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Songs for Your Supper

Gardenia Restaurant and Lounge

By Christine Landry

Appeared in Gorgeous magazine, October/November issue

In a low, cream building among the glaring signs of Santa Monica Boulevard (Target, Formosa Café) sits the unassuming gem: Gardenia Restaurant and Lounge, an old-fashioned girl of a place ready for its close-up. This intimate restaurant with its baby grand piano feels like a speakeasy from the past. The setting is low-key, the lighting, moody (reminding my companion of the aurora borealis), and you might as well befriend the people at the neighboring table since you’re sitting so close to them. But no matter, the place—rumored to be the oldest remaining supper club in the country—has the feel of one big happy family whatever your persuasion may be: gay, straight, young, old.

Owner Tom Rolle opened this restaurant twenty-five years ago. Having grown up among restaurant owners before becoming a dancer on Broadway, he considers it the natural combination of his love of a good show and a good meal. Performances here range from $5-20, plus a two-drink minimum. You don’t have to order dinner to see the show, but you should if you want a good seat for it, and reservations are recommended. Singers perform whatever suits their fancy and sometimes whatever suits yours. And don’t be surprised to find here former Supremes singers (Susaye Green) and Tony awardees (Linda Lavin of the sitcom Alice and Broadway fame).

Our openers for the meal were a study in simplicity. An appetizer of prosciutto accompanied by fresh figs cut like barely open rosebuds let the savory meat and mild fruit speak for themselves while the comforting stracciatella soup was brothy and well seasoned with spinach and thin threads of egg throughout.

Next came my entrée of shrimp in a lime ginger sauce served with rice and green beans. The sauce was citrusy without the overkill, a pleasantly light dish. My companion’s penne had rolls of moist eggplant carefully arranged in a red sauce flecked with herbs. Hidden pine nuts offered a nice crunch, and in case you’re wondering what that unusual spice in the dish is—no, not cumin and not nutmeg. It’s cinnamon that gives the dish some mystery without overpowering the other flavors.

For dessert there was chocolate wipeout, described to us by our server, a laid-back friendly sort, as “chocolate on chocolate on chocolate.” The cake was surprisingly light with a mousse-like icing and chocolate chips, decidedly not overwhelming in all its chocolateness. Our other dessert was the white chocolate ice cream with a lemon sorbet center dipped in white chocolate—a mouthful to order but a wonderfully gussied-up version of the Dairy Queen chocolate-dipped ice cream cone.

But the real finale of the evening was Andrea Marcovicci, the performer for the night. When her many diamonds weren’t catching the light, her personality was. She sings, she jokes, she flirts playfully with other women’s husbands and don’t be surprised to find her discussing Edna St. Vincent Millay, fur pelts and her bosom all in one night. She is, in fact, a consummate entertainer as she puts on her cabaret show of Fred Astaire, Cole Porter, World War II classics and more.

Upon leaving, my companion was already discussing his return to Gardenia with a date (no, not moi) because dates are best when you share an out-of-the-ordinary experience together, and Gardenia fits the bill perfectly.