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VISIONS OF VEGAS

In search of a true supper club
By Yardley Wright |

WHATEVER images come to mind when you think of supper clubs, it’s a good bet that you got most of them from TV, the movies or another city-not Dallas. This is a fine restaurant town, but Big D is not big on supper clubs; we don’t have many, and those we do have vary widely in the quality of dining and entertainment they offer.

But wait, you say-as everyone said when we asked them to recommend a good supper club – what do you mean by a supper club?

Good question. Embarrassing answer. Aiming high, we started with the classic, ideal formula for a supper club-that masterfully prepared cuisine (not just food) plus “name” entertainers equals supper club. You know, like the Venetian Room and…and….

It was downhill from there.

We are most emphatically not saying that Dallas has no decent -even superior -supper clubs. But we are saying that if you vowed to eat in a different classic supper club in Dallas each night for a month, you’d starve to death.

And how about “name” entertainment? Sinatra and up? Sinatra Jr. and up? Bow-ley and Wilson? Again, we had to compromise. For all our hometown pride, for all our banking and building, Dallas is still no Vegas or Hollywood or New York. The glittering names come to Dallas to pack the big auditoriums, not to play intimate (read: small) supper clubs. Neil Diamond may play the Greek Theater when he’s in LA, but for a trip to the hinterlands, he’ll require considerably more incentive and several thousand more ticket holders.

In Dallas, it seems, the classic supper club exists in one incarnation: the Venetian Room. You can eat well and be entertained by class acts at several other supper clubs, but you must modify (or totally abandon) the classic definition of a supper club. Stretch that definition too far, and you’re back to nachos, burgers and a rock band.

In Dallas, no more than a dozen establishments can claim the title of supper club. Herewith is a sampler of six.

Venetian Room, Fairmont Hotel, Ross at Akard. 748-5454. This is the bearded patriarch of Dallas’ supper clubs, the standard against which all competitors must compare themselves -which may account for the scant competition. Like an efficient machine, all the components of the Venetian Room experience combine to produce a memorable evening, from the stately murals of Venice to the impeccable service.

Lenny Dawson and his orchestra, which plays before and between shows, perfectly symbolize the Venetian Room. A sour note is simply unthinkable. Dawson taps along with the beat, but his seasoned musicians need little direction.

The Venetian Room is the only Dallas supper club that consistently books nationally known entertainers. Despite an occasional anomaly such as Cajun fiddler Doug Kershaw, most Venetian Room performers are slick purveyors of adult easy-listening-Al Martino, Frank Sinatra Jr., Clint Holmes, Freddie Cole – and they draw an older audience.

We won’t sing again the praises of the Venetian Room’s excellent continental menu. Note, however, that the prices are not as steep as you may have feared. A few of the entrees will decimate a $50 bill, but most fall into the $19 to $26 range, and anyway, if you have to ask…. But if you are budgeting your evening, you’ll appreciate the Venetian Room’s new fall festival (which has continued beyond autumn and will remain): soup or salad, your choice of three entrees, drink, dessert and the show for only $25, a bargain indeed.

On a recent visit, the festival entrees were tenderloin of beef, Rock Cornish game hen and seafood brochette. All were tasty, though of underwhelming proportions; the desserts, especially the chocolate mousse with strawberries, were more than satisfactory. Patrons ordering from the regular menu should expect a $10 to $17 entertainment charge added to the check.

Gabriel’s, Summit Hotel, 2645 LBJ Freeway. 243-3363. Gabriel’s is actually a two-in-one experience. Right across the foyer from Gabriel’s Restaurant is Gabriel’s Lounge. Put them together and they spell quality entertainment and delicious food.

At Gabriel’s Restaurant, the entr坢es are superior. They have to be, or they’d pale beside the myriad delights of Gabriel’s sideboard, which offers more than 20 kinds of salad and fruit dishes, shrimp, crab claws and herring. Other standouts on the sideboard are the macaroni variations and the tiny quiche, which are small enough for real men to pop ’em in whole.

And that’s just for openers. Next, the waiter brings a tiny raspberry ice cream cone for cleansing the palate before the arrival of the entr坢es. Our choices included chicken Gabriel, a succulent chicken breast topped with crab, mushrooms, slivered almonds and a b坢arnaise sauce. The swordfish steak was substantial and was grilled to perfection. The accompanying house vegetables were fresh and crunchy, with their individual tastes well-preserved.

After the meal, step across to Gabriel’s Lounge. You may have to wait for a table, especially when popular local acts such as Al Nelson or Dash Riprock and the Dragons take the stage. The lounge draws quite a heterogeneous group – to your left you might see a gent in a tuxedo, his lady squeezed into a lovely backless evening gown, while to your right you might spot a blue-jeaned beer drinker named Bubba, according to his hand-tooled belt. All seem quite at home at Gabriel’s, where the level of pretension is fairly low.

Harper’s Corner, Hilton Inn, Central Expressway at Mockingbird. 823-9180. This widely acclaimed supper club offers a veritable feast for the eye, with its mirrored columns, beveled glass, recessed windows, hundreds of tiny lights winking from exposed beams and a nice view of Dallas from atop the Hilton.

The food at Harper’s Corner lives up to its classy decor. The salade Harper’s Corner was a revelation: Prepared at the table, as if any guarantee of its freshness was needed beyond the first bite, the salad was a delicious harbinger of good things to come. Built of Boston lettuce, hearts of palm, walnuts and cherry tomatoes with a mustard vinaigrette dressing, this house favorite could easily be promoted to a higher-priced “specialty” item.

We were thus favorably biased before the entrees (which were some time in coming) arrived. Red snapper grilled in white butter and the filet mignon were a credit to the chef, but the saut坢坢d breast of chicken stuffed with crab meat and shrimp (crowned with a provocative sauce similar to a bordelaise) was magnificent.

Bob and Pam Ackerman and their band play serviceable jazz throughout the evening. Sadly, like too many talented musicians in a town with too few jazz outlets, they seem to know their place: All the material is homogenized for dancing, even a rendition of Sinatra’s My Way. This song was never meant to be bouncy and upbeat; it should be played Sinatra’s way, with some sense of strife and hard-won victory, or not at all.

Barney Oldfield’s, 1893 W. Mockingbird. 634-8850. If this supper club-showroom were plucked away from the Sheraton and set down a mile away, it might not last six months. Perhaps that statement is a bit harsh; nothing is truly bad at Barney Oldfield’s -but nothing is very good, either. The food is overpriced, the menu is extremely limited (three or four beef and fish entrees, two of chicken) and the drinks, even the call brands, can be insultingly weak.

Oldfield’s, as the name implies, is built around a racing motif, right down to the cocktail waitresses poured into their zip-lock pit-crew suits. But this is not the Mercedes of Dallas supper clubs. Old-field’s is at its best when country-pop singer Sami Jo makes one of her frequent appearances; in her absence, watch out for inferior songsters such as “TBG Production Recording Star” Gene Ferrari, a pathetic Tom Jones clone.

Papillon, 7940 N. Central Expressway. 691-7455. Papillon has one of the most interesting designs of the supper clubs we visited. If you arrive early for happy hour, you’ll descend an ornately wrought staircase to the club. Here, as throughout Pap-illon, the decor is eclectic if you like it, confused if you don’t. Try wicker and velvet chairs, for instance, plus high brick facades and low red lights. If you find the decor overwhelming, just sip the excellent drinks and listen to the jazz duo playing requests from the tiny dance floor.

Papillon’s dining room, a large rectangle open in the center, is upstairs; the music drifts up through the opening at just the right volume to permit easy conversation. The talk is likely to be about the food. For us, crevettes saut坢es gerber (shrimp in a mustard and basil sauce) and oysters Rockefeller on a bed of spinach glazed with cream sauce made a nice opener. Dover sole with lemon butter was delectable, flaky and moist, and a filet aux poivres (pepper filet) would warm any carnivore’s heart. Only escalope de veau presented a problem. The saut坢ed veal was drowned in a cloying sauce made with far too much sherry, and the meat was tough.

The prices here are rather haute, with few items on the menu less than $16, but the waiters are helpful and cordial to everyone, not just the well-heeled regulars.

Gran Crystal Palace, 2424 Swiss Ave.824-1263. This “colossal architecturalcreation” -or so it was called by the clubannouncer -is unique among Dallas supper clubs. For one thing, the waiters andwaitresses are the same singers and dancers who bring you the evening’s entertainment. They’ve got plenty to do, especiallyin a song and dance revue such as “Hollywood, USA,” so perhaps it’s a smallwonder that service often lacks the smallamenities.

But the staffs candor is remarkable. “You probably should order an appetizer,” our waiter told us. “You really don’t get many vegetables with those entrees.” Stuffed mushrooms (with crab and topped with hollandaise sauce) were an easy choice since the menu features only three appetizers.

Our entr坢es (chosen from eight on the menu) turned out fairly well. Baked flounder Michelle (flounder filets with crab stuffing topped with the ubiquitous hollandaise) was slightly salty but was fresh and nicely cooked. Roast duckling Adolph was succulent and well-seasoned.

The staffs refreshing candor had its limits. A 15-percent gratuity was added to the check without our knowledge. Neither our waiter nor the menu had told us of this policy -a practice that, when announced, is completely justifiable. In the dim light of the club, we failed to notice the extra charge and left a generous tip. The tab for the show and the dinner is $17.50 -a real bargain if that were the total charge.

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