Dear John’s

Perhaps You Can Go Home Again

My friend Morrie Grossman, like his older brother Les Grossman, is a movie producer at Sony Pictures.  Morrie ascended the Hollywood ladder, crushing the fingers of those below him on every rung.  He started in the mail room, became a renowned supervising sound editor and finally reached the summit of producer.  After assisting Les on “Tropic Thunder,” he produced such classics as “Showgirls,” “Earth Minus Zero,” and “Zombie Strippers.”  Unlike many dying stars in Tinseltown, white dwarves heading for black holes, Morrie remains at the top of his game.

Last week Morrie called me to say that he was flying to the coast from St. Barths on his G5 and wanted to invite me to dinner at a local staple near the studio in Culver City, Dear John’s.  Dear John’s is located not on trendy Washington Blvd. but in the old school post WWII section of the city at the corner of Sepulveda and Culver.  As coincidence would have it, my childhood home is just a stone’s throw away, if one could throw a stone thirty times as far as Mookie Betts can throw a baseball—do the math if you are interested.

I grew up in the heart of the city of Los Angeles in the 1960s, but without the tumult of that decade.  My neighborhood could have been used as the set for The Wonder Years or Leave It to Beaver.  All of my friends lived within a few blocks, we walked to elementary school at the end of the street, we rode our bikes to buy baseball cards and candy at the five and dime store.  What is now Playa Vista was a nearby farm called the Lopez Ranch which grew pumpkins that we bought for Halloween.  Fine dining was offered at the Kings X and the Buggy Whip in dimly lit rooms in which one spoke in a hushed tone, where waiters with bow ties and red vests served salads of chopped iceberg lettuce and cucumbers with green goddess dressing followed by steaks cooked medium well garnished with parsley and sides of potatoes au gratin and overcooked vegetables.

Dear John’s was one of those neighborhood fine dining restaurants.  It was the perfect spot for the Don Draper set.  Although the quote:  “An alcoholic is someone you don’t like, who drinks as much as you do” is generally attributed to Dylan Thomas, I suspect that it was first said in the bar at Dear John’s.  As idyllic neighborhoods faded in L.A., so did Dear John’s.  Fortunately, it has been resurrected with its spirit intact and with a menu that is an homage to the original menu of the sixties with some updates for modern inclinations.  The current atmosphere is lively, but not oppressively loud as is common in many trendy spots that your reviewer, unlike the lemmings of the current in-crowd, avoids.  The lighting remains dim so that the middle aged look youthful while the elderly look merely middle aged.  Red leather upholstered booths run along the brick and wood paneled walls which are covered with expressionist and cubist paintings that would have been the favorites of a Kerouac reading beatnik.  Sinatra (who purportedly frequented the establishment) croons over the sound system.

We were greeted at the table by an affable maître d’ in an impeccable tux who had the accent and carriage of a hatchet man from Goodfellas.   We began the evening with a 2004 Ornellaia selected from Morrie’s cellar by his private sommelier.  Robert Parker rated the wine at 98 with the following tasting notes: “Ornellaia is a blend of nature and musing. Complex ancient soils converse through human wisdom with a delicate microclimate that is echoed and reflected in the Mediterranean Sea.”  After decanting our wine, the maître d’ inquired if we needed anything or anyone “taken care of.”

Dear John’s serves caveman sized portions of retro American comfort food, refreshed for the 21^st century palate.  If you are on any type of trendy diet, such as vegan, Paleo or keto, just stay home.   When I gazed in awe at the portion sizes, I understood why Dear John’s is endorsed by the greatest athlete in the history of the human race, Joey Chestnut.  Here he is discussing his exploits with a fan just prior to the commencement of a shrimp eating contest during which he downed twelve pounds of the hapless crustaceans in eight minutes.

Morrie, gourmand that he is, chose the dishes for our meal.  We started with smoked salmon with pickled cucumbers, homemade toast and sauce gribiche which is made with hard-boiled egg yolks, mustard and olive oil. The sauce is finished with chopped cornichons, capers, chervil and tarragon.  It added tanginess to the goyishe style smoked salmon.

For our main course we had the pork chop with pickled peppers and onions and the rib eye steak.  Both were presented to the table sliced, Peter Luger style.  The savory flavors of the pickled vegetables were a perfect accent for the light, tender pork chop.

Our maître d’ explained that Dear John’s does not rub or spice their steaks other than with a small amount of salt.  The steak is then lightly buttered, seared for 15 seconds, turned, then the other side is buttered and seared for 15 seconds.  The meat is allowed to rest for a few minutes then is cooked 30 seconds on each side repeatedly until it has reached the diners specification; Morrie insisted on the proper preparation of a fine steak, rare.  The steak had the excellent marbling seen in the highest quality rib eye.  Also note the large size of the cap which is the softest and most flavorful portion of this cut. 

The meat was accompanied by German potatoes.  They are prepared by boiling whole potatoes with the skin on, peeling, refrigerating for 24 hours, slicing then roasting with olive oil, salt, ground white pepper, chopped parsley and onions. 

Thomas Wolfe is one of my favorite authors.  I have read and re-read his long, rambling, verbose, disjointed and self-absorbed (does that remind the reader of anyone?) novels.  But could Thomas Wolfe have been wrong?   Perhaps you can go home again, because dinner at Dear John’s was a wonderful, nostalgic, comforting experience.