Old World in New Hollywood

You’ve reached the third floor of the Hollywood & Highland center and drunk in the two colossal statues of Babylonian elephants playing patty-cake. OK, now turn right and look for the Johnny Rockets hamburger counter, over toward the entrance to the Chinese 6 theaters. Then keep going--you’ll run straight into Cafe Mozart of Europe.

Whatever you may have expected to find at Hollywood & Highland, Cafe Mozart is probably not it. This is a place with a civilized Old World look; two of the walls are tile murals of 18th century Vienna, and the third is hung with oil paintings. You don’t even have to ask who composed the classical music soundtrack here.

You sit at one of the tiny tables and leaf through the menu, a book of stiff pages affixed to a wooden rod that hangs from a sort of European menu-hanger (if you find this sort of thing irresistible, you can actually buy a hanger here: $45). It lists a few soups and salads, a dozen or so sandwiches, a lot of Viennese pastries, coffee-bar drinks and, surprisingly, more than 20 Euro-style ice cream sundaes.

The two soups are an egg noodle in rich chicken broth and a rather salty minestrone. Among the salads there’s a nice Caesar, easy on the anchovy flavor and made with fresh croutons.

Getting more serious, the sandwiches, which come with a creamy potato salad spiked with pickle juice, are served on a round roll like a non-puffy hamburger bun. They include only a few surprises (salami and Jack with sun-dried tomatoes, ham and Jack with hummus and basil), but they’re made with good meats and cheeses, and you can get them grilled in something like a Cuban sandwich press for no extra charge. This makes for a novel tuna melt--in a flattened, slightly crunchy bun, the filling brightened by little chunks of tomato and pickle.

The most impressive sandwich, though, is the Austrian frankfurter: two long franks that are like the ordinary kind, only more so--meatier, juicier, more garlicky, a darker pink. These are major dogs.

You will have noticed the pastry case as you come in; people tend to stand and gawk at it. In addition to relatively familiar choices such as Black Forest cake, Sacher torte and Dobos torte (which sometimes are a little dry), it generally contains Eszterhazy cake, with its walnut-flavored filling, and Hungarian palatine cake (layer of chocolate cake, layer of hazelnut mousse, layer of hard mocha cream, topping of fresh fruit). The staggering Sissi cake (named for an Austrian empress and pronounced “zissy”) is in effect a brownie topped with chocolate mousse and frosted with chocolate.

And then there’s the Cafe Mozart torte, an anthology of ground nuts. It’s chocolate cake covered with about an inch of hazelnut and pistachio mousses, the whole thing encased in bright green marzipan.

Cafe Mozart takes the cafe part of its name seriously with 10 espressos, nine cappuccinos and half a dozen ice-cream coffee confections, doctored with European flavoring syrups, whipped cream and so forth. Since Starbucks, the espresso house has been developing steadily in the direction of the old-time American soda fountain, and Cafe Mozart takes this trend into high gear. There probably hasn’t been a restaurant around here serving so many sundaes in nearly 50 years.

There are four variations on the banana split, including the Austria, made with strawberry, chocolate chip and caramel-pecan ice cream (the Gaisberg uses four kinds of ice cream). The Monarchia sundae is the summit of complexity: caramel pecan and vanilla ice creams, hazelnut and coconut syrups, thick caramel sauce, whipped cream, walnuts, and a dusting of allspice and cinnamon.

So yes, it’s called Cafe Mozart of Europe, but it’s a dynamite place to get a hot dog and a sundae. And then wash it all down with Hungarian wine, of course.

Cafe Mozart of Europe, Suite 321, Hollywood & Highland, 6801 Highland Ave., Hollywood. (323) 957-9580. Open 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to midnight, Friday and Saturday. Wine. Validated parking in lot; enter from Highland Avenue or Orange Street. MasterCard and Visa, minimum order $10. Soups and salads, $4.95 to $6.95. Coffees, $2.25 to $4.95. Sundaes, $3.50 to $7.75. Cakes, $4.75 to $4.95.

What to get: Austrian chicken noodle soup, Caesar salad, Austrian frankfurters, tuna melt, Amadeus sundae, Monarchia sundae, Sissi cake, Cafe Mozart torte, Hungarian palatine cake.