There are restaurants that try very hard to look historic.

And then there is Musso & Frank Grill.

It doesn't need to recreate old Hollywood.

Old Hollywood ate here.

The red booths, dark wood, waiters in jackets, classic cocktails and old-school menu can make a first visit feel a little like you've stepped onto a movie set.

Except this isn't a set.

It's been happening on Hollywood Boulevard since 1919.

Before the Hollywood Sign, There Was Musso’s

The restaurant began when entrepreneur Frank Toulet opened Frank's Café on Hollywood Boulevard in 1919. He later partnered with restaurateur Joseph Musso, and together they hired French chef Jean Rue.

Rue created the foundation of a menu that became part of the restaurant's identity and remained remarkably resistant to culinary fashion.

In 1927, the restaurant was sold to John Mosso and Joseph Carissimi. It later moved next door to 6667 Hollywood Boulevard, where it still operates.

Pause on that for a second.

The Hollywood Sign didn't go up until 1923.

Musso & Frank was already serving dinner.

Hollywood Did Business Over Lunch

As the film industry grew around it, Musso's became much more than somewhere to eat.

Deals were discussed. Scripts were argued over. Contracts were signed. Careers rose and fell a few blocks away while people kept sliding into the same booths.

The restaurant says Hollywood's first pay phone was installed there—and that industry deals were made on it.

Imagine that now.

No group text. No email chain. No Zoom.

Just a pay phone in a restaurant and somebody on the other end who could change your career.

The Writers Found Their Room

In the 1930s, studio executives were bringing major American writers to Hollywood to work on movies. The Screen Writers Guild was nearby, and Musso's became one of the places writers escaped to when they wanted a little distance from the studio.

The list is almost ridiculous: F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Parker, Aldous Huxley, John Steinbeck and others spent time here.

Fitzgerald was known to proofread his work in a booth. The restaurant's history says Chandler wrote chapters of The Big Sleep while drinking in the Back Room.

And Faulkner became comfortable enough with the bartenders that he was known to step behind the bar and mix his own mint juleps.

This is why I don't love calling Musso's a "celebrity restaurant."

That makes it sound like people only came here to be seen.

Some of them came here to work.

The Back Room That Became a Legend

Musso's opened its famous Back Room in the 1930s, creating a small, private dining and bar space that became one of Hollywood's most exclusive rooms.

Actors, writers, directors and studio people gathered there away from the boulevard.

When the Back Room lease eventually ended, the room itself disappeared—but much of its identity did not.

The famous bar, light fixtures and furniture were moved into what is now called the New Room.

So when you're sitting at that bar today, you're not looking at a modern interpretation of the old one.

You're looking at pieces of it.

Some Things Are Better Left Alone

Hollywood is built on reinvention, which makes Musso's stubborn continuity feel almost rebellious.

The restaurant's menu has changed very little compared with the city around it. The bartenders still make classic drinks. The dining room still carries its dark wood and red leather. Longtime staff members have spent decades learning the rhythm of the place.

And yes, the martini has its own reputation.

Musso's serves it stirred, not shaken, with the extra portion kept cold alongside the glass—a tiny ritual that somehow feels completely appropriate here.

There is comfort in a place that isn't constantly asking whether it should become something else.

Sit in the Booth and Look Around

If you go, don't spend the whole meal staring at your plate.

And if you are planning the visit rather than just daydreaming about the martini, the official Musso & Frank Grill website has current hours, menus and reservations.

Look at the bar.

Look at the booths.

Think about the writers scribbling corrections, the actors meeting friends, the directors talking shop and the generations of servers who watched all of it from a few feet away.

The names changed.

The movies changed.

Hollywood Boulevard definitely changed.

Musso's kept serving dinner.

I have a soft spot for places that survived long enough to become part of the neighborhood's memory. If you do too, subscribe to Hollywood Local Pulse. There are plenty more tables, theaters and corners around Hollywood with stories still sitting there waiting for us.

— Ms. V