The Gardenia: A Blossoming Boite

Tom Rolla’s Gardenia Restaurant and Lounge is the sort of place where you hear testimonials like, “This is one of the few truly intimate, ‘30s-style elegant boites in L.A. That’s b - o - i - t - e .”

Although elegant is stretching it, the Gardenia is tiny, boite -like and definitely something of a throwback, where spelling in French goes with the territory.

Located in a marginal neighborhood in Hollywood a block away from a Shakey’s Pizza, the Gardenia has several rare qualities. There’s no valet parking. (“I said to my husband, ‘Are you ready to run?’ ” said self-parker Terry Hartman, an infomercial producer.) And there’s no cappuccino.

You come to hear music, most of it classified as cabaret-style, yet an upcoming act is called Glenn Mehrbach’s Hair Club for Men featuring Michael Bonnabel and Glenn Holmen.

Still, the Gardenia has become almost synonymous with Andrea Marcovicci, an actress who reinvented her singing career here in 1985 and has been appearing ever since. Whenever she’s in town (which is infrequently and irregularly these days because of appearances in New York’s Algonquin Hotel Oak Room and other rooms around the country), she turns up at the Gardenia for sold-out performances.

It works like this: “The minute I have a hint of my availability, I call Tom,” she explained. The next time will either be February or June. Depending.

“She’s my heartthrob,” said Rolla, an ex-Broadway dancer who opened the club 12 years ago and also does the cooking. “This is home for her.”

Last weekend, Marcovicci used the club as a kind of workshop to fine-tune new material for her November engagement at Carnegie Hall. “I want to be her,” cooed one fan.

Dinner at the Gardenia would seem to be secondary to the music, but most of the regulars say they enjoy the food equally and always book a table for dinner. Food is served at banquettes located no farther from the postage-stamp-sized “stage” than your sofa would be from your television.

What’s also unusual about the Gardenia is that it’s a late-night club where the majority of people hanging out don’t have too many years to go before reaching--or have already reached--the half-century mark.

Last weekend, they included a free-lance radio journalist, a singer, a lawyer, a full-time volunteer, a few movie directors (including, at Marcovicci’s table, Henry Jaglom, a former beau who directed her in “Someone to Love”), and some recognizable television stars.

Whether or not those qualities add up to a New York kind of place, most people think they do. “It’s New Yorky. It’s certainly not Santa Monica Boulevardy,” said Betty Shapian, a publicist who drops in frequently.

“To go to a cabaret at all is a New York thing,” assured Marcovicci. “And people who listen to a lyric and stop a song because of their laughter--that makes it a New York kind of room.”

* Name: Tom Rolla’s Gardenia Restaurant and Lounge.

* Where: 7066 Santa Monica Blvd., Hollywood.

* When: 9 p.m. shows Monday through Saturday; midnight shows added on Saturdays when Marcovicci appears.

* Doorman: None.

* Prices: Cover ranges from $4-$12, depending on the act, plus dinner or a two-drink minimum at the bar. Most cocktails, $4; entrees range from $10.95 for vegetable casserole to $17.50 for shrimp in lime ginger.

* Reservations: Recommended.