STEP INSIDE SAN DIEGO'S LUXURIOUS NEW SUPPER CLUBS

From the 1930s to the 1950s, supper clubs were all the rage. Socially active couples and singles dressed up for dinner and drinks in an intimate atmosphere where they could enjoy live music and make new friends at nearby tables.

The dimly lit restaurant-clubs died out in the 1960s. But in San Diego, at least, they're back.

Over the past two six months, two luxurious new supper clubs have opened in San Diego, one at the Lafayette Hotel on El Cajon Boulevard and one on Fourth Avenue in the Gaslamp Quarter.

Lou Lou's Jungle Room at the recently renovated Lafayette honors the hotel's historic roots as a mid-city center for glamorous socializing in the '40s and '50s. And Santa Gula, from San Diego's Karina's restaurant group, offers upscale international fare and cocktails in a glitzy dining room with live music four nights a week.

Both clubs have been lavishly decorated in an Art Deco/jazz age style as a tip of the hat to the glory days of supper clubs past. But they're both bringing new cuisine and entertainment to the table. Here's a look inside.

Lou Lou's Jungle Room and Supper Club

Over the past three years, San Diego-based CH Projects has invested $34 million in bringing its 78-year-old Lafayette Hotel back to its former glory. The effort paid off earlier this month, when Esquire named the Lafayette the No. 1 new hotel in North America and Europe.

CH Projects' spare-no-expense goal was to reinvent the hotel's most iconic spaces, including its long-dormant underground nightclub with its famed clamshell concert stage and sunken hardwood dance floor. With lively new zebra stripe decor, dazzling gold leaf paint on its stage and state-of-the-art sound system, Lou Lou's is mix of the old and new.

Lou Lou's can be entered down a flight of stairs from the Lafayette lobby or through the bar at the corner of Mississippi Street and El Cajon Boulevard.

Modern twists on classic cocktails like a Negroni, Painkiller or Old Fashioned can be ordered in the bar or from wait staff in the adjacent club while seated at two- and four-seat cabaret table surrounding the dance floor. Online reservations are required, with prices ranging from free admission to $95 per person for the supper club package, which is offered one or two Thursday nights a month.

In keeping with the social roots of supper clubs, different parties may be seated at the same small tables on busy nights. But once the music gets started, particularly on nights that headlining trumpeter Gilbert Castellanos and his Latin jazz sextet perform, all conversation respectfully ends and the dance floor opens.

On supper club evenings, diners can pre-order their prix-fixe, four-course meal with choice of red meat, poultry/seafood, vegetarian or vegan entrées. Seatings begin at 6 p.m. and the show is at 7. Chef Ted Smith's menu pays homage to the supper club dishes of the '40s and '50s, but with a modern and seasonal twist.

Standout options are the pickled beet and citrus salad with yuzu vinaigrette and candied pistachios; the Saltspring mussels and scallop chowder with rockfish and potatoes; the richly flavored truffled chicken roulade with potato purée; and the braised Wagyu short rib with crispy layered potato pavé. As for the cocktails, try the espresso martini, which is made with tequila rather than vodka.

Lou Lou's draws a diverse crowd, from 20-somethings looking for an elegant night out to dedicated jazz fans who come for the music to older couples celebrating special occasions. For those who'd rather not sit at a table in the club, the open design of the space allows bar patrons to see and hear everything happening onstage.

Lou Lou's is a true sensorial experience. Attention has been paid to every detail, from the zebra-striped menus to the old-fashioned wall sconces and chandeliers, the retro bathrooms, the wacky wall art, the fringed ceiling and bar stools, glowing cheetah sculptures and curtained entry hall. Even if you're not a supper club fan, you may become one after visiting Lou Lou's Jungle Room.

This weekend's entertainment includes a $15 show at 8 p.m. tonight by the '60s-style jazz-pop group The Secret Agents; a $25 show at 8 p.m. Saturday by Choir Boy, a dream-pop group; and two free shows at 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday by the jazz-blues quintet Electric Louieland.

Hours are 6 p.m. to 1 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays only.

Lafayette Hotel & Club, 2223 El Cajon Blvd., San Diego. loulousclub.com

Santa Gula

Santa Gula is the latest restaurant-bar concept from Karina's Group, a family-owned restaurant group founded in Spring Valley in 1981 by the late Don Arnulfo Contreras and his wife, Maria Inés Curiel. Today the company has restaurants ranging from taco shops to sit-down Mexican seafood restaurants in Otay Ranch, Bonita, National City, Barrio Logan, Mission Hills and the Gaslamp Quarter.

Last November, the 80-seat Santa Gula opened in a 1911 brick building formerly home to Patricios Mexican restaurant on Fourth Avenue.

Santa Gula's decor mixes retro supper club style with lively Mexican wall art. The layout is open, with tables, banquettes and two-seat high tops that all offer an unobstructed view of the concert stage.

Rather than a prix-fixe menu, diners can order a la carte from a shared plates international menu of dishes that include dry-aged New York steak, miso-glazed salmon, uni spaghetti, rock shrimp tempura, pork dumplings, enchiladas and rigatoni with oxtail ragu.

The bar serves beers and wine, as well 11 house cocktails, including many prepared with Mexican mezcals and tequilas.

Live music is presented Thursdays through Sundays. Tonight, Daniel Giaconi will perform funk-blues-Latin guitar; on Saturday, jazz saxophonist Alejandro Godoy will perform from 6:30-9:30 p.m., followed by a late-night set by The Classics, a jazz/bossa nova/pop ensemble, from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Santa Gula hours are 4 p.m. to midnight Wednesdays (kitchen closes at 10 p.m.), and 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays (kitchen closes at 11 p.m.).

Santa Gula, 554 Fourth Ave., San Diego. (619) 373-8319, santagulasd.com

[email protected]

This story originally appeared in San Diego Union-Tribune.

2024-04-26T13:14:20Z dg43tfdfdgfd