Living Up to Its History

Preston Sturges was one of the greatest filmmakers in America. Unfortunately, he wanted to be a restaurateur.

You can see this in his movies, which contain some of the greatest eating scenes ever filmed. Veronica Lake meets Joel McCrea in an “owl wagon” in “Sullivan’s Travels,” spends her last dime on his breakfast and foils his attempt at poverty. In the “Palm Beach Story,” the Ale and Quail Club eat their way down the coast, wreck the dining car and generally have a hell of a time. “The Great McGinty” ends up as a bartender--and Mad Wednesday (otherwise known as “The Sin of Harold Diddlebock”) is probably the greatest homage to drink ever filmed.

But Sturges was not content with celluloid restaurants; he wanted the real thing. He was the major investor in Snyder’s, a restaurant on the site of the present Spago. That failed, and in 1940 Sturges opened the Players, a sprawling restaurant/theater/club just down Sunset Boulevard. He loved having a place of his own--inviting friends over, plying them with food and drink until the wee hours of the morning, picking up the check. He loved staging plays in the theater upstairs too--he loved the life of the place. What he wanted was a party he could always drop in on; what he didn’t want was to worry about turning a profit. And he never did.

The Players became a sort of L.A. icon. Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye” opens in the parking lot of a restaurant on the Sunset Strip called the Dancers where, “they get the sort of people that disillusion you about what a lot of golfing money can do for the personality.” A lot of money would have done a lot for the restaurant’s personality, but Sturges didn’t have it. The Players closed--and then turned into the Imperial Gardens. At one time it was the city’s premier Japanese restaurant, but I suspect Sturges would have considered that small consolation.

If only he were around to see his restaurant’s latest incarnation: The Players is now a place called Roxbury--and it’s jumping. Sturges would have been pleased; his club may have defined L.A. in the ‘40s, but Roxbury is straight out of the ‘90s.

“The Dancers was a blaze of light. The terrace was packed. The parking lot was like ants on a piece of overripe fruit.” Chandler wrote that in 1949 in “The Little Sister,” but change the name and it applies today; on a Saturday night the traffic in front of Roxbury is backed up for blocks as people slow down to see which stars are going in. (Roxbury opened with a party for Elton John.) And if you are trying to get out of the place, good luck; it can easily take an hour for the valet to retrieve your car. So you might as well make the wait worthwhile and spend the evening.

This is easy to do. You can dance (in the upstairs disco), drink (in the cozy club downstairs, where Roy (Guitar) Gaines turns out serious blues), and eat (in the slick restaurant overlooking the Strip). What makes this package particularly appealing is that the rooms are completely separate. The bar is all overstuffed red velvet chairs, the restaurant is a hip urban barn and the disco is pure, stark high energy. What links the three is the strange stairway, with its dangling chandelier--a sort of mix of the hip and the hokey. And, of course, the crowd--which is L.A. at its hippest. Those who aren’t twentysomething are pretending that they are. This is a wonderland of flashing flesh and cascading hair.

The food plays right into the L.A. fantasy--there’s not a trendy dish that’s missing from the menu. And if the dishes don’t always succeed (and they don’t), at least it is reasonably priced. If there weren’t a $20 minimum per person, you could easily get away for less.

The rule to follow here is basic--stick with the simple stuff. Among the appetizers that includes barbecue ribs, which come with an intensely garlicky cole slaw. It’s great food for drinks--and this is a cocktail crowd. One Saturday night mine was virtually the only table sporting wine glasses. The drink of choice seems to be something called Pineapple Vodka, which sits marinating in a gigantic jar on the upstairs bar. It goes particularly well with Louisiana Popcorn--little fried crayfish that are easy to pop into your mouth in vast quantities.

I can’t understand why the Caesar salad isn’t more impressive, but then none of the salads are. The crab cakes tend to be mushy, and the crispy oysters with smoked chile cream and salsa are closer to the fried oysters you’d find in a fast food stand than they are to what is served up the street at Spago. But the one dish to avoid at all costs is “sweet corn tamale with bay scallops and tomatillo sauce”; the ingredients have an unpleasant similarity of texture while the flavors engage in all out war.

The entrees tend to be better. Broiled lamb chops with oven roasted potatoes are appealing, and the fried chicken with lumpy mashed potatoes is terrific (although I was not enamored of the overdone beans that came with it). There’s a decent steak (for $17.50!) and a pretty good grilled breast of chicken with corn bread stuffing. The pastas tend to have slightly watery sauces, but they are perfectly respectable. The various broiled fish are fresh and fine, and the seared rare tuna is really rare. The one main course I wouldn’t order again is the seafood sampler; the plate is a sort of hodgepodge of little tastes--charred tuna, ceviche, curried crayfish salad, shrimp remoulade--and not very satisfying.

Desserts include an unremarkable creme brulee and a cranberry apple bread pudding that has far too much spice for its own good. Spice is highly valued here; all the waiters kept warning me off of the banana sour cream pie by telling me how bland it was. “Fine,” I said on my last visit, “I’ll try it anyway.” It was sort of bland--but I liked it. It tasted of bananas and sour cream, it wasn’t too sweet--and it was far and away my favorite desert on the list.

The coffee’s also pretty bland; I kept wishing it were stronger. The chef needs to remember one of Preston Sturges’ greatest lines: If you can’t sleep at night, it isn’t the coffee, it’s the bunk.

Roxbury

8225 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood, (213) 656-1750.

Open for dinner Tuesday-Saturday (last orders taken at midnight). Full bar. Valet parking. American Express, MasterCard, Visa accepted. Dinner for two, food only, $40-80.

Recommended dishes: barbecue ribs with garlic slaw, $6.50; fried chicken, $12.50; lamb chops, $19; banana sour cream pie, $5.50.