双语：好莱坞影星就能开餐馆？

　　你是个国际巨星。有“点石成金”之能：代言某款鞋，该鞋就能疯卖；推出一款香水，少男少女就争相“以身试水”。下一步嘛，自然就是开餐馆——餐馆很酷，同时也有了一个远离狗仔队(Paparazzi )骚扰、与自己明星朋友随心所欲潇洒的理想场所，何乐而不为？此外，经营餐馆易如反掌——开张当晚请上些明星人物，随便上些菜，就能坐等滚滚财源来，和品牌代言异曲同工，对吧？

　　大错特错。作为首批涉水餐饮业的明星，迈克尔•凯恩(Michael Caine，早在1976年他就与兰甘(Peter Langan)在伦敦开餐馆)的经历就可以证明餐饮业的变幻无常和极具挑战性并非徒有虚名。倒闭关门和让人气急败坏也是家常便饭：在欧美，餐馆经营第一年就关门的比例大约是四分之一，经营到第三年，关门的比例上升至三分之一。

　　餐馆老板和训练有素的厨师费了九牛二虎之力才能完全整明白如何经营才能确保生存下去。因此发生下述结果也就不足为奇了：布兰妮•斯皮尔斯(Britney Spears)2002年在纽约开了一家叫Nyla的凯真餐馆(Cajun，移居美国路易斯安纳州的法人后裔)，不到6个月，她就撤销了协议，几周后餐馆也随之关门。詹尼弗•洛佩兹(Jennifer Lopez)经营一家叫Madre’s的古巴餐馆达6年，但2008年还是关门了事，谁都知道她以经商精明著称。更有甚者，1994年就已经成功参与Nobu在全球范围扩张的罗伯特•德尼罗(Robert De Niro)在 2009年与他在纽约刚开了一年的意大利餐馆Ago彻底拜拜了。

　　1988年，在创始合伙人彼得•兰甘过世后，凯恩卖掉了自己在兰甘餐馆中的股份；1992年，他与马克•皮埃尔•怀特(Marco Pierre White)一起，开了The Canteen餐馆，2000年该餐馆倒闭。2004年，又开了家名叫Deya的意大利餐馆，到2007年又关门了事。今年他说，“我是彻底不干这行了。厨师们太喜怒无常了。”

　　大家都说，许多明星开餐馆并不会损害个人名誉。“许多名人只是象征性参与——花钱请他们来只是让餐馆更具人气。罗伯特•德尼罗和《名利场》(Vanity Fair)主编格莱登•卡特(Graydon Carter)倒是全身心地投入餐馆经营，但你若不是大腕的财会人员，就不可能知晓他们是否是名义上参与，”《查氏国际餐馆指南》(international Zagat guides)的出版商蒂姆•查加(Tim Zagat)如是说。“如果餐馆开砸了，压根就不会对他们的名声造成丁点影响，因为他们的名声并不靠餐饮维系。”

　　毋庸置疑，有些大腕开的(或者代言的)餐馆生存了下来，而且经营得还不错，而最棒的那些餐馆似乎是那些既有顶级厨师掌勺烹制佳肴，又体现大腕本人的烙印(如果服务差强人意，饭菜又惨无人睹，那么腕再大也会难以为继)。因此，贾斯丁•蒂布莱克(Justin Timberlake) 开在纽约的烧烤酒吧(barbecue joint)，罗伯特•雷德福(Robert Redford)开在圣丹斯(Sundance)的高端餐馆Tree Room，比比金(BB King)的蓝调酒巴与餐馆连锁店，Jay-Z开在纽约的高档体育酒巴，以及丹尼•迪维图(Danny DeVito)开在迈阿密的意大利餐馆都经营得有板有眼。

　　德尼罗在精挑细选了安德鲁•卡梅里尼(Andrew Carmellini)当主厨后，再次开了一家意大利餐馆，并把馆名由Ago改成了Locanda Verde。卡梅里尼说：“德尼罗了不起的地方是他开餐馆是为了能一直开下去。他的恒心把餐馆变成了恒业，而非昙花一现(flash in the pan)。我当时就知道他这个人我能与之长久合作共事，这一点毫无疑问。”

　　You’re a global superstar. Everything you touch turns to gold: endorse a shoe and they sell like crazy; bring out a perfume and teens want to bathe in it. The next logical step is to open a restaurant – restaurants are cool and you’d like a place to hang out with your celebrity friends beyond the reach of the paparazzi. Plus they’re easy – get some other stars in for opening night, serve some food and watch the money roll in, just like any endorsement, right?

　　Wrong. As Michael Caine, having been one of the first stars get involved in restaurants – with Langan’s in London back in 1976 – would attest the restaurant industry is famously fickle and challenging. It is rife with bankruptcy and filthy tempers, too: in Europe and the US the closure rate in first year of trading is roughly one in four, rising to one in three within the first three years。

　　Restaurateurs and highly trained chefs struggle to put their finger on what will guarantee survival. So it’s no surprise that when Britney Spears opened Nyla, a Cajun restaurant, in New York in 2002, she’d pulled out off the deal within six months, with the restaurant closing only weeks later. Jennifer Lopez, otherwise renowned for her business acumen, had a Cuban restaurant, Madre’s, for six years, but it closed in 2008. And in 2009, even Robert De Niro, who has been successfully involved in Nobu worldwide since 1994, drew a line under Ago, his New York Italian before it had been open a year。

　　Caine sold his share in Langan’s after the death of its co-founder Peter Langan in 1988; in 1992, with Marco Pierre White, he helped open The Canteen which closed 2000. Deya, an Indian restaurant, opened in 2004 and closed in 2007. He said this year, “I left that business. Chefs are too temperamental。”

　　That said, a lot of stars don’t take a personal risk. “Many celebrities are only marginally involved – they get paid to make the restaurant more exciting. Robert De Niro and [Vanity Fair editor] Graydon Carter are very involved in theirs but, unless you’re a celebrity’s accountant, you can’t be privy to whether it’s nominal or not,” says Tim Zagat, publisher of the international Zagat guides. “And if it fails, it’s not even a risk to their reputation since their reputation isn’t based on food。”

　　There are celebrity-owned (or endorsed) restaurants that survive and do well, and the best seem to be those that reflect the star’s own brand as well as serving good meals cooked by talented chefs (even the starriest find it hard to survive poor service or dreadful food). Hence Justin Timberlake’s barbecue joint in New York, Robert Redford’s high-end Tree Room at Sundance, BB King’s chain of blues bars and restaurants, Jay-Z’s “upscale” New York sports bar and Danny DeVito’s Italian in Miami all do well。

　　De Niro re-opened Ago as Locanda Verde having carefully hand-picked chef Andrew Carmellini, who says: “The great thing about De Niro is he builds restaurants for longevity. They become institutions, not a flash in the pan. I knew he was a guy I wanted to team up with, no question。”

　　Richard Harden, editor of UK-based Harden’s Restaurant Guide, says choosing a celebrity-owned establishment to eat in can be a good move: “Unlike celebrity chefs, say, celebrities are less likely to be driven by their ego, as they don’t have anything to prove。”

　　Restaurants that don’t scream “vanity project” are more enticing to customers – who don’t like to feel fooled by a brand. Cameron Diaz doesn’t shout about her well-reviewed Miami restaurant and nor does Morgan Freeman about his in Mississippi. In the UK, artist Damien Hirst has learnt from the wild over-hyping of Pharmacy in Notting Hill and is lower-key about his newer venture, The Quay in Ilfracombe, Devon. Ultimately, it has to be about the food – no amount of star quality can save a restaurant churning out consistently poor experiences。

　　Someone should have told Hulk Hogan that – before he opened his Pastamania restaurant in the mid-1990s, serving such delights as Hulk-U-s and Hulk-A-Roos. It closed in less than a year。

　　(英国《金融时报》撰稿人：里贝卡•西尔)