Musso & Frank Grill

• Cuisine(s): American
  Hours: Tue-Sat 11am-11pm
  Price: $$
• Payment Types: MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Diners Club
  Features: Takeout, Private Party, Business Dining
  Serving: Dinner, Lunch
• Alcohol: Full bar
  Reservations: Accepted, Not Necessary
  Parking: Lot Available, Validation Available

Description

Before Musso & Frank Grill became a martini-fueled Hollywood clubhouse, the place where Faulkner blew out his liver and generations of character actors learned to show up on Wednesday for the chicken potpie, the restaurant was practically a showcase for what was then considered California cuisine, a genteel marriage of the local produce, abundant local fisheries and masculinized lunchroom cooking: avocado cocktails smeared with sweet, pink dressing and frigid bowls of chilled consommé; great naked planks of boiled finnan haddie and dainty plates of crab Louie; kidneys Turbigo. This is what the cosmopolitan life was like, before cosmopolitans. Or if you happen to be of a certain bent, you could always try a long, drowsy lunch of Vicodin, jellied consommé and Welsh rarebit, followed by a desert-dry Gibson and a long nap - an experiment in what one friend calls gout-stool cuisine.