Aside from the glamorous supper clubs on the Sunset Strip, Hollywood had many elegant restaurants that catered to the rich and famous for decades. Three legendary ones were Chasen’s, Perino’s, and the Brown Derby.

Chasen’s

For almost sixty years, Chasen’s restaurant was the place to go for Hollywood stars that reigned from the 1930s to the 1960s. It was situated on the corner of Beverly Boulevard and Doheny Drive. The establishment was opened by Dave Chasen, a vaudeville performer and comedian, at the behest of his friends, director Frank Capra and Harold Ross, the founding editor of The New Yorker. The restaurant was called Chasen’s Southern Pit Barbecue when it opened in 1936.

The vibe changed a few years later. A much more upscale décor was done with red upholstered furniture and leather booths waiters in tuxedos. Original photos of stars and artwork decorated its walls. The restaurant also had a sauna and a full-time barber.

 

Famous tales of the place include the evening when Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre got drunk and stole the restaurant’s safe – which they left in the middle of Beverly Boulevard. Bing Crosby hosted the Pittsburgh Pirates at a dinner in 1949. Orson Welles got into a fight with John Houseman and threw a lit can of Sterno at him.

Many of the regulars had their own booths, such as Jimmy Stewart, Alfred Hitchcock, and Howard Hughes. Ronald Reagan’s booth (No. 2), where he proposed to Nancy Davis, is now preserved in his presidential library in Simi Valley, California.

On any given luncheon or evening soirée one could rub shoulders with George Burns and Gracie Allen, Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Groucho Marx, Greta Garbo, Errol Flynn, Eddie Fisher, Walt Disney, Cary Grant and/or Kirk Douglas. Gangsters Mickey Cohen and FBI director J. Edgar Hoover were spotted there the same night.

Beluga caviar cost $4.50 an ounce. The eastern prime New York cut steak was $5.25, and so was the filet mignon. Couples could order the rack of lamb for $9 or the crêpes Suzette for $4.

The restaurant was most famous for its chili, said to be a favorite of President John Kennedy. Elizabeth Taylor had it flown out to the Rome set of Cleopatra. Chasen’s chili was reportedly Clark Gable’s last meal before he succumbed to cancer. The hobo steak was another favorite, set aflame tableside. Shirley Temple, the drink, was said to have been created by Chasen’s bartender. No credit cards were accepted. The famous could sign their check and have a bill mailed to them.

Later, from the 1970s to the 1990s, stars such as Sharon Stone, Jack Nicholson, John Travolta and Tom Cruise were regular patrons, as were Johnny Carson and Carol Burnett. Donna Summer is said to have written: “She Works Hard for the Money” after talking to a ladies’ room attendant.

The restaurant closed on April 1, 1995, after falling out of favor with customers. It became available for private parties and filming (The Opposite of Sex), but the contents were auctioned off in 1997. The site became a fancy supermarket, Bristol Farms. The original facade is still maintained. A few booths and original panels can still be viewed inside.

Perino’s

 

In 1932, Alexander Perino opened his eponymous restaurant at 3927 Wilshire Boulevard, across from the Ambassador Hotel. It was the height of the Depression. Perino’s secret to his high prices was to give his patrons the freshest and best food money could buy, cooked by his head chef Attilio Balzano – who stayed for the 37 years Perino’s was in business.

Hadley Meares wrote of Perino’s in 2014 at kcet.org: “Although the Depression carried on, Perino continued to raise prices . . . he scoured the world for the best, freshest ingredients, prices are damned. He knew if you gave people the best, they would recognize it. He bought his fish from a Scandinavian man on 1st street, had a farmer in Palos Verdes grow his vegetables, imported lettuce from Kentucky, had caviar hand-delivered from Russia, bought endive from Montana, used only Ethiopian coffee, and once had a man standing by to ensure that calves being slaughtered were just the right age. The menu featured expert, rich European dishes – vermicelli al’uova, gnocchi piedmontese, saltimbocca, cold asparagus with hot vinaigrette, and crème brûlée topped off with Grand Marnier. The décor was always oh so correct and elegant: silver serving dishes stamped at the bottom with ‘Perino’s’ and Irish linen napkins were set on tablecloths woven especially so that lint would never cling to the guests.”

 

A saddle of lamb was $6.75, the veal cutlet was $5.75, the filet of sole was $5.25, and a Spanish omelet was $3.15. This was at a time when the average meal was 5 to 10 cents.

The gangster crowd of the early days gave way to the Hollywood elite, and Perino’s thrived with the likes of its regulars Spencer Tracy, Eleanor Roosevelt, President Nixon, Joan Crawford, Myrna Loy, Fred Astaire, Gary Cooper, Mae West, and Bette Davis. Bugsy Siegel remained a customer and had his own private booth. Patrons showed up in gowns and tuxedos and were served by white-gloved waiters.

Despite the high tone of the restaurant, a Hollywood restaurant always had its share of shenanigans. Here’s one described by Cecilia Rasmussen in an LA Times article in 2004: “Perino liked to tell the story about the customer who stumbled over a hatrack. It fell and hit another diner, who pulled a gun. Perino knocked the weapon out of his hand and told a waiter to hide it. “Where did you put the gun?” Perino asked later. “In the soup,” the waiter replied.

There was also a mobster convention of sorts in 1953, according to Rasmussen. That happened when mob boss Anthony “Big Tuna” Accardo and LA mobster Jack Dragna met at the restaurant. Hassled by the cops, they moved their meeting elsewhere.

A fire forced Perino to relocate to 4101 Wilshire, in 1950. The owner significantly expanded the premises, hiring architect Paul R. Williams to create a mansard façade. Wrought-iron flamingos flanked the porte-cochere.

Another fire swept the restaurant in 1954. Undaunted, Perino reopened the following year with an even more elegant dining room, ample enough to seat 125 elegantly appointed patrons. The new restaurant came with chandeliers, pink tablecloths, and muted-tone furniture.

Perino sold the restaurant in 1969 after his clientele dropped off and the cost of doing business rose. The restaurant can be seen in the gangster scenes of the movies Bugsy and Chaplin.

The Brown Derby

 

According to originalhollywoodbrownderby.com, the first Brown Derby was opened by screenwriter Wilson Mizner on Wilshire Boulevard in 1926. It was funded by Gloria Swanson‘s husband, Herbert K. Somborn, and studio boss Jack L. Warner.

The brown derby-shaped structure was inspired by the hat worn by visiting New York governor and presidential candidate Al Smith. The restaurant’s regulars included Mary Pickford, Will Rogers, Rudolf Valentino, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Harlow, and John and Lionel Barrymore.

The Hollywood branch opened on Valentine’s Day in 1929, in a building on the corner of Hollywood and Vine, at 1628 Vine, the one with a Spanish mission-style facade. This branch became popular with the people who worked in the nearby studios, including the stars, who would receive fan mail addressed to them at The Brown Derby.

Clark Gable proposed to Carole Lombard at booth No. 5. Loretta Young, Kirk Douglas, Esther Williams, William Holden, Arthur Godfrey, and Ronald Reagan would drop in regularly. Gossip queens Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper held court almost daily to pick up material for their columns.

Young told UPI journalist Vernon Scott, “I quickly learned I’d best be careful what I said because the hat-shaped building was a dome inside, it had unusual acoustics. The person sitting on the opposite side of the room could hear everything you said. It was a haven for gossip columnists.”

Hundreds of caricatures of the stars lined the walls, alongside paintings and drawings. The caricatures were the work of Jack Lane and included those of stars like Red Skelton, Anthony Quinn, Dustin Hoffman, David Niven, and Lou Costello. Drawings of Oscar winners such as Bette Davis, Richard Dreyfuss, Sally Field and Katharine Hepburn were displayed in the Academy Room.

 

Original portraits by Nicholas Volpe – of singers and musicians like Petula Clark, Ella Fitzgerald, Glenn Miller, Andy Williams, and Lena Horne – were placed in the restaurant’s Hall of Fame Record Room. There was a courtyard in the back and a banquet room. Table-side telephones were available, a first for a restaurant.

The dress code for women was: a skirt or a dress. It was enforced until the 1960s. There was a report of Marlene Dietrich being turned away for wearing pants, in 1933.

The Cobb Salad, named after manager Bob Cobb, was said to have been created here specifically for Sid Grauman (who had had dental work done). The famous grapefruit cake was also invented here. In 1939, Cobb said to a reporter, “Clark Gable has to have his coffee just right and Alice Faye’s boiled eggs can’t be left on too long. Gary Cooper’s fried chicken must be dry rather than greasy. And that’s the way they get ’em. They get ’em that way even though we have to tear the kitchen apart.”

An article entitled “Star Grazing” published in June 1939 said of the Hollywood Brown Derby: “Stop by at noon or at dinner time and you’ll see Tyrone Power, for example, eating his favorite boiled brisket of beef with horseradish sauce and a glass of milk. Janet Gaynor will be ordering Turkey Derby, a creamed specialty. You’ll see Eddie Cantor demolishing hamburger steak, dry, no onions, Al Jolson bolting chicken chow mein and American tea, and Claudette Colbert going in a big way for chicken hash Somborn. Claudette never has to diet. Or perhaps you’ll find Jack Benny and Mary Livingston enjoying a snack between radio rehearsals. Both will probably be ordering ham, but he must be Westphalia and hers must be Virginia. Numbered among the Derbys’s best customers, they collect a lot of “gags” around the place. They even write radio scripts there!”

In 1980, the Wilshire location closed. It became a parking lot and, then, a mini-mall called the Brown Derby Plaza. The Vine Street Derby closed on April 3, 1985, due to lease disputes. The building was taken over by the homeless. It was razed by the city in 1994.

In 2014, the art collection of the Brown Derby was sold to the public by the San Francisco Art Exchange. The collection included original art and photographs for the covers of Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon,” the Cars’ “Candy-O,” the Beatle’s “Abbey Road” and Led Zeppelin’s “In Through the Out Door,” as well as Volpe’s original paintings and Lane’s caricatures.