Perfect after-hours business partners

So important is the presence of entertainment industry insiders that Chaya Brasserie renamed its happy hour in their honor. Arrive any Tuesday through Friday evening from 5 to 8, and you’ll be entitled to share in “Industry Hour.”

During Industry Hour, the price of any Foo Foo drink -- the creatively renamed fancy martinis -- falls from $10 to $5.50. In fetching colors of raspberry red, apple green or watermelon pink, the frosty martini glasses add a welcome splash of color to the concrete-gray bar top.

Not that the crowd isn’t colorful, too. There’s the metrosexual with $300 sneakers who looks to have fashioned his own football jersey with numerals made of iron-on tape -- or is that this season’s newest ironic couture piece? The guy a few seats away didn’t hear that Michael Stipe made black nail polish cliche several years ago. The ladies are a sleek sort, dressed in pants that plunge low on the pelvis. In the bar, young Hollywood gathers around tiny tables piled with fries, calamari and sushi rolls, while the dining room fills with the sophisticated set that thinks nothing of laying out $90 for an obscure Oregon Pinot Noir, $30 for a thick steak and a roomy place to sit.

The scene isn’t nearly as bifurcated as one would expect when the principal players come from no-nonsense Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, a short stroll down Alden Drive, and from New Line Cinema, which has offices within a two-minute walk. Rather, the doctors hand over their white lab coats to the hostess and blend with the array of jeans, suits and untucked shirts.

Perhaps the secret to the success of the 22-year-old establishment is how seamlessly it has integrated its split personality. It is bar and restaurant, both trendy industry watering hole and stalwart veteran of Asian fusion cuisine, and equally Beverly Hills luxe and East Side simple.

It’s elemental L.A., where cultures collide and create the boundary-breaking tension. Bartenders don’t blink when a patron ruins his Kettle One premium vodka with a mixer of Diet Coke. The staff can embrace and poke fun at the martini craze by calling those drinks “foo foo,” while championing the latest trend, premium tequila.

Though a $250,000 Aston-Martin is protectively parked on the sidewalk, even the lowest-paid development girls can enjoy the place. For $6 or less, you can fill up on the Industry Hour specials, including the mini cheeseburger and fries and the spicy teriyaki salmon sushi roll.

That Chaya has become an L.A. institution isn’t surprising given owner Yuji Tsunoda’s family background. In Japan, his family has operated a teahouse and restaurant for more than 350 years. And this summer, Chaya’s owners will offer a fourth branch of the popular hangouts when a new concept opens on Melrose Avenue.

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Chaya Brasserie

Where: 8741 Alden Drive, Los Angeles

When: Bar hours: 5 p.m.-1 a.m. Mondays through Fridays; 5:30 p.m.-1 a.m. Saturdays and Sundays

Cost: Cocktails, $5.50-$13; wine by the glass, $8-$14; beer, $4-$6.50

Info: (310) 859-8833, or www.thechaya.com