The Dresden Room in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, is a time warp. Not in a cool, ‘have you been watching Mad Men?’ or ‘I just ADORE mid-century furniture’ kind of way. It’s more like how your grandma used to always wear gloves while driving and set her hair in rollers every night and sometimes let you smoke with her because she never got the memo it would end up killing us all. A splendid piece of the past perched smack-bang in the middle of the nicotine-stained present. On a Wednesday night, 8pm, it’s museum-quiet in the restaurant. Fitting, as the room appears to be carefully preserved; pristine white leather banquettes and ceramic vases to prove Jonathan Adler a fraud, 60s wooden-slatted room dividers and burgundy walls – even the pot plants look exhausted by age, but nonetheless MIB. The menu holds everything I imagine my grandparents would eat on a night out: French Onion Soup, Chicken Cordon Bleu and Peach Melba. If that doesn’t make you smile you have no heart. Or, you have suffered a stroke and should seek urgent medical attention. I choose the New York Steak ($25), with fries, the ‘famous garlic bread’ and a salad to start, with Italian dressing. Nothing is excellent; my medium-rare steak is pretty well cooked-through and the salad is dressed not for eating but for preserving. Regardless, it’s a delight and I clean the plate before ordering a Peach Melba ($5). Every dessert in the world should contain jam and that’s all I have to say about that. If the restaurant itself was all The Dresden had on offer, it could lean toward the melancholy. Like your grandma trying to keep up as the times move too quickly around her, charming youth morphing into burdensome old age. But hold your horses there cowboy, wipe away the sympathy tears, take one last look around and head next door to The Lounge, ‘cause your mind is about to be blown. It’s a bar, yep, a bar with all the local cools hanging out, sure. Strange pictures cover the walls of another immaculate throwback; there’re the requisite chairs, tables, beards, etcetera – the same stuff you’ll find in bars across the world. But hold up, what’s that sound? Are you hearing right? Yeah you are. The Lounge at The Dresden is home to Marty and Elayne; Tuesday through Saturday, 9pm-1:15am. Get on the google now cause I promise, there are no words for the magic of Marty and Elayne. Tip well and tip often. It’s fair to say the food ain’t highfalutin’ – I paid much less for much better food, many times over in LA – yet I had no better meal than at The Dresden. And there’s gorgeous, priceless Marty, with a dead badger on his head.

http://www.thedresden.com/