• Apparently on a boozy limo ride home from a few Halloween parties where they were dressed as matching tooth fairies, Paris Hilton's boyfriend Doug Reinhardt threw her phone out the window. It appears that excessive texting annoys him too. Paris got out of the car to find it on the side of the road to no avail. When she got back into the car, Reinhardt started to choke her. Of course, the paps were swarming and friends tried to stop them from taking pictures. Like a good girl, Paris fought back, kicking and screaming at her man. The good news? A photographer found her phone and returned it. [NY Post]
• Real Housewife of New York Kelly Bensimon showed up on time for the Halloween party she hosted on Saturday night, instead of showing up two hours late like she did last year. Hurray for lessons learned. Bensimon was dressed as a sexy Heidi or some such. Also in attendance was Jill Zaron dressed as Poison Ivy from the Batman comics. The real news is that Bensimon and fellow Housewife Zarin are apparently new besties now that Zarin had a falling out with former partner in crime Bethenny Frankel. Because she's still on the show this season, Bethenney has been relegated to hanging out with crazy-eyed Ramona Singer and Brooklynite Alex McCord. As goes Jill Zarin, so goes the audience, so maybe people will start to like this Kelly creature now. [Gatecrasher]
• Speaking of Halloween parties, Tinsley Mortimer showed up with reality crew in tow for an event to benefit cancer charity City of Hope on Friday night at Marquee. "She showed up with 20 people. The crew shot her walking into the venue, but not inside the party as promised," says City Of Hope's Jocelyn Levy. "They just hung out and drank, for free, even the producers. We didn't ask them to come, they called us." Hmm. That's funny, because we were there and we saw with our own two eyes that Tinsley did, in fact, film inside the party. Sure it was in the back by the dessert bar and the production kept a tight perimeter around Ms. Mortimer, but she did actually film inside the party. Don't go trying to tarnish our Tinz unfairly! [Gatecrasher]
• Nicolas Cage is going to miss a New York screening of his movie Bad Lieutenant, because his father, literature professor August Coppola (brother of filmmaker Francis Ford), died of a heart attack. We love it when celebrities actually do the right thing. [P6]
• Elton John has been hospitalized for a bad case of the flu and a minor case of e. coli and has canceled several concerts. All his pairs of sparkly glasses tell him to get well soon. [AP]
• Because her life hasn't been charmed enough, Dakota Fanning is now a cheerleader and the homecoming queen at North Hollywood's Campbell Hall Episcopal High School, which she is attending. Transformation into mean girl is complete. [E Online]
• Mel Gibson's girlfriend, Oksana Grigorieva, might have maybe had her baby (Mel's eighth) two months early. We hope this isn't like Heidi Klum baby thing where all the tabs were trying so hard to scoop each other that they just started making up the birth. [People]
• John DeLucie the fancy chef at Graydon Carter's Waverly Inn isn't leaving. That's great news for all of us who couldn't get a reservation even if we wanted one. [P6]
• Gossip dowager Cindy Adams is obsessed with the making of Wall Street 2. Has she not seen a film in the movie theater since the original came out 22 years ago, or does she just have a huge crush on Shia LaBeouf? You decide. [Cindy Adams]

[Image via Getty]

In yet another probing piece from Allen Salkin, the Seymour Hersh of the New York Times Style section, Salkin uncovers the mysteries behind Carter's seating madness. You see, each afternoon, right around 4:00 or so, one of Carter's man-servants will sheepishly enter his office, making sure never to make eye contact or speak without being spoken to first to avoid being flogged mercilessly about the torso with bamboo reeds dipped in Tabasco sauce, and hand Carter a list of names of those who have been deemed worthy of a table at Waverly Inn and Monkey Bar by Carter's other assorted underlings. Then the magic happens.

A sunken area in the center of the dining room that you see when entering is known as "the pit." It is important to have "young, attractive people" at the first of two round tables in the pit, Mr. Carter said. "It gives a certain energy."

Pointing to the two tables on an elevated area to the right side of the room, he said these were for people looking for a quiet meal.

On the opposite side of the room are four nice booths. "This is fashion and literary and young," he said. That night, Cynthia McFadden of ABC news; Liz Smith, the gossip columnist; and Marjorie Gubelmann, a socialite, were in those booths.

Elevated over the pit opposite the entrance are a line of banquettes, which that night included a group of 20 or so guests of the socialite Jennifer Creel who were celebrating her debut as a designer of sunglasses sold at Bergdorf Goodman.

And behind them was the most-prime real estate, a line of booths on the back wall overlooking the whole scene. "This is young and media moguls," Mr. Carter said, pointing to the booths, "and sort of single-name people." On that night, Calvin Klein, Rupert Everett, Prince Andrew, Ron Perelman and Louise Grunwald were in those booths. When Madonna comes in, she gets a back booth.

But it doesn't end there—During the course of each evening, Carter and his spies will observe each guest and make notes about their behavior. If they should, say, pick their nose or pass gas or dare to complain about anything, they are issued demerits in Carter's little grade book. However, if they drop to their knees and offer to fellate King Graydon upon his entrance, they are given a coupon for a complimentary serving of flan on their next visit. Or something.

Whatever—We will never eat at any of Graydon Carter-owned establishment on principle alone, so we don't really care.

Many Called, But Few Are Seated [New York Times]

We already heard from one patron that the Vanity Fair editor's West Village fixture (of the past few years) has been c'mon in! welcoming of late, and now another tipster tells us much the same:

I just took a stroll over to the Waverly Inn to make a reservation for my boss for tonight. I walked in, sat down, talked to the very friendly reservationist who worked off her laptop, and got a reservation. It's that easy! My boss isn't even a celebrity. Is the Waverly slipping? I was expecting to have to beg/cry, and was fully prepared to do both. I guess the recession has trimmed down their list of regulars so that the plebes may have a taste of greatness.

Hmm. Used to be that there was a certain strict set of rules one had to follow to get seated at the little haunt. But that was back in dusty old August, before we blotted out the sun with our econo-missiles and everyone turned out their pockets.

And to hear the New York Post's remaining batty old gossipeuse Cindy Adams tell it, Carter's new uptown venture, the be-muraled Monkey Bar, is basically as exclusive as the Red Lobster on a Tuesday afternoon:

Unlike superprecious Waverly, this place will actually have a phone number, eventually open for lunches and happily feature comfort food like chili, scrambled eggs, Meatloaf Nora from Nora Ephron's recipe. Prices are reasonable. And with a candle in a glass at each table, lighting's good.

Sounds like an old people place! I mean, with like a telephone and everything! Is this the end of clubhouse dining?

To launch a new restaurant review series for Examiner.com, Phil Anschutz's experiment in citizen journalism, Laura Rohrman decided to start with the Waverly Inn, which she had apparently been plaintively walking past every night on her way to the gym, fantasizing about the luxe life within the Vanity Fair theme park attraction. But the whole exclusivity thing breaks down when she explains how she scored her table:

So for my first restaurant of the week segment, guess where I had to go? That’s right! Let me in Ye Waverly Inn! Shockingly the reservationist said yes, no problem when I stopped in off the street.

Less than six months ago, we were talking about who to schmooze in order to get a reservation and we noted this sneaky strategy when it worked for a New York Times writer. But now we know it can work for just about anybody.

If there's anything that's incredibly hard to get worked up about, it's intra-neighborhood squabbles amongst the wealthy residents of New York's most attractive downtown neighborhoods. But we are nothing if not reporters. SO, according to P6 a West Village community leader who lives next door to Waverly always complained about the noise and ruckus and whatnot there, until Graydon hooked her up with her own table and put her and her dentist husband's picture up in Vanity Fair, incongruously placed amongst a group of actual celebrities. Now the other neighbors are like "You totally sold out the hood, Marilyn Dorato!" And she's like "No these things are totally unrelated I sell out for no one!" And Graydon Carter, as is his wont, is just smiling and thinking "Yes, squabble amongst yourselves, you fools. Soon I will own all of your souls. Do my bidding or your children will never see the inside of my school, or meet John Leguizamo." And all this is going on and taking people's time that could be spent pondering how awesome the Florida Gators are.

Corporate colleagues also arched their eyebrows when Wintour told a reporter at the National Magazine Awards to "Just go away" after she asked about rumors of the editor-in-chief's impending retirement. The touchy reply added to their suspicion that Wintour, who just this past June celebrated two decades atop Vogue, was worried about being pushed out by Newhouse before she'd lined up a soft landing elsewhere. Her purported $2-million-per-year salary is seen as a hindrance, given the state of the economy, in lining up a follow-on fashion gig of the sort that seems natural, post Vogue: creative director at LVMH, that sort of thing.

Whether the palace intrigue at the world's fashion bible unfolds according to the Waverly buzz or not, it is clear the Vogue masthead is not at equilibrium. Wintour in recent years positioned herself as a sort of mini-mogul over various baby Vogues. But this fall, she's fallen back down to earth. The closure of Men's Vogue was a major personal embarrassment. It followed a possibly fatal blow to the Vogue Living experiment and the cancellation of Fashion Rocks. Worst of all, it came amid slipping numbers at Vogue itself, as competitors leveraged reality television to undermine the title's dominance over the world of fashion.

The poor performance surely undermined Wintour within Condé Nast. But even if the legendary editor-from-hell still had Si Newhouse's full support, there's the issue of personal satisfaction: Wintour could hardly be expected to content herself with a downgrade from "editorial director" of a magazine collection to mere editor-in-chief of a single title, shrinking in ad pages and influence. Even if Wintour does not yet realize that, Newhouse surely does. Thus we see the unwelcome rumors of her retirement in the tabloids. And so it may be that a French revolution comes to Vogue in January 2009. (Photo by Jeremy Kost)

UPDATE: As many of you noted in the comments, the rumored replacement of Wintour by her French rival puts a tragic (for Wintour) twist on a plotline specific to the film adaptation of the novel The Devil Wears Prada. The real-life French Vogue editor has said Wintour is "like a puppet." In a clip from the movie below, Wintour stand-in Miranda Priestly manages to divert her competitor Jacqueline Follet by arranging for her a job once promised to Priestly's lieutenant at Runway (aka Vogue). Her own boss is dissuaded by threats that Priestly's fashion-industry allies will blackball the magazine. That sort of loyalty seems far too posh an extravagance at a time of economic panic and powerful TV shows like Project Runway.

It's hard to say. But it's worth noting, as the Observer does, that one month before jumping on board with Carter, Lewis and his wife, onetime MTV News reporter Tabitha Soren, were treated to their first dinner at the bon vivant's West Vllage restaurant Waverly Inn. That sort of thing shouldn't matter to a writer who reportedly nets $30,000 for each of his Times pieces. But then one shouldn't be able to get away with charging $55 for a plate of macaroni and cheese, however adorned, and people still jam the secret phone lines for a Waverly reservation.

It is not only Wall Street that is susceptible to the whims of fashion, or to panicked flights from troubled institutions.

It should be no surprise that the lords of private equity like Stephen Schwarzman, Steven Cohen and Henry Kravis are among the biggest losers; they're dragged down by the credit crunch. Nor will Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly of Fox News be that surprised to have been marked down by Bush-hating Graydon Carter. But the Vanity Fair editor will have a harder time explaining why his irascible movie producer friend Harvey Weinstein, a regular at Carter's Waverly Inn, has been knocked back 46 places. Nor should he expect to get George Clooney (down 28 points) on the cover any time soon.

• DO have neighborhood clout. The president of the local block association, Marilyn Dorato, has her own table at the restaurant, which she occupies weekly. Graydon wouldn't want to much of a fuss over the limos and paparazzi and drunken revelry and so forth.
• DO NOT complain about your food. "The reservations system has miniprofiles on clients: the number of times they have eaten at the restaurant... whether they complained about the food, whether they yelled at a waiter..."
• DO NOT work in reality TV or hedge fund management. "'For that reason, we screen calls from the 203 area code,' [Carter] said, poking fun at chateau country in the Connecticut suburbs."
• DO NOT notify the paps of your reservation. "Mr. Varda admits that there is one group [blacklisted]. 'B-list stars who call the paparazzi from inside the restaurant... They are not invited back.' (Privacy is so sacred at the Waverly that Mr. Varda says he has stopped a major film star from photographing his own family at dinner.)"
• DO NOT take a seat in the garden. It is Siberia. Carter claims it's great but "no one is buying it."
• DO NOT sit out front, oh God: "There is also a tiny outside area out front with tables in summer, but that is irrelevant — one frequent diner called it 'tragic.'"
• DO NOT brag about hanging out at the bar. No one cares, because that is also Siberia.
• DO perhaps try just asking at the front desk. It worked for the Kaufman. Go figure.
• DO be Harvey Weinstein, a very close personal friend of Mr. Carter. "Weinstein, for example, lives nearby and, according to Mr. Varda, frequently arrives for dinner without calling ahead to reserve. 'He is family,' Mr. Varda said, 'so we make room anyway.'"

Or just wait for the restaurant to become less fashionable, or for your ego to stop caring, both of which will happen eventually. (Until that day, you can scour the restaurant's blog for still more tips.)

[Times]

(Photo by Pistols Drawn on Flickr, who managed to do what the Times could not and get a picture inside the theatrically secretive restaurant.)

New York According to the Waverly Inn [Blackbook]

Ye Waverly Blog, one tipster claims, is written by Carter's onetime executive assistant Jon Kelly (pictured below), recently replaced in that gig by the Observer's David Foxley. Here's Kelly's profile in the June 2007 Vanity Fair (from this):

Though it's sad to lose the mental image of Spy co-founder Carter anonyblogging, Kelly does a mean impression, and his ghost writing frees up Carter for host duty at the Waverly. In the April 1 video below (via Grub Street), Carter welcomes Bianca Jagger, first wife of former Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger — and rescues her from heading up the wrong flight of stairs, to the townhouse above the restaurant.

New York's Adam Platt said last year that it was worth "fighting your way inside for a little bite" at the Waverly "maybe just once," but that "when the Waverly finally opens for business, the food won’t taste half as good."

And here's Frank Bruni's prediction in the New York Times:

Someday the people who know you and the people who know your key staff members and the recognizable or attractive people who take the trouble to stop in, willing to submit to a visual once-over and try to make a reservation in person — someday there won’t be enough of these people to fill the seats, and you’ll have to take all callers and comers, and it will all be so much different.

It's probably premature to declare Waverly over, given that Carter can still throw the showbiz world into conniptions by canceling a single party. Hold any condemnation, at least, until people stop trying to scalp Waverly reservations.

(Photos via Splash News, DListed)

[Splash News, DListed]

Steverino's new line beats the original, Genovian Royal Makes Lewd Thrusting Motions At Passersby.