Musso & Frank is the oldest restaurant in Hollywood and is famous, among other things, for having been the first US restaurant to serve the mighty fettuccine Alfredo (a dish with an Italian name totally absent from Italian cuisine) in 1927. Also, the place is famous for its Martinis: in 2008 GQ magazin elected it as the best place to have a Martini in America (wow!) and 2018 the restaurant served more than 55,272 of them (150 per day, if the place would be open all year long).
Settled on Hollywood Boulevard since 1919, Musso & Frank is a living monument to the city of Angels, and a must-visit place despite its touristic status (they just published a book on their history). The place could not be more classic, with waiters in red jackets moving swiftly amid red leather booths under wood-paneled ceilings, and all is like it used to be back in the good old Hollywood days, when prople such as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gore Vidal, Dorothy Parker, Charles Bukowski used to sip their Martinis here, amid any hollywood celebrity you can imagine.
Their Martini is also extremely classic, as expected. The bartender fills a mixing glass with ice, adds either gin or vodka (you choose), and stirs it exactly twelve times—no more, no less, and pours the drink into a small glass—smaller than your average Martini coupe – while the rest of the cocktail is served in a tiny carafe nestled in a dish of crushed ice, waiting patiently for your second pour. As a ganrish, two Spanish olives, house-brined in a mix of water, salt, herbs, and pepper.
So if you ever find yourself in Hollywood, head to Musso & Frank, sit at the bar, order a Martini, drink to the glamourous past of Hollywood and to its famous drinkers, and then head for dinner.
The Martini Hour 