Don't call me a restaurateur! Confessions of the cockney who conquered New York
S ome people seem to live many lives in the time that most of us manage just one. Keith McNally, 73, is such a person. Born poor in Bethnal Green, east London, before the age of 20 he was an actor, romantically involved with Alan Bennett, who he says 'enriched my life in ways I find hard to explain'. In many memoirs — many lives — a relationship with one of the most notable playwrights of the 20th century would be the most interesting thing to happen. In I Regret Almost Everything it is merely a warm-up.
McNally — the New York restaurateur 'who invented downtown', as journalists seem obliged to describe him — was born in 1951, and has been at the centre of the
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