The Lafayette was established in 1965 by two former employees of
Le Pavillon, Jean Fayet (its former
saucier and captain of waiters) and his wife Jacqueline (its former cashier). The Lafayette had a seating capacity of 50 and an intimate decor, with a fireplace surrounded by French tiles, copper tubs filled with dried flowers and artificial plants, and walls covered in red, blue and yellow striped fabric. The waiters were dressed in military-style blue
tail coats with red piping. In his review of the restaurant shortly after it opened,
Craig Claiborne, noted that the only jarring note in the decor was the "plethora of plastic greenery". The Lafayette's choicest table, where
Jackie Kennedy often sat, was hidden around the corner of the blue-striped bar. The restaurant's popularity surged in December 1966 when ''
Women's Wear Daily'' stationed a photographer outside to capture Jackie and her sister
Lee Radziwill leaving the restaurant with Jackie wearing a skirt two inches above the knee. According to
Nora Ephron, the photos were reprinted in virtually every American newspaper. Jean Fayet refused to accept credit cards, although he would allow selected customers to have charge accounts, and had very definite views about the way his customers should dress and behave, views which he did not hesitate to express or enforce. In March 1970,
Gael Greene wrote a scathing review of the Lafayette in
New York Magazine entitled "Lafayette, We are Leaving!" in which she chronicled the owner's legendary rudeness. According to Greene, people who had been refused tables included a male member of the
Rothschild family for having long hair, the beauty editor of
Glamour Magazine for having a skirt too short, and
Valentino for wearing a
turtle neck sweater. He chastised
Angela Lansbury for propping her sunglasses on top of her head,
Alfred Knopf Sr. for asking for coffee with his entrée, and
Bette Davis for asking
Yogi Berra (who was dining at another table) to autograph her menu. Fayet exclaimed, "The menus belong to the restaurant. They do not go out of the house." Fayet's other prohibitions included women wearing trousers and anyone wearing a campaign badge or keeping shopping bags at their table. By 1978, the restaurant had closed. In an interview in the
New York Times that year, Fayet had no regrets about his strict dress code. "If, for example, I had permitted a man or a woman in a good-looking Christian Dior denim suit to dine in my restaurant, then someone else would have asked, 'Why not me?' But, alas, all the restaurants are giving in to a liberated dress policy." ==Cuisine==