With the delicious irony that only Middle Europeans are capable of, waiters at the long departed Eclair Bakery/Restaurant on New York’s West 72nd Street, referred to each other as “Herr Doktor.” Eclair’s heyday was the late 30’s through to the 60s. Its customers were the Europeans, primarily Jewish, who had fled Hitler and wound up, for the most part, in the Washington Heights and Upper West Side neighborhoods of New York. Yes, many of the waiters had been Doctors in Europe, or lawyers, or architects, etc.. In New York they were waiters. They did not bewail their fate. They were alive.
Eclair catered to displaced novelists, musicians, singers, actors, artists and a host of intellectuals of every cerebral and artistic variety. And, the little, bald guy in the corner was Isaac Bashevis Singer (long before he became famous), eating his inevitable (he was a vegetarian) tuna fish sandwich. The women in the Eclair were bosomy, voluble, perfumed and flirtatious. It was a sexy place, echoing Viennese, Budapest and Bucharest coffee houses. The pastries were outstanding. Coffee came adorned with three inches of schlag (whipped cream). It was more than a bakery. Eclair was also a restaurant with outstanding wiener schnitzel, chicken paprikash and other artery clogging specialties of Mittel Europa. A multitude of languages was spoken at Eclair—German, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Yiddish, Rumanian. To HG’s young ears it was all music. Eclair was owned by A.M. Selinger, Italian-born, Czech-reared. When he died in 1998 his New York Times obituary summed him up perfectly: “However long they lingered, the Eclair customers found a ready welcome from the proprietor, a small, natty man of legendary conviviality. a wide circle of friends and a vast array of pluperfect pastries.”
Whenever HG thinks of him, HG smiles