Off The Menu: The Last Day’s of Chasen’s

Chasen’s was one of the last hold outs of the “golden age” of Hollywood. It was (in essence) a supper club that served up knife and fork food. They did this in an ego-less way, while catering to an ego indulgent clientele. Though not a great “film”, it still is very entertaining to see the history and hear the stories.

I really enjoyed hearing the staff members talk about their experiences. “They” were the true super stars: dedicated, professional, hard-working and all without whining.

Nowadays, you ask a server for something and you most likely will hear “ummmmm like, our “chef” doesn’t want to serve the salad dressing on the side cuz, like, its not how he conceived the dish and we feel like, ummm that the integrity of the dish will be, like compromised.

There still are a few haunts like this left and I hold them very dear. In the Phoenix desert lives the mighty “Durant’s”. A well oiled machine of a restaurant that serves healthy slabs of rare meat, unhealthy piles of garlic butter soaked bread and pours a very stiff drink… quickly.