Lunch with Lanzarone

Finally got to spend an afternoon with the luscious Nikka Graff Lanzarone. Her mum is Ilene Graff who starred in I LOVE MY WIFE and GREASE on Broadway, and she is cousin to actors Todd and Randy Graff. Nikka first came to notice in the Broadway musical version of WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN. Since then she has played Velma Kelly on Broadway and Bebe in A CHORUS LINE at Paper Mill. She is also a mainstay of the annual Broadway Bares shows.

We have many mutual friends including Nick Adams and Brian Spitulnik but today was an opportunity to really sit and talk which was fab. Nikka had to be in midtown so I looked up a restaurant on the net and found Arno's on W38th St.

It was like something out of a Woody Allen movie, packed with loud middle aged men from Brooklyn and loud middle aged Italian waiters. Ours did magic tricks. Fabulous.

The reason the place looks empty is because we talked for so long the waiters had set up for dinner by the time we left.

Very expensive but terrific food and surprising to find a place with such authentic atmosphere so close to 42nd St.