Frolic Room, Los Angeles

Frolic Room - The Frolic Room is a dive with an impressive Hollywood pedigree. Once a private VIP lounge directly connected to the Pantages Theater, it has since evolved into one of the last standing landmarks attesting to the intoxicating decadence of Hollywood’s Golden Era. When the theater hosted the Academy Awards from 1949-59 the bar quenched the thirst of many a celebrity. Today the closest you’re likely to get to a celebrity is pulling up a stool in front of the Al Hirschfeld mural depicting caricatures of Hollywood legends like Bette Davis and Groucho Marx that spans the entire wall opposite the bar. Inside it’s cozy, okay, small. Just show your ID to the bow-tied doorman, grab a stool, order a cheap glass of something and drink it all in. Red leatherette stools, retro toadstool shaped swag lamps. The music’s good, the crowd is low-key, and if you close your eyes maybe you can imagine Humphrey Bogart and Frank Sinatra at the bar 50 years ago enjoying a martini and a smoke.The cool remains even if the stars haven’t.