A Dashing Way to Dine

By David Brand

Drat! It's raining outside. Let's order in. Pizza again? Chinese? Just for a change, my dear, let's try a pate de foie de canard, an oyster salad, quail with grapes and, oh, let's be daring, a tarte aux framboises.

Time was, when you wanted such a meal, you had to go to a fancy restaurant. No longer. In major cities from San Francisco to New Orleans to New York City, home-delivery services are springing up to rush gourmet fare from restaurants to the couch-bound affluent. In addition, many top-of-the-line restaurants are delivering their own plastic-packaged food, largely to combat the still lingering drop in business since the 1987 market crash. As a result, according to the Lempert Report, a food-industry newsletter, U.S. restaurants expect to sell more than $10 billion worth of home-delivered food in 1990, up from $2.6 billion in 1985.

Typical of the trend is New York City's Dial-A-Dinner. Its clients order by telephone from the menu of one of the 30 restaurants on its list. About an hour later, a tuxedo-clad waiter appears, bearing large shopping bags full of plastic containers and a bill -- usually well over $100 -- payable by credit card. "I'm known as the doctor of delivery," declares David Blum, 31, the entrepreneur who started Dial-A-Dinner 18 months ago. Now he has 22 people, 15 cars and six vans, all radio equipped, hurtling about 200 dinners a night across Manhattan. Among Blum's culinary suppliers are Petrossian Paris, the famous caviar emporium, and Shun Lee Palace, where the Peking duck costs $35.

The Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove, Fla., makes its own deliveries by limousine. Its dishes -- ranging from lobster to souffle -- arrive in plastic containers, although a full china service and other accessories are sent on request. The average bill for two, including tip: $100. Why are so many prepared to pay so much for the thrill of eating in their own homes? "People want convenience," says Jack Kellman of Chicago, who last year launched a company called Room Service Delivery. "There's no baby sitter, no parking and no coat check."

San Francisco's Waiters on Wheels service, which opened for business 18 months ago, delivers some 200 meals each night. Most of its customers are two- income families whose idea of a swell evening is dining in front of the VCR. Says the company's president, Constantine Stathopoulos: "It's all about economics and time. We give them more time to relax." Waiters on Wheels usually gets a 20% to 30% discount from the restaurants, then charges clients the regular restaurant prices. Other delivery services make their money directly from the clients, charging a fee of 20% of the menu prices.

Since delivery time can be ruinous to certain dishes, some chefs refuse to send out such items as fried chicken and fresh-shucked oysters and clams. Manhattan's Water Club restaurant stopped delivering food on a regular basis after a one-month trial because, says owner Michael O'Keeffe, "fine meals have to be served a few moments after being cooked." Other restaurateurs have < devised special techniques to deal with the time lag. Some chefs undercook fish, for example, allowing it to continue heating in delivery trucks' warming ovens. Pierre Saint-Denis, chef-owner of Manhattan's Le Refuge, stabilizes his butter sauce with cream so it doesn't resemble a stagnant pool by the time it reaches the plate.

Few customers, however, complain about curdled sauces or curling asparagus tips. "It's always delivered just right," says Manhattan investment banker Harry Ozawa. He treats himself to home-delivered delicacies two or three times a week. Why? Because, explains Ozawa, it's so much nicer than eating pizza every night. At $125 or so a pop, it should be.

With reporting by JoAnn Lum/ New York, with other bureaus