Dan Tana, Founder of Legendary West Hollywood Restaurant Dan Tana's, Dies at 90

Eater

2 days ago

Dan Tana, the founder of legendary West Hollywood restaurant Dan Tana's, died on August 16 at 90 years old in Belgrade, Serbia. One of his daughters, commenting for an obituary in the New York Times, revealed he died from cancer. The staff of Dan Tana's announced his passing on the restaurant's Facebook page, writing, 'Our beloved little yellow house will forever feel his presence.'
Tana was born as Dobrivoje Tanasijević in 1935 to Serbian parents in Čibutkovica, a town outside of Belgrade in then Yugoslavia. He spent his youth playing soccer with teams like Red Star Belgrade, going on to play professionally across Belgium and Canada. In 1956, Tana moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting and appeared in movies like The Enemy Below and The Untouchables. While pursuing acting work, he picked up jobs on the side as a tuna canner at Starkist, a dishwasher at Villa Capri restaurant and Miceli's, and maitre d' and manager at Peppermint West. In the early 1960s, he worked as a maitre d' at Beverly Hills restaurant La Scala before breaking out on his own and opening Dan Tana's in 1964.
Longtime server Vladimir Bezak at Dan Tana's in 2009. Ricardo DeAratanha/Los Angeles Times
Dan Tana's opened as a 17-table red-sauce joint in the home of a former hamburger restaurant, serving distinctly classic dishes like veal Parmesan, chicken marsala, and New York steak. For the first two years open, the restaurant only served a handful of guests every night, until a 1966 review from the Los Angeles Times put it on Los Angeles's radar. Suddenly, Dan Tana's filled to the brim with more than 200 covers every evening. From then on, the restaurant became a celebrity hot spot, welcoming stars like Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Burton, and Jack Nicholson into its hallowed red leather booths. As West Hollywood's music scene bloomed with bigger acts playing the neighboring Troubador, Dan Tana's adapted, keeping its kitchen open until 1 a.m. for years for late-night martinis and pasta.
Dan Tana with customers at Dan Tana's. Richard Hartog/Los Angeles Times
In 2009, Tana sold the restaurant to Sonja Perencevic and moved back to Belgrade. Perencevic kept everything the same — down to the checkered tablecloths — continuing Tana's legacy. The restaurant eschews modernity in most forms: Reservations, to this day, are only taken over the phone and penciled into an encyclopedia-thick date book. Servers all wear tuxedo-style suits, often outdressing the patrons themselves, but it's all part of the charm. Jonathan Gold reviewed the restaurant for the Los Angeles Times in 2016, writing of the restaurant's status as an institution, the table-side Caesar salad, and a bad date he had there years prior.
Today, Dan Tana's stands steadfast along Santa Monica Boulevard, harkening back to the neighborhood's past as an Old Hollywood hangout and rock-and-roll haven. The menu has remained largely unchanged, though prices have risen, and the chicken Parmesan is still one of the best in the city. Although not all the food is memorable for the right reasons, it doesn't really matter. The outside world doesn't exist after crossing the threshold of the yellow bungalow, which remains full every night. With Los Angeles in a constant state of change and numerous old-school restaurants shuttering, Dan Tana's remains an unyielding reminder of hospitality and the transportive nature of a great restaurant.
Tana is survived by his wife Biljana and daughters Gabrielle and Katerina.
Exterior of Dan Tana's. FG/Bauer-Griffin/GC Images
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Dan Tana's
Location 9071 Santa Monica Blvd (at Doheny Dr), West Hollywood, CA 90069 External Link
Phone [phone]
Link http://www.dantanasrestaurant.com/
Come for the vibes, stay for the cocktails, and maybe share one of the best chicken parmesans in town. Dan Tana's, which opened in 1964, has plenty of detractors for its celebrity-riddled booths and sometimes lackluster dishes. But fans interpret the old-school food as timeless Italian American food, with numerous plates named after the West Hollywood restaurant's famous regulars. Stick to martinis and the chicken parm, and the rest will solve itself through the restaurant's timeless conviviality.