Sing for Your Supper

Act 1 ended in tragedy: Alberto Sarno, longtime owner of the eponymous Italian restaurant that pioneered operatic arias at your table, was shot dead in a 1987 ambush at the doorstep of his Los Feliz home.

But the curtain now rises on a jubilant Act 2: Mario Storace, a fellow paisano, opera singer and family friend, has reopened the Los Angeles landmark on North Vermont Avenue as Caffe dell’Opera.

Carrying on the Sarno’s tradition, Storace serves up hearty Italian food and live opera most evenings, holding court over his dominion much as Sarno once did.

A tall, broad-shouldered builder and master craftsman of 59 who hails from the Abruzzi region in central Italy, Storace greets guests, buses tables, carries out plates of pasta puttanesca and tiramisu, and sings--a classically trained bass-baritone exploding from his chest and projecting in strong gusts through the packed room.

“People were missing the place,” said Storace, taking a break from his maestro duties one Saturday evening. “Many of our friends didn’t have a place to go, so they encouraged me. And the Sarno family has really helped me a lot.”

Storace leases the restaurant from the Sarno family, which still owns the ornate 1920s building and the pastry shop next door--run by Alberto Sarno’s brother Dino. In a convenient arrangement, the Sarno bakery supplies bread, pizza dough and desserts to Storace’s eatery.

Caffe dell’Opera isn’t the only opera restaurant in Los Angeles. Vitello’s Italian restaurant in Studio City features opera. And the Miceli’s restaurants in Hollywood and Universal City have singing waiters.

But it was Alberto Sarno who pioneered the concept 40 years ago at his storefront restaurant on Vermont, drawing homesick Italians from all over Los Angeles.

In a crime that shocked the opera and restaurant community, Sarno was killed late one night on the way home. The killers shot him once in the chest and but failed to take $224 from his pocket.

His wife, Silvana, found him slumped on the doorstep of their home several hours later. In 1989, a Superior Court jury acquitted the man accused of ordering an accomplice to kill Sarno in a robbery attempt.

Silvana Sarno kept the restaurant open for a while, but it closed in 1991.

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It was serendipity that led Storace to reopen Sarno’s last year.

The opera-singing contractor was building a restaurant in Santa Monica that went bankrupt. In lieu of payment, Storace ended up with all the restaurant chairs, tables and kitchen equipment.

Around the same time, the Sarno family asked Storace to bring its historic building in Los Feliz up to earthquake standards. As Storace went about reinforcing the masonry, he saw the empty restaurant and asked the family if he could store his newly acquired restaurant equipment there.

One day while drilling holes, Storace had the bright idea: Since he had all the accouterments in place, why not reopen the restaurant and feature opera again so that he and his friends would have a place to go? The Sarno family greeted the proposal with enthusiasm.

The new Caffe dell’Opera rides the resurgence of Los Feliz as a vibrant arts, shopping and entertainment district where stars such as Madonna and Brad Pitt keep homes.

Storace has remodeled, exposing the red brick walls and vaulted ceilings and uncovering original frescoes of ships plying the Mediterranean. The restaurant also has an updated menu.

But it has several of the old Sarno’s piano players--including Danny Guerrero and Cecil Godkin--as well as many Sarno’s patrons, who now bring their children or even grandchildren and are delighted to have their watering hole back, albeit under a different name.

Zaven Manjikian of Beverly Hills started coming in 1963, when he was a student at UCLA. He was crushed when Sarno’s closed. Then he heard about Storace.

“I was very eager for it to open. It’s authentic, never contrived. And there are such characters,” said Manjikian, who makes the pilgrimage every other weekend.

Caffe dell’Opera also draws crowds with stagings of entire operas--in period costume. This Sunday, the restaurant will present “Pagliacci.” The performance and prix fixe dinner are $35.

Several weeks ago, the entire chorus--about 80 singers--from the L.A. Opera showed up for dinner after their Music Center performance, Storace said.

One unusual draw at Caffe dell’Opera is Hisato Masuyama, who favors Deanna Durbin show tunes but can also sing falsetto soprano, including “any soprano aria that doesn’t go above a high C.”

Singers don’t have to audition. This is an egalitarian place where anyone can get up and perform after whispering his or her selection to the piano player, whose mastery of the keys is exceeded only by his versatility.

The open-mike quality of Caffe dell’Opera means that some nights, some of the singing is exquisite, as classically trained voices let fly. But others are “third-rate, fourth-rate, have-beens and may-have-beens,” in the words of one patron.

The Music Center this is not. Think more along the lines of performance art with food. As Storace himself belts out a number, a cappuccino machine whirs in the background. Through the restaurant, people shush each other out of respect for the singers, but the exuberance of a crowd enjoying its food, wine and song creep back up the decibel scale within moments.

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With his wavy gray-black hair flowing onto his collar, large Roman nose, low rumbly voice and dignified mien, Storace would seem like an Italian out of Central Casting if he wasn’t for real.

Unmarried, he lives in Hollywood with two dogs--Spaghetti and Linguine--but said he is looking for a girlfriend.

“I sing, and I have so many friends who sing, and I fell into this, like a puzzle,” he said, shrugging. “It was either I get married or open a restaurant.”

Storace also sings professionally from time to time and has performed with Opera Pacific in Costa Mesa. He studied opera in Pesaro, but even in Verdi’s homeland it is difficult to live off one’s voice, so he became a craftsman, building sets for operas.

Storace came to New York in 1959 and was hooked. He relocated permanently in 1963, singing with the New York City Opera. He moved to Los Angeles in 1972 and was soon introduced by other Italian expats to Sarno’s.

John Rotundi, a fellow builder who grew up in Los Feliz, frequented Sarno’s as a child and is now a regular at Caffe dell’Opera. He met Storace when they were both building houses in the Hollywood Hills.

“At 7 a.m., Mario would sing opera and the carpenters in the canyon would sing back down,” Rotundi said.

Storace still juggles construction by day and the restaurant by night. He’s working on a new commissary at Warner Bros. studio and looks like he just came from the lot, in work boots, brown jeans and a long-sleeved shirt.

Indeed, his down-home spontaneity infects the entire restaurant.

Said Hope Easton, a classically trained cellist and actress who took in the show one recent night:

“Usually, L.A.’s so pretentious. People go to restaurants to see and be seen. But here, I don’t even feel like I’m in L.A. I could be in Italy.”