But enough sightseeing. It's time for the local midday ritual. At one p.m. sharp, the conga line of imported cars queue up at valet parking stands at Spago and Crustacean and a dozen other restaurants, the strivers leaping out and heading for lunch. Martin was hesitant to name specific restaurants - "Because then people go there to hunt me down," he says - but, with just a little pressure, he names quite a few.

"There's the Farm of Beverly Hills, very nice, good, wholesome food, California food. There used to be a really nice Chinese restaurant called the Mandarin. It just recently closed, but it had been open for years. I was sorry to see it go. One reason we used to go there was because it was always empty. That's why it closed. There's the Urth Caffé on Melrose. It's a Zen-health, happening spot. I've only been there for, like, brunch, Sunday tea."
The Farm sounds good. Parking in a $12-an-hour Beverly Boulevard subterranean parking structure, I walk onto the patio, which looks like a dozen other patios at lunchtime in Beverly Hills. But inside you'd think you were in Iowa: farm implements and pitchforks and giant farm animals. "Fresh Off the Farm," the T-shirts proclaim, as young Beverly Hills sits down to lunch. There's a 15-minute wait, which the attendant says she can assuage by giving me a goat cheese salad to go. "You can eat in the park," she says. I figure Martin didn't mean for me to eat in the park, so I wait for the table, studying the menu and advertisements urging me to send the Farm's famous brownies as gifts: "If it's good enough for celebs to mail, it's good enough for you." After lunch, I'm back in the convertible, and Martin is sending me on an architectural tour, beginning with, of all places, the police station.

"Beverly Hills is very well run. Unfortunately, they are doing away with the street parking, turning it into all valet parking, but they've left some. There is a good police force, and they've got guys on bicycles, police on bicycles, so it has a very small-town feel … [The police station is] beautiful, they did a great job with some kind of Moroccan/­Moorish look."