PANACHE WITH YOUR HASH : Listen Up: Those Thuds You Hear Are the Sound of Names Dropping

My favorite corned-beef hash in California is served in a swank businessman’s grill in Beverly Hills, sniffing distance from the Fred Hayman perfume outlet and around the corner from the weird, cobbled boutique mall that locals refer to as Eurotrash-Disney. The ceilings are high, the wood dark, the linen heavy, the martinis clear and cold and dry. The dining room is washed in a pale, masculine light that seems imported from some century-old restaurant in New Orleans, and the white-jacketed waiters call you sir, even if you are wearing sneakers. This is, in other words, a serious place to have lunch.

I manage to eat here every couple of months or so, usually in the late afternoon, usually alone, and the only time I remember looking at a menu was when an English friend asked me to translate some of the dishes for him from the American. I grew up not far from here, in that southeast corner of town they used to call Baja Beverly Hills, a neighborhood so alienated from the rest of the city that it didn’t even make it into the 310 area code.

I am aware of the reputation of this restaurant as the kind of place where the Beverly Hills Rotary might hold its meetings if the Rotary had a chapter for aspiring billionaires--I am always running into a pin-striped real-estate speculator my mom knows or a high-school classmate who is making a strong go of things at Creative Artists Agency (CAA)--although I’m generally paying too much attention to the food to take much notice. The hash, edged with deep brown, speckled with crunchy, carbonized bits, is a crisp, ruddy thing that is always delightful to behold. White guys in $1,200 suits all tend to look pretty much alike.

But the other day, I walked up toward the maitre d’ station with my friend Kimberly, a local columnist who knows Hollywood the way Julia Child knows a rump roast, and she barely had time to register the dining room before she scurried into a far corner behind the bar. “Oh my God,” Kimberly said. “Everyone’s here. I’ve got to put on my lipstick. Stand in front of me for a minute while I fix my makeup.”

I did. I also didn’t recognize a soul.

“In the back,” she said, leaning on the bar, “that’s Brandon Tartikoff, who used to be president of Paramount; there’s Barry Hirsch, who is a really big lawyer for Streisand, Tom Cruise, people like that . . . and over there is Ovitz, meeting with Ron Perelman. I’ve got to start having lunch here more often.”

I glanced at Michael Ovitz, whose face had the queer, moonish luminescence I usually associate with Japanese lanterns, and I noticed that people were approaching his table as reverently, as gingerly, as if it was a shrine.

“So is this Perelman the make-up guy?” I asked. Kimberly wrinkled her nose.

“Perelman, like, owns half of New York, my dear; Marvel Comics and real estate and God knows what else. Revlon is, I don’t know, about 2% of what he does. Oh, and there’s Ron Meyers--you know, the co-head of CAA.”

An elaborately coiffed blond woman swept past on the way to the door and blew a kiss. “That’s Nikki Haskell, who does . . . I’m not sure, but she’s in Liz Smith’s column a lot. I think the guy walking behind her is the one on the billboard for that diet pill she invented.” I stared into my Gibson. Then Goldie Hawn got up and strode out of the restaurant, though all I saw of her was one tanned shoulder and the back of her head. My friend urged me to get up and follow Hawn so I could get a better view. I declined.

But I felt like an entomologist who had spent so long inspecting the ant hills of the Serengeti that he’d never noticed the unusual number of lions and wildebeests strolling across the plain.

“Can you see that guy over there?” Kimberly asked. “He’s a big lawyer, too. You’ve got to know Jake Bloom; he’s the lawyer for Arnold, Sly, everybody. The guy he’s with is his partner, Alan Hergott, who is brilliant.”

I shrugged, underwhelmed. Kimberly rolled her eyes.

“Are you sure you grew up here?” she asked.