The Eiffel Rival

France's King Henri III first dropped in for dinner on March 4, 1582, and became a regular patron of the Parisian hostelry. Since Harry's day, its habitues have ranged from musketeers to movie stars, presidents to prelates. Withal, La Tour d'Argent has remained one of the brightest, most tenacious stars in world gastronomy.* Kingdoms and republics have passed, boulevards and bridges have been renamed, heroes have risen and fallen--and been denied tables --but La Tour d'Argent has remained as immutable as its name, a tower of salivary silver. To this day, for any gourmet it towers high above Eiffel's.

In Ma Tour d'Argent, a 515-page book about the restaurant to be published next month, Claude Terrail, its proprietor, makes clear that it is not quite the place for a Texas oilman in search of a sirloin and fries. Even Lyndon Johnson, then Vice President, was accorded a rather undistinguished table. Undaunted, he asked, "Don't you serve the same food at all the tables?" The food is indeed succulent anywhere on the premises, especially La Tour's famous leg of lamb Claude Terrail and pressed ducks--of which the restaurant has served 468,800 since proprietors started taking count.

At Terrail's Tour, the menu is not all that commands attention. As Sacha Guitry, the French playwright, observed, "You go to La Tour d'Argent to dine. Once there, you look" at the scene. Shirley Temple Black, unable to flag a cab on a rainy day, was conveyed to the restaurant by gallant gendarmes in a Black Maria. Terrail also relates that a distinguished Roman Catholic prelate, Monsignor Fernand Maillet, loved late dinners at La Tour. "As he was obliged by ecclesiastical rules to stop eating at midnight so that he could conduct early morning Mass," Terrail says, "he was in the habit of turning his watch back an hour so that he could have a Sainte Genevieve souffle." An ardent addict is Ava Gardner, who once called the restaurant at 11 p.m., when all the cooks had gone home, and asked if she could have dinner. "Certainement," said Terrail, who proceeded to cook her a steak. "It was the worst I've ever had," Ava said. The late Winthrop Rockefeller, who liked to dine on Terrail's homard `a 1'Americaine and Pouilly Fuisse, once humbly asked le patron if he would accept a personal check for his meal. Novelist James Jones asked Terrail to cash his check for $1 million. "I'm short of cash," said the owner, "but I'll open a charge account for you."

What makes and sustains a restaurant like La Tour d'Argent? In an interview with TIME Correspondent Paul Ress, Terrail, the Gielgud of gastronomy, explained: "La Tour d'Argent is like a theater. I am the author of the play, an actor in it and the director. The words and gestures of every actor are carefully rehearsed. Every employee knows exactly how to walk, stop, bow. There is no obsequiousness. Nor is anyone allowed to take a fat tip from a guest in exchange for a 'good' table. I'd fire anyone who accepted a tip for that. I'm very severe. Three or four times a day I have a conference with the head chef. Altogether, there are 17 cooks in the kitchen and a total staff of 80 to serve a maximum of 150 guests. If La Tour d'Argent is not going to be just the way I want it to be, then I'm in a position to say, Tomorrow we're closing down.' "

Fort Knox. Americans, who are increasingly knowledgeable about wine, are among Terrail's favorite guests. La Tour rests above 150,000 bottles of wine, worth at his estimate at least $3 million. ("It's my Fort Knox," he says.) When a guest asks for a Coca-Cola, the waiter invariably replies, "What is that? How do you spell it?" There is one innovation that particularly pleases the well-to-do party giver: Terrail's notion of presenting only the host with a menu that lists prices. (A dinner for two, with a modest wine, will cost an average of $80.)

La Tour is not all that severe. To a sympathetic party, the management quite often proffers an after-dinner liqueur. And, says Terrail, no one blinks an eye when his guests swipe souvenirs. "You're in good company," says he. "Every year 14,000 ashtrays disappear."

* La Tour d'Argent is one of only four Parisian restaurants that consistently earn three stars--the highest rating--from the Guide Michelin, France's arbiter of gastronomy. The others: Maxim's, Las-serre and Le Grand Vefour.

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