HOUSE DRESSING

They set the tone, greeting you at the desk, fussing over flowers, unruffling the waiters. They are the sartorial scions of Manhattan s more style-conscious restaurants. The best-dressed men on the menu. Style by ANDRE LEON TALLEY.

Glenn Bembaum's Upper East Side country club is so relentlessly social, three maitre d's work in shifts. "My surrogate sons," Bembaum calls them. Number-one son, Jack Palmer,left, has done weekends since he gave up working at Chemical Bank to pursue an acting career. He likes Bill Blass—"especially the jackets, as they are tailored for American men, whose shoulders and legs are bigger." Number-two son, Robert Caravaggi,inset, grew up in a restaurant, his father's famous but now defunct Quo Vadis. Off-duty, he wears Matsuda to perform in his rock band, Modem Society. On-duty, he wears suits, usually Giorgio Armani, usually doublebreasted. "They build me up," he says.

Harry Cipriani

Giuseppe Cipriani runs his father's Fifth Avenue eatery in a series of custom-tailored Italian suits. "Even on weekends I am dressed like this," says the twenty-two-year-old Venetian, flashing the red silk lining of his dark-blue cashmere overcoat, also custom-made, in Italy.

La Grenouille

"I think my mother wanted me to be a couturier," says Charles Masson, "as she worked at Dior." Instead he studied architecture and took over the running of the family restaurant with his mother, Gis61e, when his father died in 1975. Like father, like son, Charles is a metteur en seine, arranging the trademark floral arrangements from six A.M., designing the new ceilings inlaid with African bubinga, avodire, and rosewood. Sartorially, he likes "comfort in a suit."

Cafe Sphinx

Since the elegant Egyptian twins, Zachy and Gamal SheriJf, left for other mysteries, Carlos Pineiro is among those carrying the fashion flame at this downtown bistro. He found the job via the New York Times, having started his catering career as a dishwasher at Howard Johnson's.

Le Cirque

Full-time, Mario Maccioni studies political theory at N.Y.U. Part-time, he studies his father Sirio's accomplished diplomacy at Le Cirque. "I'm not interested at all in a political career, but I am interested in the study of politics, especially U.S. intelligence agencies," says Mario, twenty-one. The establishments he patronizes himself include the Milk Bar and King Tut's Wa Wa Hut.