The 10 Most Famous Restaurants of Old Hollywood | Cultured Elegance 

Here are 10 of the most famous restaurants of  old Hollywood and the dishes, regulars, and stories that kept them in memory. Muso and Frank  Grill. Muso and Frank Grill opened on Hollywood Boulevard in 1919, and more than a century later,  it is still there. Inside were red leather booths, dark wood, red jacketed waiters, strong  martinis, and a menu that held on to another era. Muso served Welsh rarbit, lamb kidneys,  chickenpie, steaks, sand dabs, and flannel cakes.

The flannel cakes were created by Chef Jean Rue in  the 1920s. They were thin, light, slightly sweet, and often described as somewhere between a crepe  and a pancake. One of Muso’s best food stories involves Mary Pigford and Douglas Fairbanks.  After traveling in Italy, they reportedly asked the restaurant to make Fetuccini Alfredo for  them in Hollywood.

 The restaurant also became a headquarters for writers F. Scott Fitzgerald,  William Faulner, Raymond Chandler, Nathaniel West, John Fante, and countless screenwriters sat  in its booths between studio assignments, lunches, drinks, and arguments. Charlie Chaplan,  Greta Garbo, Rudolph Valentino, Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Wells, and Elizabeth Taylor  also belong to its long record.

 The Brown Derby, the first Brown Derby opened on Wilshire Boulevard  in 1926. The Hollywood Brown Derby on Vine Street became the location most connected to the movie  business. The original building was shaped like a derby hat. The Hollywood location had  something even more valuable. The wall of celebrity caricatures.

 To have your face drawn  meant Hollywood had accepted you into its visible world. The Brown Derby’s most famous dish was Cobb  salad. The usual story credits owner Robert Cobb with making it late one night for Sid Groman, the  theater owner behind Groman’s Chinese Theater. The salad included chopped greens, turkey  or chicken, bacon, hard-boiled egg, tomato, avocado, blue cheese, and dressing.

 The restaurant  also had grapefruit cake, a light citrus cake with cream cheese frosting and fresh grapefruit. Clark  Gable, Carol Lombard, Joan Crawford, Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz, and Bob Hope all passed through the  derby’s history. Gossip columnists watched the room closely. A lunch could become news if the  right person noticed who sat together, who avoided each other, or who entered after a studio meeting.

  Chason’s Chason’s opened in 1936 at 939 Beverly Boulevard. It began as a barbecue restaurant and  grew into one of Beverly Hills great celebrity dining rooms. Its most famous dish was chili.  Elizabeth Taylor loved Chason’s chili so much that she reportedly had it sent to her while filming  Cleopatra in Rome. The chili was thick, rich, and made with beef, pork, and beans.

 Walt Disney  also liked Chason’s chili, which gives the dish another strong Hollywood connection. Ronald Reagan  had his own place in Chason’s history. He proposed to Nancy Davis there in 1952, and their booth  later became part of the restaurant’s legend. Reagan’s favorite Chason’s dish was often  described as boiled beef. The menu also included steaks, seafood, caviar, cocktails, hobo steak,  banana shortcake, and formal American dishes.

Regulars included Frank Sinatra, James Stewart,  Alfred Hitchcock, Groucho Marx, Carrie Grant, Walt Disney, Elizabeth Taylor, and Richard  Burton. Sinatra, Hitchcock, James Stewart, and Groucho Marks all had booze linked to their  names. Romanoffs. Romanoffs opened in Beverly Hills in 1940 and closed at the end of 1962.

 Its  owner, Michael Romangh, claimed to be Russian royalty. He was actually born Hershel Gagen in  Lithuania. In Hollywood, an invented identity could become excellent branding. Humphrey Bogart,  Marilyn Monroe, Carrie Grant, Frank Sinatra, Elizabeth Taylor, and Grace Kelly all dined there.  Grace Kelly celebrated at Romanoffs after winning the Academy Award for the Country Girl. The menu  had an elegant country club style.

 Waldorf salad, crab stuffed tomatoes, felt minion, frog  legs, eggs, benedict, sausages on toast, and chocolate sule. The chocolate sule is the dish  to remember. It was polished, old-fashioned, and just theatrical enough for Beverly Hills. There’s  also a useful correction. Strawberries Romanoff is often linked to the restaurant, but the dessert  was older.

 August Escopier had created an earlier version at the Carlton Hotel in London. Michael  Romangh helped popularize his version in America, though he did not invent the original. Romanoffs  had famous guests, a famous host, a borrowed royal identity, and dessert served with a little  performance. Seros Seos opened at 8433 Sunset Boulevard in 1940 and became one of the defining  nightclubs of the Sunset Strip.

 Before Ceros, the building housed Club Seville, which tried a glass  dance floor over a giant aquarium. The gimmick failed and the club closed within a year. Cirros  found the better formula: supper, cocktails, dancing, live entertainment, columnists, and  movie stars. A visit could include steak, chicken, seafood, salads, coffee, dessert, and cocktails  before the entertainment began.

 Then came the music, dancing, performers, introductions, and the  chance to be noticed by exactly the right people. The room gave the place its charge, tables  arranged for visibility, cocktails in hand, a performer only a few feet away, and a crowd  filled with agents, studio heads, gossip writers, and famous actors.

 Marilyn Monroe, Ava Gardner,  Lana Turner, Lucille Ball, Desi Ares, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Judy Garland, Hetta Hopper,  and Luella Parsons. all moved through its world. The building later became the comedy store, giving  the same address another life in show business. Sierra Rose was a night out with consequences. A  performance, a romance, an argument or a rumor, could leave the club and reach the papers by  morning. The Macambo.

 The Mambo opened in 1941 at 8588 Sunset Boulevard. It became one of the  most recognizable clubs on the strip. The interior had Latin American inspired decor, theatrical  color, and glass aviaries filled with live birds, including parrots, macaw, and cockatos. The supper  club format meant steaks, seafood, chicken dishes, salads, desserts, coffee, and cocktails before the  show. Guests came for the whole night.

 the table, the drink, the meal, the music, the feathers,  the flashbulbs, and the faces around the room. The club is tied to the story of Ella Fitzgerald  and Marilyn Monroe. The familiar version says, “Marilyn helped persuade the club to book  Ella by promising to sit at a front table.” Fitzgerald later spoke warmly about Marilyn’s  support.

 Some details have been debated, so the story is best told with care. Marilyn Monroe,  Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Lana Turner, Humphrey Bogart, and Lauren Beall  all belong to the club’s lore. Cafe Trokadero. Cafe Trokado opened in 1934 at 8,610 Sunset  Boulevard. Billy Wilkerson, publisher of the Hollywood Reporter, created it.

 Stars came to  the club, the press covered them, and the room became even more desirable. The Trokadero was  French inspired, formal, and black tie. It had a cream and gold dining room, a Parisian feeling,  cocktails, dinner, careful service, and late night conversation. The food matched the room.  Steaks, chops, seafood, salads, desserts, coffee, and cocktails served in a dining room made for  entrances.

 One of its best details is the little truck, a private downstairs bar reportedly created  after Norma Shearer complained that stars had no private place to go. Photographers and reporters  were kept out. The main dining room helped stars be seen. The downstairs bar gave them somewhere to  disappear. The trocado closed in 1939, though its influence lasted.

 It helped make the Sunset Strip  a place where Hollywood went to dine and be talked about. The Coconut Grove. The Coconut Grove opened  inside the Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in 1921. It became one of Los Angeles major rooms  for dinner, dancing, music, and events. It hosted Academy Awards ceremonies, big band nights,  gallas, and performances by major entertainers. The menu details give the room a real taste.

  A surviving Ambassador Hotel Coconut Grove menu listed a special dinner for $3. Choices  included artichoke cocktail with mustard dressing, mixed fruit supreme, tomato juice frappe, and  other multicourse dinner items. That means chilled tomato juice, fruit, artichoke cocktail, formal  service, and California produce inside Grand Hotel dining.

 Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Lena Horn,  Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Harry Bellfonte, Dean Martin, and many others performed or appeared  there. People dressed for it. Bands played. Couples danced. Awards were handed out. Movie  people crossed the floor under palms and lights. The Coconut Grove had $3 dinners, music, dancing,  and Oscar nights inside one of Los Angeles’s most famous hotels, Parinos. Pirinos opened in 1932  on Wilshire Boulevard.

 In 1950, it moved to 4101 Wilshire Boulevard, where architect Paul R.  Williams transformed the building into one of Los Angeles’s most elegant restaurants. The redesign  included an upswept Mansard facade, a port kosher, rot iron flamingos, and a refined dining room. The  menu offered refined continental dining, steaks, seafood, salads, soulets, formal desserts, and  careful service. It changed daily.

 On special occasions, pressed duck was prepared at the  table using an antique duck press once owned by Joan Crawford and her husband Alfred Steel.  Joan Crawford, Carrie Grant, Marilyn Monroe, Alfred Hitchcock, Dean Martin, Joe Deaggio,  Elizabeth Taylor, Grace Kelly, and old Los Angeles society figures all entered its world.

 The dining  room had pink tones, velvet bett, chandeliers, mirrors, linen covered tables, and formal service.  The evening started before the first dish arrived with the car pulling under the port kosher and the  guest entering a room designed for status. Perinos closed in 1986 and the building was demolished  in 2005. It was Wilshire Boulevard polish, pressed duck, soulets, silver service, Paul  Williams architecture, and a dining room made for people who expected the setting to match their  name. Schwab’s pharmacy.

 Schwab’s Pharmacy was a drugstore and soda fountain on Sunset Boulevard.  Its food tells a different Hollywood story. Schwabs served coffee, sandwiches, sodas, ice  cream, fountain drinks, and counter food. Actors, writers, studio workers, columnists, and  hopeful young performers stopped in and lingered. The columnist Sydney Skolski helped  make Schwabs famous.

 His photoplay column was called From a Stool at Schwabs, turning the  drugstore counter into Hollywood mythology. The biggest Schwabs legend involves Lana Turner.  For years, people repeated that she was discovered at Schwabs. Turner herself said the real discovery  happened at the Top Hat Cafe near Hollywood High School.

 Someone could sit at the counter with  coffee, a sandwich, or a soda and imagine that the right person might walk in. No caviar, no  sule, no Oscar party, just a counter stool, a fountain drink and the dream that Hollywood might  notice. These places turned meals into Hollywood history at Chason’s, a sule at Romanoffs, supper  on the Sunset Strip, pressed duck at Parinos, and a soda at Schwabs. Different rooms, different  menus, the same promise.

 Sit at the right table and Hollywood might notice. Thank you everyone  so much for watching Cultured Elegance. If you’d love to support the channel, you can become  a channel member today by clicking join at the bottom of the screen. Thank you everyone so  much for watching and I’ll see you in the next