A Refreshing Dose of Tonic

Walk past the doorstep monitors at Hollywood’s Las Palmas on its new gay Thursday nights and you’ll enter a new niche in Los Angeles club culture. First things first: The stroll past those aforementioned hosts will be as smooth as a vodka gimlet if you have a dinner reservation in hand and leave the tank top at home.

This is, after all, the evening billed as Tonic, the Supper Club. Dine and dance; sup, slurp and spin. But be prepared to find the surroundings a bit more sophistuh-KAY-ted than most of the walk-ins farther west on the gay boulevard of broken asphalt known as Santa Monica. Think of yourself as a really out-of-the-closet Cole Porter hooking up with friends in a place that harks back to New York City’s Stork Club.

The heritage of the ‘40s-built Las Palmas is cultural (it was once a theater) yet unassuming (it was also a taco joint owned by a guy named Ernie). Since its huge overhaul and reopening bash a little more than year ago, the site has been an arena for celebrities like Jeff Goldblum to jam and savvy promoters like Brent Bolthouse to make a new scene. But don’t get a big head on Thursday nights here. That’s not what the fresh-faced partnering team of Will Gorges and Garrett Kimball have in mind. Au contraire.

Gorges normally creates large-scale soirees, including the annual Laguna Beach Morning Party, Southern California’s version of New York’s once-legendary gay gathering and fund-raiser on the dunes of Fire Island. “This is more happening--and I hope more comfortable,” says Gorges of Tonic, which on a packed night draws 400. Together, Gorges and Kimball are best known for their Tiki Bar splash Wednesdays at Tahiti on 3rd Street in Los Angeles. At Tonic, Gorges says: “I want it to be like having people come over to my house for dinner.”

Jellyfish Adorn the Watering Hole

It’s a good bet Gorges’ home does not, however, include an otherworldly aquarium tank stocked with Pacific Ocean jellyfish, guaranteed to cast a spell on even those not drinking at the bar behind which the tank is built. “A marine biologist who breeds them comes in every week to change the sea water and check on them,” says Sky Reiss, the Las Palmas manager. They seem to do quite well, roaming up and down their fashionably lit glass house with neon-blue abandon. A mere entry hall away from the drop-dead gorgeous jellies is the dining room, where folks feast on supper club meals (including some fish) and where Japanese paper lanterns hang from the heavy wood-beam ceiling. Horseshoe leather banquettes are tucked against a wall covered by Mexican river stone.

Between 10:30 and 11 p.m., Thursday night regular house DJ Bryan Baptiste cranks up some polish-off-the-entree and order-the-dessert tunes. The table dish grinds to a halt as diners leave or move back to one of two open-air patios. Some hit the dance floor now rather than later.

At the well-staffed bar and heated patios, Gorges reaches his goal of comfort. That’s where cozy hominess is felt the most.

Keep in mind that if you’ve stayed home with your virtual TV dinner of “Will & Grace” and got hooked on “ER” too, you can still step out to Las Palmas late. Along with a $5 cover--an amount Kimball is proud to say “doesn’t rob”--you can still get into this house of style with a smile. All in all, it’s a crowd that is not to be labeled just haute homo. Ask Toby Christie, 25-year-old South Bay resident, nursing a beer in the restaurant while his twin brother Charlie mingled away on the patio. “I like to come here with my gay brother. It’s a good bar. The whole scene’s a very good place.”

* Tonic, the Supper Club at Las Palmas restaurant, 1714 N. Las Palmas Drive, Hollywood. Reservations: (323) 464-0171; mention Tonic. 21 and older. $5 cover after 9:30 p.m. without dinner.