Orsini's

If Paris is cafés and London is pubs, New York is bars. Most of the legendary Big Bagel bars have been Irish: P.J. Clarke’s, still going strong, and the now-shut Elaine’s, where Woody Allen, Jackie Onassis, and Norman Mailer partied and gossiped protected by the formidable Elaine. But for me, although a regular at the above watering holes, there’s one that stands out because it was there where I cut my teeth as a young man about town, where I met Joan Collins, Janet Leigh, and Linda Christian — and debutantes and models galore. That was Orsini’s, at 43 West 56th Street, just off Fifth Avenue.