Crêpes Flambé?

On FX’s scorching comedy ‘Rescue Me’ Denis Leary and Callie Thorne play mercurial exes. But while enjoying Chef Vongerichten’s Perry Street fare, the two trade friendly potshots over poached eggs—managing to get scant little on their faces.

“Jean-Georges Vongerichten can’t be a religious man,” says Denis Leary, as he puts down his fork, “because every time you eat something he makes you go, ‘Fuck! Oh shit! Jesus fucking Christ!’” Here, the man known to friends as “Doctor” Denis Leary (listen to track three on his best-selling 1993 album No Cure For Cancer) and his “Rescue Me” costar Callie Thorne take time out in Manhattan’s West Village to talk scallions, heart attacks, and emasculation by straw. 
—Una LaMarche

BLACKBOOK: So, this is your favorite restaurant in New York?
DENIS LEARY: This is my favorite restaurant in the world. There’s a dish that they got rid of. It’s a soft, poached egg, which is like handling an amoeba. And then somehow they encrust it, right? That’s on top of a potato pancake, and then there’s caviar on top. So when you cut down, you go from caviar, through the soft poached egg, into potato pancake.

CALLIE THORNE: We [the cast of “Rescue Me”] had all come one time, but John Scurti [who plays Lt. Kenny “Lou” Shea] hadn’t been before. We were all sitting at this table, actually, and the place was packed, and John cuts through his steak like butter, takes two bites and then he gets up, pushes over another chair and lies down flat on the ground. [laughs]

DL: When he has a fake heart attack, that means that the food is really good. [Leary sips ginger ale from a straw.] I always feel so effeminate drinking from a straw. This friend of mine used to do this bit, and he’d go, “You know, it’s impossible to actually be a tough guy when you have a straw in your drink.” Because, you know, what you’re saying is something like, I’ll fuckin crush you like a fuckin bug. I’ll kill your family, I’ll fuckin piss on your family, and then I’ll kill you! [He takes a long, dainty sip from the straw.]

CT: But here is what’s so dear about you, Dr. Denis Leary: You squeezed your lime and then put it back on the rim!

DL: Yeah, it’s just for the photograph.

CT: [skeptically] Really…

[Both smoke.]

BB: As smokers, how do you feel about Bloomberg’s smoking ban?

DL: I smoke everywhere. I’ve smoked at the Mayor’s, at a function.

BB: Really?

DL: It’s an old criminal motto. If you do the most obvious thing in plain sight, people don’t believe they just saw what they saw. So with the smoking, I just light up.

[The food arrives: crab salad festooned with violets, followed by seared tuna.]

WAITER: Here’s a little surprise [He brings out the poached egg dish.]

DL: [moans] That’s the egg thing!

CT: They made it special for you!

DL: If I could cook, this is the thing I would cook.

CT: I don’t even eat crab, but this—

DL: I don’t eat crab either, but if you bring that fucking fork any closer, I’ll fucking stab you! [Leary notices a dish of salt on the table.] The other great thing about Jean-Georges is he gives you free cocaine.

BB: Um, Callie, you’re in two movies coming up, right?

CT: Yes, I have one that premiered at Tribeca [Film Festival] called [thinking]

DL: [sarcastically] Nice.

CT: Watching the Detectives. That’s with Lucy Liu and Cillian Murphy. And then there’s the Tom DiCillo movie, with Elvis Costello. That’s called Delirious, and I’m very excited about both of them.

[Leary’s publicist stops at the table to say goodbye.]

DL: What else do I have on Monday?

PUBLICIST: The Rolling Stone thing.

CT: [to Leary] Have you been in Rolling Stone?

DL: No, but I got called a cunt in Rolling Stone. Sting called me a cunt.

BB: Why?

DL: I said something about his hair, or lack thereof, and he called me a cunt and said that when I got older we should compare hair. And I’m like, let’s go! [shakes his full mane] I’m 50! Let’s go!

BB: You’re coming out with a book soon, aren’t you? You could retaliate.

DL: Yeah, I am coming out with a book. Fuck! When is that coming out? A year from this fall.

CT: It’s called “How Much I Like Working With Callie Thorne.”

DL: No, it’s Kiss My Irish Ass. But you were close.

[Smoking break.]

BB: While you were out, the waiter refolded your napkins.

CT: Aw, that’s nice.

DL: Well, if they hadn’t, we would have walked out. [Asparagus risotto is served.] You going to eat the rest of that, Callie?

CT: No, I don’t like those scallion pieces.

DL: I could bathe in scallions. I could bathe in chocolate, too. Someday, I’m actually going to own a hotel, and that will be the first thing guests hear when they arrive: “Ma’am, your chocolate bath is ready.”