sure Max and Helen’s will feel like this. There’s a new gang for more than coffee coming to Larchmont. I think I’ll be drinking from the blue pot and if I have to, I would try a citrus ant. Just kidding, Phil, I think I’ll have the meatloaf and the ice cream sundae; thank you Nancy.
Category: People
