The hook
Hollywood's oldest restaurant has been pouring martinis in the same red booths since 1919, and the ghosts at the bar include Chandler, Fitzgerald, Faulkner, and Bukowski.
01Why it's worth it
Musso & Frank opened on Hollywood Boulevard in 1919, when Hollywood was barely Hollywood, and it never really changed, which is the whole point. The red leather booths, the dark wood, the tuxedoed waiters, the steakhouse menu with chicken pot pie only on Thursdays, all of it survives. In the 1930s it sat at the literal center of the town's cultural life, with the Screen Writers Guild across the street and a legendary bookstore next door, and the writers drifted into its back bar and stayed: Raymond Chandler, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker, Hemingway, and later Bukowski among them. It's still a working restaurant, not a museum, but sitting at that bar with a proper martini is about as close as you can get to drinking in old Hollywood.
02How to experience it
It's on Hollywood Boulevard, about six hours from the Bay. It's a sit-down restaurant, on the pricey side, and reservations help, though the bar takes walk-ins and is the best seat in the house. Order a martini and something classic. It pairs with the rest of a Hollywood day, done with a wink at the tourist stretch outside.