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.”
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.
-
September 14 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include RFK Jr on the hook, the destruction of discourse, and more
-
Air strikes in the Caribbean: Trump’s murky narco-warTalking Point Drug cartels ‘don’t follow Marquess of Queensberry Rules’, but US military air strikes on speedboats rely on strained interpretation of ‘invasion’
-
Crossword: September 14, 2025The Week's daily crossword puzzle
