On A Neck, On A Spit

socalfood:

Recipes from Romanoffs, Supper Club to the Stars

Once upon a time there was a peasant boy from Lithuania who had a gift for spinning tall tales. He scraped by as a petty criminal and check forger, using a variety of aliases, until his genial character and entertaining stories made him the toast of Hollywood society. Sporting a crew cut and indefinable British accent, he began to claim he was Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff, nephew of the last tsar of Russia, and in 1939 the beloved rake was backed by some of Hollywood’s finest — including Charlie Chaplin, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney — to open a restaurant that would become the supper club of the ’40s and ’50s.

Romanoff claimed that the secret to his success was hiring a good French chef, and the food at Romanoffs aped the pretensions of fine cooking at the time. The menu included heavy and rich mid-century country club fare like Waldorf salad, tomatoes stuffed with crab, filet mignon, frog legs, eggs Benedict and sausages on toast. Romanoffs was famous for its desserts, treats like strawberries Romanoff and chocolate soufflé. Stiff drinks were probably the most popular items on the menu, with Bogart alone ordering three drinks (two scotch and sodas and a coffee with brandy) every day for lunch.

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