The pump room, Ambassador East, Chicago, opened its classic Queen Anne doors just two decades ago; in the intervening years, while other more-or-less-elegant dining and drinking spots have come and gone, it has solidly entrenched itself in the hearts of bon vivants -- and beautiful women -- the world over. For the urban man of leisure, the Pump has become the scene in the Midwest. Here one finds a combination of relaxed smartness and that indefinable air of excitement that hovers over those places which -- through a skilled admixture of decor, menu and service -- attract and keep a glamorous clientele.
As you enter, you will be greeted by Phil Boddy, the Pump Room's manager and maitre de, a suave chap who bows to no man, but who has a courteous inclination of the head and a smile for all patrons. To the right is Table 1, a banquette-booth which is Chicago's celebrity corner, a gathering place, where a visiting star of stage, screen or TV (like they say) -- or a visiting nobleman or political figure -- may well start to lunch or dine alone, only to be joined by other famous folk from every corner of the world.
Assuming you don't rate Table 1, or prefer to dine incognito, you have your choice of other banquettes. Three of the room's translucently blueblack walls are lined with these deeply upholstered, luxuriant white leather couches. (Along the fourth wall is a dance floor: there's also a bar where glamor guys and girls convene at all hours.) The rest of the decorations -- sconces, crystal chandeliers, table lamps set in bowls of fresh flowers, fine napery and what-all -- are equally chic. As are, too, the waiters in hunting pinks, the coffee boys in blackamoor getups of oriental splendor (complete with plumed turbans), and Jimmy, the pint-size sommelier who knows his patrons as well as he does his wines -- which is very well indeed.
All this pomp and poshness is matched by the food (superb continental, from a huge, varied menu) and the manner of its service: if you can't get what you want on a flaming sword, chances are it will come to your table on wheels, since the Pump features separate wagons for hors d'oeuvres, roast beef, cheeses, pastries, desserts and salads. On other wagons the formally attired captains prepare food before the diners' eyes, with much flourishing and flaming. (Try the super chicken hash done that way.)
All of which might seem corny as Disney and fancy as Versailles -- and a little hard to take seriously. Actually, no one involved takes it totally straight: the late Ernie Byfield set the Pump's tone of sober delight in play-acting and the fun of a masquerade ball when he said of the famous flaming swords, "The customers like it and it doesn t hurt the food -- much." The same merry attitude prompted one regular patron to comment that the menu, which is printed in Old English script, contains everything from "foup to deffert." It was Byfield who started the Pump Room, naming it after the famous 18th Century English watering place in Bath where, for the first time, aristocracy and the arts rubbed elbows socially. It proved to be a happy and apposite choice of name.
On the facing page. LeRoy Neiman captures the feel (and part of the menu) of the Pump Room, this being the first place (for a Playboy series on the urban man's world) where Neiman. "at his leisure." dined, drank -- and sketched on the bill of fare.
