Illustration: Maanvi Kapur
“You used to have to dress up to go out to lunch,” says the fashion designer, cabaret singer, and foremost man-about-town Isaac Mizrahi. “I really liked the idea of having a reason to put on a coat and tie. But over the years, everything has become much more casual. Now you go in a sweatshirt, and it’s okay because everybody around you is dressed like that.” Most recently, Mizrahi played Gwyneth Paltrow’s publicist in Marty Supreme, and this month he revives his cabaret run at Café Carlyle for the tenth year in a row, ahead of a six-week national tour that will take him from New Bedford, Massachusetts, to Palo Alto, California. A lifelong New Yorker, Mizrahi has no shortage of haunts. “There used to be a million places: Mortimer’s, La Grenouille, La Caravelle, the Four Seasons,” he says, “but they’re all gone now. It used to be such an incredible event, going to lunch.” But the one thing he refuses to compromise on, even now? “A civilized luncheon in a restaurant ends with the cookie plate,” he says. “Even if you’re on a diet.”
Thursday, February 5
I’m neither a morning person nor a night person — I’m just this crazy kind of aimless, sleep-deprived New Yorker. But usually I’m awake, and I normally wake up at my home in the West Village very early.
However, Wednesday night was the second night of my new cabaret season at Café Carlyle. When I’m working at the Carlyle, I tend to go to sleep at an ungodly hour and wake a little bit later. So this was a late start for me, at 9:30.
I have an iced coffee from my own stash with half-and-half. I brew very strong coffee (the house brand from Citarella) and put it in one of two pitchers in the refrigerator, where it condenses a little bit, almost into a coffee syrup. It’s really, really good. One of the pitchers is handmade by Maira Kalman, my downstairs neighbor, who was traveling to Mexico this week for the San Miguel Writers’ Conference. It’s a ceramic thing, gorgeous. The other one is sort of like a hotel metal — you know those hotel pitchers. They’re so sturdy.
After coffee, I answer emails and take phone calls. You’d think I’d have stayed in bed to recover a little bit from the show, but no rest for the weary, darling. This is the tenth year I’ve been doing the Café Carlyle, and my energy comes from terrible, terrible anxiety and stage fright. But when you get out in front of the audience, you have to shine — “Sparkle, Neely, sparkle!”
For lunch, I have a cheese soufflé, a small green salad, two small pieces of baguette, and two macarons at La Goulue. When it was open, I used to go to La Grenouille, and they had the best cheese soufflé. I can also make a beautiful cheese soufflé, but sometimes there’s just no time to do a cheese soufflé in the morning. Here’s a little tip: One day, I went to meet my friend Cecile for lunch at La Goulue, and I said, “I’ll have my cheese soufflé.” And they said, “Oh, we have no more. So sorry.” And I was like, “Excuse me?” And they said, “Well, next time, darling, when you make the reservation, reserve a cheese soufflé.” So now, every single time I make a reservation, I reserve a cheese soufflé in advance. And I usually also order a plate of their pistachio macarons.
Back home, I have some John Kelly truffle-fudge chocolates. Josh Safdie and Ronald Bronstein sent them to me because I gave them an award a couple weeks ago at a Critics Circle dinner thing. I’d never heard of John Kelly Chocolates before, and now I am devoted. My husband, Arnold Germer, had one, and he was like, “Honey, it’s a really fucking fancy 3 Musketeers bar.” It’s true! But there’s something so delicious about this particular take on 3 Musketeers.
I leave too early for the Carlyle, at 5 p.m., because I’m very anxious. During the preshow, I have a tiny prosciutto-and-Swiss-cheese sandwich from Sant Ambroeus. I go on a little before nine, and if I eat anything past 7:15 p.m., I’m going to literally hurl onstage because of the nerves. But if I don’t eat at all, I’m going to be starving and faint.
Also, I drink a lot of rosé spritzers. I usually have three-quarters of a rosé spritzer in my room right before the show and then another three-quarters of a rosé spritzer onstage.
Finally, back home after the show, I have an everything bagel with cream cheese, capers, and smoked salmon from Russ & Daughters.
My nightly ritual is to eat a bowl of frozen red grapes while watching The Golden Girls. I identify with Dorothy. In fact, they tried to make a gay reboot of The Golden Girls last year, called Mid-Century Modern, and originally I was contacted to be in it. Somehow I was never cast, but I was made a consulting producer. It lasted one season.
I don’t know if I’m supposed to talk about prescription drugs on this list, but I do usually take a Xanax after a show. Because when you come offstage, there’s absolutely no way to even think about going to sleep unless you do.
Friday, February 6
I wake up really hoarse. I start the day with a “watermelon” black tea with honey because I’m panicking about my raspy voice after last night. At 11 a.m., more tea and, like, seven Ricolas. The thing about a trained voice is that it’s always slightly raspy after use — it has to be, because the cords have been put through the paces, especially as you age.
Lunch is at Union Square Cafe today. I started going there when it first opened on 16th Street in 1985, and it was a revelation — that place was as good as any great place.
Mark Morris, who is one of my best friends, and I used to meet there. The nuts — those incredible nuts at the bar! And they used to have this incredible fried calamari thing that was beyond.
And we were smokers. I was one of the last holdouts. I remember when smoking sections went into effect, Mark and I would sit in the front of the restaurant in the smoking section. After being admitted to the place, we were then confined to the front. It was fine because we still got the food and the service was great. Then they decided to go smoke free. We took it very personally, Mark and I; we were very offended by that ruling. So we decided we were never going to go back to the Union Square Cafe. That lasted maybe six months because it’s such an irresistible place.
I order a mint tea with honey, one and a half pieces of the most delicious sesame focaccia on Earth with chile oil, half a bowl of bean soup, four poached shrimp with cocktail sauce and rémoulade, Caesar salad with incredibly good fried bread crumbs on top, and a few French fries. The bean soup is too lemony. I like a little citrus with these savory things — I do; I really do —but they just got carried away.
Around 3 p.m., I have one John Kelly chocolate and a thousand more Ricolas. Right before the show, another small prosciutto sandwich from Sant Ambroeus, followed later by three-quarters of a rosé spritzer.
Tonight is very, very good vocally —probably the best show of my life. And by the weekends, the crowd gets rowdier and a little drunker, so these shows are really fun.
Postshow, I have avocado toast: two slices of sourdough rye with sriracha and two fried eggs (followed, of course, by The Golden Girls and a bowl of frozen red grapes).
Saturday, February 7
In the city, I never know what I’m going to find in the refrigerator or what I’m not going to find in the refrigerator. My husband and I have places in the West Village and Bridgehampton, and for some reason in Bridgehampton, it’s much more cohesive. It’s just the two of us; I know what we need to get. I bike to Citarella — I get it and I bring it home. Almost every day, I do a little grocery shopping in Bridgehampton, but I almost never do any grocery shopping in the city. The kitchen in the city is crazy, sort of like a frontier.
I eat no red meat and rarely eat chicken because Arnold went quote, unquote, “vegan.” Since then, there’s oat milk in the house. What’s happening?
But I baked a cake for his birthday, which was on the 29th of January. It’s this incredible recipe that I’ve developed over the past 30 years of my life with this delicious kind of chocolate ganache, and it really is something. People request this cake. It has buttermilk in it, and it has butter, and it has so many things that a vegan should not be eating. But Arnold asked for it by name for his birthday. So that’s the kind of “vegan” that he is. Anyway, we had ingredients left over, so I make the most delicious pancakes for breakfast — oat milk, flour, butter, egg, and crème fraîche with maple syrup.
When you’re doing shows like this, it is exhausting. And during the week, I will have meetings and Zooms and lunches, but on Saturdays, nobody wants anything from you, so I can stay in bed all day. And I do. At 1 p.m., I have three Tate’s chocolate-chip cookies, and at 3:30 p.m., I have four more (damn!).
My preshow snack today is a tiny peanut-butter-and-Gruyère sandwich on sourdough toast. It’s a really incredible taste sensation, and I’m gonna take credit for it because I’ve never seen it done before. You slather the peanut butter on some kind of delicious rye or sourdough toast with little slices or grated Gruyère, and it is so good. And then a rosé spritzer.
My postshow meal, eaten in the back seat of the car on the way to Bridgehampton, is a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon from Russ & Daughters, packed earlier in tinfoil. Plus two John Kelly chocolates — they’re a rectangle that is the size of three chocolates from any other brand. I have no business eating these.
Sunday, February 8
Cheat day. Breakfast is an egg-white ratatouille omelet, seven-grain toast, bacon, salad, roasted potatoes, and an Americano with half-and-half at Pierre’s in Bridgehampton. One of life’s great pleasures is being served a beautiful lunch after a week of working hard. Around noon, I also have an iced coffee with cream.
I figured out this beautiful recipe for paccheri pasta with broccoli rabe and pine-nut pesto, which is so delicious. Arnold and I like to cook together, but I’m very bossy in the kitchen. Arnold is a really good cook, except he doesn’t retain things. I am bossy because I think cooking is foreseeing what might go wrong. I am always a few steps ahead, realizing that the shrimp is going to be overcooked or that “You know what? When you pick up that pan, it’s going to be really hot, so you should use a cloth.”
Arnold is not like that. And he went to culinary school! He learned how to julienne and to dice and how to do all that fancy stuff. And you go, “Darling, can you chiffonade?” And he’s like, “What is that again?” I’m like, “Really? I’ll tell you how to chiffonade.”
For the paccheri, I cook the rabe with a lot of garlic and some chile flakes and a few anchovies that melt into the dish, and there’s something about the addition of pine nuts that almost makes it seem like there’s cream. It’s really, really good.
Later, I have a bowl of frozen grapes and, even later, half a sleeve of Carr’s whole-wheat crackers. I love them — they’re slightly sweet and almost cookies.
Monday, February 9
I start the day with iced coffee and heavy cream, left over from some recipe. But if you’re like me, you love to go to breakfast, so at 11 a.m. we go to Estia’s Little Kitchen in Sag Harbor. It’s this incredible Mexican place that’s on the turnpike between Bridgehampton and Sag Harbor with barstools and tables and delicious, delicious food.
I have a burrito with eggs, jack cheese, turkey bacon, and avocado; more coffee; and a side of turkey bacon to bring home for the dogs (Kitty and Georgie).
A few hours later, I have a bunch of nonfrozen grapes.
We have an early dinner of grilled tuna with roasted cauliflower and a baby-green salad with a really good vinaigrette, if I do say so myself. I have an innate talent for making vinaigrette. I can’t go wrong. If you want a delicious vinaigrette, darling, I’m your man. I use this delicious Japanese rice-wine vinegar you have to get from a special vendor, and a lot of salt and pepper and one clove of garlic that I mince, and a big tablespoon of Dijon mustard, but my secret is I use a little bit of white wine to make it the right consistency to cling to the lettuce. It adds a little gout, that dram of white wine. And that’s really what makes it so good.
Dessert is chocolate cake left over from Arnold’s birthday that had been frozen and stayed really fresh. And it was incredibly delicious, again, if I do say so myself.
Later, over some grapes, I watch the most hilarious episode of The Golden Girls in the world. It’s the one where they decide that they’re not going to buy Christmas gifts, so they make things for each other. Blanche gives them a calendar of all the men of her boudoir, and they’re leafing through and Dorothy goes, “Whoa.”
And Blanche goes, “September?”
And Dorothy goes, “Yep.”
And then Sophia says, “It’s a wonder you could walk in October.”
It’s maybe the best joke ever written in sitcom history.
EAT LIKE THE EXPERTS.
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