Ma maison patrick terrail restaurateur

A French accent. They love that in the hotel business. The two married and a tip from a friend led them to settle in Hogansville. We have to adapt to it. French food is not intimidating. Dunne's father, Dominick Dunne , wrote in detail about the trial in Vanity Fair magazine, referring in some passages specifically to Ma Maison. Yet some would have you believe that I played a much more prominent role in Sweeney's defense Some people have angrily accused me of supporting John Sweeney by providing his bail and legal services I got blackballed in Hollywood for a very long time by a certain group of people who thought I took one side against another.

It couldn't have been further from the truth. My attorney, Joe Shapiro, who was a friend of Sweeney's, went to the trial to show support for his friend. Because he was my counsel, by association, the media thought I was somehow involved. I never showed it because I had a business to run, but it really affected both me and Ma Maison. Dominique Dunne's death was tragic for those who knew and loved her.

Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools. Download as PDF Printable version. In other projects. Wikidata item. Puck: Patrick was the showman out front. He kissed the women and made the flower arrangements. I learned from him not to be shy with the customers. Terrail: There were practical reasons for everything we did, but it was taken as snob appeal.

People magazine was going to come out with a story on Ma Maison, and I was worried that we would be overwhelmed. People published the number anyway. And all of those Rolls-Royces parked out front? Puck: It was a different time.

Ma maison patrick terrail restaurateur

Everybody was drinking. Jack Lemmon used to come a half-hour before lunch and sit at the bar and have two martinis at and then sit down and maybe have two more. Terrail: The business soon got so successful that we were sold out for 10 years straight. All of the heavyweights used to play gin rummy on Friday afternoon upstairs. It was a rotating group.

There was no traffic. Today, to go from Sony to Ma Maison would take you a day and a half. One day, all of a sudden, she calls me out into the dining room. Terrail: Orson Welles ate at Ma Maison every day. He liked the intimacy of the corner. And it was a big table, and nobody bothered him. I called him. So he went back to Ma Maison. Our philosophy was privacy.

We protected it like high security. We were known for being one of the most discreet restaurants in L. Puck: One day we did a dinner, and at the end I was sitting with Dinah Shore. By then, I was not so shy anymore. Puck and Terrail cite different causes for the bitter split that sent the hot chef out the door to launch Spago in Terrail: I was never upset with Wolfgang specifically.

But the issue was not Wolfgang. It was with someone else who was with him. She went on to be closely involved in many of his restaurants. The brainchild of Patrick Terrail , a Parisian with a strong hospitality background, Ma Maison opened in on a rather rundown street named Melrose Avenue. With backers like Gene Kelly, the restaurant at Melrose the approximate location of ink.

Ma Maison rebelled against fine dining establishments of the time. The Ma Maison experience was as glamorous as it gets. Rolls Royces and Bentleys were squeezed in the parking lot, complimentary kirs greeted each guest, and menus were designed by artists like David Hockney. But the restaurant rebelled against fine dining establishments of the time, and found greatness in eccentricity.

The main dining room, instead of being dark-paneled and dimly lit, was an Astroturf-lined patio, and the cuisine, instead of focusing on heavy proteins and starches, was something altogether different and nouvelle. The catalyst came in with the addition of a young Austrian chef named Wolfgang Puck. Puck and Terrail immediately hit it off, both with a love for farm-to-table cuisine before farm-to-table was even a thing.