I'm sitting in DuPlex, the new Tony McManus restaurant in Tribeca, with Christopher Armstrong, who also works at P & P. We went to Exeter together, then he went to the University of Pennsylvania and Wharton, before moving to Manhattan. We, inexplicably, could not get reservations at Subjects, so Armstrong suggested this place. Armstrong is wearing a four-button double-breasted chalk-striped spread-collar cotton shirt by Christian Dior and a large paisley-patterned silk tie by Givenchy Gentleman. His leather agenda and leather envelope, both by Bottega Veneta, lie on the third chair at our table, a good one, up front by the window. I'm wearing a nailhead-patterned worsted wool suit with overplaid from DeRigueur by Schoeneman, a cotton broadcloth shirt by Bill Blass, a Macclesfield silk tie by Savoy and a cotton handkerchief by Ashear Bros. A Muzak rendition of the score from Les Misérables plays lightly throughout the restaurant. Armstrong's girlfriend is Jody Stafford, who used to date Todd Hamlin, and this fact plus the TV monitors hanging from the ceilings with closed-circuit video of chefs working in the kitchen fills me with nameless dread. Armstrong just got back from the islands and has a very deep, very even tan, but so do I.