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Go Home The Mystery of Cafe Milano

TIMOTHY NOAH OCTOBER 12, 2011

The Mystery of Cafe Milano

BY TIMOTHY NOAH

The Washington Post's "Reliable Source" gossip column today makes an educated guess that the restaurant where Iranian plotters planned to blow up the Saudi ambassador was Cafe Milano in Georgetown. The press release says the plotters had identified a restaurant that the ambassador, Adel Al-Jubeir, is known to frequent, and according to "Reliable Source"'s Roxanne Roberts and Amy Argetsinger, Al-Jubeir is known to frequent Cafe Milano. 

There is much that is troubling about this plot, which the Saudi embassy properly denounced as "a despicable violation of international norms, standards and conventions ... not in accord with the principles of humanity." What I am about to discuss is the least troubling aspect of the case, but it is the only one to which I can bring fresh insight.

Cafe Milano is just an okay restaurant, and it's way overpriced.

I mention this because the Saudi ambassador's purported fondness for the place is merely the latest instance confirming that Cafe Milano has become the most fashionable restaurant in Washington, DC., without ever entering the usual intermediate stage of becoming one of the best. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it or anything. Zagat says a bit snottily that it's got "chow that's 'better than you'd expect,'" but shouldn't the chow be fabulous at such a place? (Zagat also says that "unless 'your name regularly appears on the Washington Post's front page,' prepare for 'long waits' and 'smug' treatment.") I can name half a dozen Italian restaurants in DC that offer better food, usually at lower prices. And I don't get out all that much. Yet celebrities, especially Hollywood celebrities, adore the place. I'm no reverse snob. I'll readily grant that celebrities are usually pretty good at sniffing out the best restaurants in any given city (I think they have assistants specially tasked with the assignment). As a foodie middlebrow I usually don't question their authority in such matters. But their fixation on Cafe Milano is a pretty clear instance of market failure. As best I can tell, Cafe Milano was a celebrity favorite long before the locals were paying the place much notice. If anyone can shed light, in the comment section below, on how this happened, I'd love to know the restaurant's secret.

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28 comments

And now they'll be an even more popular tourist location, like Sparks Steak house after Castellano was sent to sleep with the fishes after enjoying a nice NY strip. I wonder if anyone has ever put together a gastronomical tour of the US based on locations where famous people were bumped off. Just a thought.

- Tristan

October 12, 2011 at 9:50am

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It's always attracted a high-class, international clientele: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/longterm/library/cooke/marl93.htm

- EDLWOLF@ALUMNI.BROWN.EDU

October 12, 2011 at 10:20am

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Seconded. Milano's food is fine, nothing special. Ditto the service. Certainly not worth the price or hassle. [Though if you're famous I suppose the hassle is minimal.] This story demonstrates that it isn't just British royalty that's known for questionable taste.

- DC Spence

October 12, 2011 at 10:24am

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This review by a Simon B. of McLean may sum it best: "If you're looking for fine dining, you'll be majorly dissapointed. If you're looking to see lots of men comparing suits and watches (short of saying something else) or if you hope to see some politicians, then you might like it. "

- dubyadoubte

October 12, 2011 at 10:28am

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I'd love to know how this works. What constitutes being famous? Do you have to be Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan? Would it suffice to be just any congressperson? What about chiefs of staff?

- SEBASTIANSALING@HOTMAIL.COM

October 12, 2011 at 10:39am

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Iran was purportedly planning a domestic hit and we're talking about food?

- liberalref

October 12, 2011 at 11:01am

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umm... yeah actually that's a fair point, Lib. I'm surprised there isn't more in the news about this, other than "sanctions". Especially given the lurid details (undercover agents! mexican death squads!), you'd think by now we should be getting some sort of expose. Or at least a nauseatingly illiterative M Dowd column. "mangled mexican murder of middle eastern man at milano", or something. Odd timing too for Iran, given the recent sale of bunker busting munitions to the Israelis. Is Tehran daring us to give Tel Aviv the green light?

- Tristan

October 12, 2011 at 11:26am

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I come looking for analysis and I get restaurant reviews. Not worth the price of a subscription.

- ksiers

October 12, 2011 at 11:27am

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I saw Jubeir speak at a business luncheon with 50-75 people back in 2002. At the time he was doing a post-9/11 PR junket for the Saudis and was traveling around with some Senator's wife. He said "goddamn" about half a dozen times and made everyone uncomfortable. He obviously didn't quite grasp what the term meant.

- ATLeft

October 12, 2011 at 11:41am

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liberalref et al: I'm with you on. This posting really struck me as trivializing an important news story. Almost making it into a joke.

- DAVIDDREIER@EARTHLINK.NET-old

October 12, 2011 at 12:28pm

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Dead on Lib. Between drivel like this blog post and the editorial bashing the Wall Street protesters TNR is going downhill, fast.

- tmmats

October 12, 2011 at 12:32pm

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When do TNR commenters lose their sense of humor and become so overly haughty and severe? When you buy a Prius? Turn 90 years old? Did you study "Being constantly aggrieved" in college during The Great War? Do you yell at the screen when at the movies over historical inaccuracies and 'tasteless and offensive' content. Jeez people, lay off the Wagner.

- SarabandeG

October 12, 2011 at 1:03pm

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Actually, plotting a muder in an expensive and high profile restaurant is a big part of the story. I thought such things were plotted in a cave or something. MY must agree, because he has an entire post this morning on TN's "review" of the Milan. I'm a little sensitive about restaurant critics, my father having owned and operated several. Low brow restaurants, the type of place where people plot murders.

- rayward

October 12, 2011 at 1:10pm

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SarabandeG: I stopped my inquiry into the seventh art when they got rid of the pianist. Too little is made out of this outrage these days.

- SEBASTIANSALING@HOTMAIL.COM

October 12, 2011 at 1:54pm

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rayward, your father owned and operated several restaurant critics? Another myth of independent journalism bites the dust!

- ironyroad

October 12, 2011 at 2:18pm

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I have a riotous sense of humor, Sara, as my beloved wife Sheena will confirm, and I am far from 90. Besides, my comment was tongue-in-cheek.

- liberalref

October 12, 2011 at 2:53pm

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Thanks, irony, we do have a sense of humor. And sorry to disappoint, but my father owned and operated restaurants, not critics. He would be offended that I called them lowbrow, so I'm amending to middlebrow; and so as not to offend any sensitive readers, I should clarify they were not ethnic (Sicilian or otherwise) restaurants.

- rayward

October 12, 2011 at 3:35pm

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Oh come now libref, surely you must be at least 70 if you were being tongue in cheek without an emoticon or onomatopoeia.

- SarabandeG

October 12, 2011 at 4:17pm

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I am 58, actually, S., and emoticons to me are infra did. Moreover, I am in great shape for my age and my wife, who is 21, keeps me young and highly energized. I have loved classical music since I was a child, but I also rock out to Radiohead (and so many other groups) on my MP3 player in our backyard in the nice weather, while reading the likes of the late anthropologist, Clifford Geertz. I highly recommend his Life among the Anthros: And Other Essays, which I am reading now. This book is a collection of essays mostly culled from The New York Review of Books, which was posthumously published in 2010 (Geertz died in 2006). The essays on Gandhi, Bronislaw Malinowksi, and Michel Foucault are superb. I have no idea if you know what dry humor is, but that is me, to be sure, and has been for a long time now.

- liberalref

October 12, 2011 at 5:41pm

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Well this story is so OTT outrageous we might as well talk about the food. PS what is infra-dig? Sadly, unlike libref, I lack a 21 year old wife to keep me hopping, let alone rocking to Radiohead, not that I know who they are either; preferring as I do The 3 B's and the Jefferson Airplane. :)

- Sophia

October 12, 2011 at 5:55pm

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It's an abbreviation of infra dignitatem, beneath one's dignity. I learned it somewhere around 1975, as I did so many words, from William F. Buckley Jr., whom I corresponded with back in my conservative days, which seems like another lifetime now. Buckley sent me a book, American Conservative Thought in the Twentieth Century, with one of his letters, and I still have it in a bookcase in our bedroom. I thought that this was such a nice touch and it was very heady to my 21 year-old self.

- liberalref

October 12, 2011 at 7:53pm

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That is really cool! Thank you.

- Sophia

October 12, 2011 at 9:05pm

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I heard on NPR that there wasn't a specific restaurant. The government informer made up the claim that the Saudi ambassador liked a particular restaurant, and Arbabsiar told him to blow the restaurant up. We were freakishly lucky if Arbabsiar went looking for a Mexican hit man and happened to choose a US informant. I wonder if either he approached a lot of people before an informant decided to bait him, or if a cartel realized that they could get in a LOT of trouble and decided to feed Arbabsiar to the State Department.

- WillPastor

October 13, 2011 at 2:03am

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rayward, the murder wasn't plotted at Cafe Milano, it was supposed to TAKE PLACE at Cafe Milano. There's a difference.

- AaronW

October 13, 2011 at 5:55pm

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I'd like to know if there's anyplace in DC to get good Carolina-style, chopped pork barbecue? I suppose, though, that even if there were, it wouldn't be a very likely spot to find the Saudi ambassador. But imagine the scandal if a member of the House of Saud did get whacked while chowing down on a big plate of traif--or whatever Muslims call non-Halal items.

- AaronW

October 13, 2011 at 6:02pm

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"... traif--or whatever Muslims call non-Halal items." Haram?

- noga1

October 13, 2011 at 7:51pm

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You are correct, noga1. I just looked it up. In English transliteration, 'haram' or 'haraam', which translates as 'forbidden.'

- AaronW

October 13, 2011 at 9:23pm

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I knew there was some reason I renewed my subscription to the New Republic. Where else could I get condescending food reviews of the best restaurant to get blown up in? Obviously, terrorist "chat rooms" will now include channels with restaurant reviews, where they will discuss the best wine to serve with plastic explosives.

- skahn

October 15, 2011 at 11:04pm

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