Hollywood loves a great comeback story, and the reopening of the Musso & Frank Grill on Thursday, May 6, 2021, promises to be nothing short of spectacular! After a year-long closure following an LA countywide public health order, the landmark Hollywood Boulevard restaurant will reopen just in time for its patrons to celebrate Mother’s Day 2021. For reservations, please CLICK HERE! or visit: https://mussoandfrank.com/reservations/
The Musso & Frank Grill, which celebrated its 100th anniversary in September 2019, has been anxiously awaiting the day when it could once again offer customers fine food, famous cocktails and the personalized attention of its world-famous servers.
Interesting side note: As part of its Mother’s Day celebration, Musso’s will be open to customers on Monday, May 10, starting at 5 PM, marking the first time in many decades that the venue will be serving guests on a Monday! NOTE: May 10 will be the ONLY MONDAY the restaurant will be open. As longtime Musso customers know quite well, the venue has not been open to the public on a Monday within recent memory.
Mark Echeverria, COO, CFO and a fourth-generation member of the family of owners, said that concurrent with the reopen, all current Covid-19 safety precautions will be stringently upheld, while no aspect of the venue’s legendary dining experience will be anything less than perfection itself.
“With our reopening, we’re being very careful to ensure that our 100-plus years of tradition won’t change at all,” Echeverria said. “For instance, our menu will remain as intact as possible – we want to keep all of our original offerings. Another tradition that will return is our focus on handcrafted cocktails, including our signature martinis – stirred, not shaken – James Bond got it wrong! While the bar will remain closed for walk-up service, our guests can still order their favorite beverages and cocktails to be enjoyed at their tables. Most importantly, our style of service, friendly team and finest cuisine are not changing one bit!”
The tradition of fine dining and personal attention will also continue, with the impeccably dressed, red-jacketed servers, bartenders and wait staff all at the ready to serve. Diners can expect to be taken care of in the same “our guests are family” manner that has always been a hallmark of the unique and truly classic Musso & Frank Grill experience, Echeverria added.
About Our Covid-19 Protocols
Musso & Frank diners will appreciate changes intended to keep them safe by adhering to the restaurant’s guidelines established in response to Covid-19. Those begin before guests even enter the building. An assisted parking system will be used instead of a traditional valet service. The restaurant’s valets will guide customers to parking spaces but will not drive a customer’s car unless asked to do so.
At the door, a manager or host will greet guests to ensure the proper flow of people so they maintain a distance of six feet, and masks will be required to be worn at all times except when seated at dining tables. All guests will be asked to wear a cloth face covering at all times when he/she is away from his/her table. Diners will also be asked to clean their hands with hand sanitizer upon their arrival. Hand sanitizer stations will be provided at multiple locations in the restaurant.
The restaurant will operate at 50% of the building’s normal occupancy, thus adhering to LA County’s “Orange Tier” reopening guidelines. As the tier assignment changes in the coming months, the restaurant occupancy will also change.
Table spacing will be adhered to according to the guidance provided by the county. Groups will be limited to six people. Server assistants will lay out table settings, glasses and silverware only after each party has been seated. Only single-use menus that are printed daily will be used – the menus can then be kept as souvenirs or discarded.
The restaurant’s air conditioning filters have been retrofitted to provide hospital-grade filtration. Bathrooms will be deep cleaned and sanitized every 30 minutes, and social distancing will be required inside at all times.
Rigorous standards will also be in place for Musso’s team members, who will be checked for any Covid symptoms prior to arriving at the restaurant. Team members will also have their body temperatures checked upon arrival.
“We are very excited to once again invite everyone back to the familiar atmosphere of Musso & Frank. Without sacrificing the essence of Musso’s, General Manager Andrea Scuto has created an incredibly safe environment for everyone to enjoy. We will forever continue to take our guests back in time to the early days of Hollywood! We have always taken pride in maintaining the integrity of the past while embracing what comes next, and as our community emerges from the pandemic, Musso’s is here to bring a slice of Hollywood history into the future. On May 6, we welcome you back to Old Hollywood!”
About MUSSO & FRANK GRILL
If you were watching “Musso & Frank: The Motion Picture,” this is when the images would turn black and white, the soundtrack would play either late Ragtime or early jazz and the crawl on the screen would read: Hollywood – 1919. Because that’s the time and place we would meet the first hero of our story, Frank Toulet, who three years later would form a fateful partnership with our second hero, Joseph Musso.
Forward-looking restaurateurs who envisioned what Hollywood could become with an anchor destination to serve locals and visitors alike, the two men in 1922 hired French chef Jean Rue – a culinary master who would wind up showcasing his artistry at Musso & Frank for 53 years, and creating a menu that remains amazingly intact to this day.
In 1927, Mr. Musso and Mr. Toulet sold their restaurant to a duo of Italian immigrants named Joseph Carissimi and John Mosso (a coincidentally similar name), and today Musso & Frank is owned and operated by the families of Mr. Mosso’s three granddaughters: John and Cathy Echeverria and their son Mark Echeverria (the restaurant’s current COO), Steve and Anne Jones, and Richard and Kristen Kohlmeyer.
The Place To Be For Over 100 Years
From the day its doors first opened over 100 years ago, Musso & Frank has been hailed as a bastion of flawless service and exquisite cuisine (including the restaurant’s signature martinis. But what’s on the actual menu is only the beginning of the Musso & Frank experience.
Settle into one of the restaurant’s classic red leather booths, amble over to its famed mahogany bar, gaze around in awe at the classic architecture or peer into what was the city’s very first public phone booth, and you will find yourself transported to another time and place where every meal is a work of art, every patron is a cherished guest, and every moment is an instantly priceless memory.
Offering a combination of old world sophistication and contemporary warmth unavailable anywhere else under one roof, Musso & Frank (and its renowned, even mysterious, Back Room), has been a home away from home over the years for such artistic luminaries as Charlie Chaplin, Frank Sinatra, Clark Gable, Charlton Heston, Marilyn Monroe, Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock, Jimmy Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Elizabeth Taylor, Steve McQueen, Jack Nicholson, Johnny Depp, and even The Rolling Stones. The restaurant has also been a source of inspiration for such literary giants as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, T.S. Elliot, John Steinbeck, Dorothy Parker and William Faulkner.
Over the years, Musso & Frank has also become synonymous with entertainment industry power lunches. Indeed, it’s safe to say that the deals made here over the years have mirrored the history of Hollywood itself – all the way from silent films to talkies, from Technical to television, from VHS tapes to DVDs, and from cable TV networks to streaming media platforms.
Best of all, while Musso & Frank is obviously steeped in living history, it’s actually more vibrant and retro-hip today than ever, attracting multiple generations of Hollywood denizens who prefer elegance over garishness, career servers over indifferent order-takers, and classic cuisine over passing food fads.
Given its timeless appeal, Musso & Frank not surprisingly has become something of an on-screen celebrity itself, “co-starring” in dozens of films and TV shows over the years, including “The Kominsky Method,” “Bosch,” “Swingers,” the 2001 version of “Ocean’s 11,” “Ed Wood,” “Mad Men,” “Ray Donovan,” and most recently Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 feature film, “Once Upon A Time in Hollywood,” to name just a few.
Dinner Is Served!
While nothing is hard to swallow at Musso & Frank, there’s one stunning fact that definitely would be – that is, if it didn’t happen to be true! Current Executive Chef J. P. Amateau is only the third person to serve in that position in the restaurant’s entire, over 100-year history (following the tenures of Jean Rue and his successor, Michel Bourger)!
Seamlessly bridging the past, present and future, Chef Amateau’s menu honors the genius of his two predecessors while being imbued with his very own distinct culinary sensibilities – many derived from traveling the world in search of the finest ingredients and inspirations, along with his rich history of coming to Musso’s as a child with his father, noted film and TV writer, director and producer Rod Amateau.
Musso & Frank’s acclaimed service is in the hands of accomplished restaurateur Andrea Scuto, Musso’s General Manager, who immigrated from Italy in 2006 and is carrying on the beloved restaurant’s longstanding tradition of European-style hospitality.
Home to countless classic dishes, Musso & Frank Grill is hailed worldwide for its masterfully-prepared steaks – all cooked on a seasoned grill that dates all the way back to 1934. Other mainstays include Fettucine Alfredo (featuring a recipe from the original Alfredo’s restaurant in Italy brought to Chef Rue by Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks), Corned Beef & Cabbage, Homemade Chicken Pot Pie and Braised Short Ribs, each as delectable as always, but today featuring mouth-watering new tweaks by Chef Amateau to further appeal to contemporary palates.
And then, of course, there’s Musso & Frank’s Perfect Martini – stirred not shaken (James Bond got it wrong!) – a true classic that’s delighted patrons since the days of Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover.
Today, Mark Echeverria, his family, and the entire Musso’s team remain laser focused on overcoming the yearlong setback due to Covid-19, and look optimistically to the present and future – a key reason why the Musso & Frank Grill has been, and remains, the most successful restaurant in the long history of Hollywood.
