The Natty Restaurateur, Hassan El Garrahy, Maps Expansion

Dec. 28, 2009 - PRLog -- NEW YORK --  He was always known for his speed -- and his snappy attire.

Hassan El Garrahy zoomed up the ladder of success of  Harry Cipriani's Fifth Avenue restaurant and New York eatery empire, and now he is launching another career as part of a team assembled by French bistro innovator Jean Denoyer to find new restaurant locations here and elsewhere in the country.

When he broke into the New York restaurant business as a wet-behind-the-ears waiter, Hassan moved briskly from table to table, moving chairs and smoothing down tablecloths with an energy and quickness that immediately caught the eyes of owners  Arrigo Cipriani and his son, Giuseppi.

Wow! This guy is fast, they thought. Let's make him the waiter captain. That was 24 years ago, in the first weeks in the life of tCipriani's.. Before long, the 26-year old Hassan hopped on a career escalator that saw him rise with dispatch to the heights of the Cipriani restaurant empire from waiter to waiter captain to maitre d'hotel  to  general manager in a little more than seven years. And he loved every minute of it.

"It's all about people," Hassan recalled the other day. "Every day, I wasn't going to work, I was going to a party. I was going to meet a lot people. I treated it like my home and the diners were coming to my home. The rich and famous and infamous and just ordinary people."

Along the way, Hassan found time to express his passion for moving fast in another venue by running in 27 marathons worldwide, nine of them in New York.

And early this year, he joined the tony French brasserie, Orsay, as director of operations and partner with Denoyer who also  operates prestigious restaurants in New York, including the iconic "La Goulue" which is temporarily closed pending a move to a new East Side location.

"Now being with Jean, we are going to do beautiful things together," said Hassan, 51. "We are going to definitely build more and more places. Elegant and graceful with good food and a club feeling."

In addition to his quickness, friendliness and big smile, Hassan has been hailed as one of New York's best-dressed restaurateurs, impeccably clad in a dark suit every day. He owns more than 60 suits, and is known to change for lunch and dinner.

"My quirk is clothes," he admits. "I'm always buying suits and ties. Always a classic look, a Humphrey Bogart look. And Jimmy Cagney. I liked the way they looked and I always had my suits tailored like the ones they wore."

Born in Cairo, Hassan graduated from Cairo University majoring in accounting. And when he came to United States at the age of 19, he opened a company with his brother-in-law that imported luxurious Egyptian cotten. Unfortunately, the company went belly-up and Hassan moved into the textile converter industry. But he didn't stay there long, switching to the now-defunct E.F. Hutton brokerage where, he admits, he was a gofer. But he found staring at numbers boring, and it was during a lunch break that he walked over to 5th Avenue and 59th Street and saw workmen assembling what he immediately deduced was the interior of a new restaurant. It was Harry Cipriani's and Hassan walked in and got his first restaurant job. Within two months, he was speeding up the ladder of success.

When he arrived earlier this year at Orsay,  Lexington Avenue at 75th Street, Hassan had one goal in mind: expand the business by enhancing the atmosphere, making it more like a party gathering. And get it done fast. So he installed brighter lighting, eliminated the frosted glass between the bar and the dining area and got rid of the wooden computer/linen station in the middle of the dining room.

"It became one big room where everybody can see everybody else," said Hassan. "The dining experience is not only good food, but to see and be seen and to listen to the crowd noise. People come to eat, but they also want to experience a show."

Orsay has become one of the  the busiest upscale eateries in town in an economic downturn that has stalled others.