Dan Tana, the restaurateur whose eponymous restaurant on boulevard Santa Monica has been a Hollywood hotspot for decades for decades – one with dishes named for celebrities who are likely to be there every night – died in Belgrade, Serbia on Saturday. He was 90 years old.
Tana, born Dobrivoje Tanasijević, was a professional football player before opening the Italian restaurant Red-Sauce Clubby in 1964, the manager until he sells it in 2009.
The details of Tana’s death were confirmed by the historian of Los Angeles Alison Martino, a friend of the current owner of the restaurant, Sonja Perencevic, who bought it from its founder. Martino, who runs the restaurant’s Facebook page – where a message published on Saturday announced the death of Tana – said that Perencevic was close to the former owner and was with him in Belgrade on Friday. Martino said that she did not know the cause of death.
“Dan has lived a wonderful life, and we will forever keep Dan Tana in his memory,” said Pérencevic in a statement relayed by Martino, who was at the restaurant on Saturday evening.
Born near Belgrade, Tana played professional football in Canada before immigrating to the United States, where he studied theater. He made his debut in the 1957 war film “The Enemy below”, according to Variety. While looking for actor jobs, Tana has started as a dishwasher at Villa Capri restaurant in Hollywood, before finally becoming the master of the scala at Beverly Hills. This aligned him for a career in food.
Shortly after, he opened Dan Tana in West Hollywood, near the eastern edge of Beverly Hills. He told Hollywood Reporter in 2014 that he wanted to create an establishment where the stars could dine late at night.
“There was no decent restaurant in the service before 1 a.m., you had to go to a coffee,” he told the journalist.
But Dan Tana was not an immediate success.
Dan Tana in West Hollywood.
(Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)
He finally won an audience after actor Richard Burton, a seven -time nominated from the Oscars who married Taylor the year of the restaurant’s opening, became a regular presence. He received a shock in the 1970s, when the troubadour, a neighboring music place, began to reserve major acts such as Elton John, attracting large crowds in the region.
The restaurant, with its red and white verification tablecloths, and its sign of green neon, quickly became a local institution. He has long been known for the discreet manner he addresses to the stars of cinema and the magnates that slide on his channeled red stands. George Clooney, former owner of Lakers, Jerry Buss and the heiress Nicky Hilton, are part of the eclectic group of notables with menu elements called them, and the routine presence of celebrities has only burn the aura of the restaurant – especially among tourists hoping for a table.
But guests do not necessarily come for four -star foods. The menu avoids the kind of regional Italian cuisine which has been a basic food on the Los Angeles restoration scene for years. Instead, Dan Tana offers catering dishes such as Alfredo fettuccine and chicken parmesan.
In 2016, the Times Restaurant Critic Jonathan Gold wrote a memorable criticism of Dan Tana’s, concerning the time when he took a work at high school there, only to bother: “The server laughed when I tried to command wine, then served us in wine glasses.
As for food, gold called certain “ordinary”, but noted “strangely, I don’t care”, noting the place of the restaurant in the Culinary Firmament of Los Angeles. He then highlighted dishes, notably the PARM chicken, and asked readers: “Dan Tana’s is not to deny things for you.”
Dan Tana’s on Santa Monica Boulevard is known for dishes such as chicken parmesan.
(Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times)
In the years that followed Tana who sold her restaurant and retired to Belgrade, several Landmark Hauts have closed, Greenblatt’s Deli, the Pantry Cafe of Original and the Greek Grill & Market of Papa Cristo. Dan Tana has endured, said Martino, in part because he can always offer a charming experience of the old world.
“When … you enter, the world stops,” she said. “This is what I like about this – history and food. The staff was the same: you could leave, come back after five years and come and they will remember your favorite drink.”
Martino sent Times a video of an impromptu toast that she made in honor of Tana at the restaurant on Saturday evening. Flanked by tuxedo servers and the master of the master of the founder, she mainly silenced the crowded dining room.
“We don’t need to be sad,” said Martino. “M. Tana would like us to be happy. ”
The guests raised their glasses. And the din of an animated restaurant quickly returned.
