The keeper of Hollywood’s secrets
Dmitri Dmitrov, the maître d’ at Hollywood’s tony Tower Bar, is privy to private conversations between Hollywood’s power players.
In a town where gossip is powerful currency, Dmitri Dmitrov has a vault’s worth of the stuff, said Guy Trebay in The New York Times. The maître d’ at Hollywood’s tony Tower Bar is privy to private conversations between Hollywood’s power players, serving the likes of Jennifer Aniston with an air resembling that of a majordomo from a 1930s film. Yet when it comes to spilling that information, the Macedonian immigrant with a theatrical Eastern European accent is silent as a tomb. “The most important thing is placing yourself in service position, a gentle touch, a humble touch,” says Dmitrov. “The ultimate is when I please somebody like Sean Penn or Johnny Depp, Nancy Reagan or Betsy Bloomingdale.”
He found his niche in Hollywood as a maître d’ by making his dining room an airtight security zone for the rich and powerful, and by constantly updating his mental Rolodex to make sure competing agents or feuding starlets are never seated near each other. “I was raised with hard work and classic French service, but also I read Hollywood Reporter and Variety every morning like a bible,” he says. “I am student of these people.”
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
Gandhi arrests: Narendra Modi's 'vendetta' against India's opposition
The Explainer Another episode threatens to spark uproar in the Indian PM's long-running battle against the country's first family
By Harriet Marsden, The Week UK
-
How the woke right gained power in the US
Under the radar The term has grown in prominence since Donald Trump returned to the White House
By Chas Newkey-Burden, The Week UK
-
Codeword: April 24, 2025
The Week's daily codeword puzzle
By The Week Staff