I am a big fan of supper clubs, and I would be even if I wasn’t a native of Wisconsin where they are relatively prevalent and part of our culture. I like the idea of people going to a restaurant and spending the entire night there not just for sustenance, but for social purposes. Today’s supper clubs are the closest I’ll ever get to experiencing the nightclubs of the 1920s through the 1940s where dining and live entertainment were mixed every night–think Rick’s Cafe Americain in the movie, “Casablanca.”
As you can imagine, I was excited to receive a copy of the recently released What a Swell Party it Was: Rediscovering Food & Drink from the Golden Age of the American Nightclub ($19.99 from Skyhorse Publishing), written by Michael Turback, for review. It’s part history book, part cocktail book and part cookbook. Turback takes 25 of the country’s most popular nightclubs from nearly a century ago and gives the reader a brief background as well as original recipes from both the bar and kitchen of the club.
For example, we learn that a Hollywood press agent opened the Copacabana in New York (p. 53), which was the city’s largest nightclub at the time and the first to have a chorus line of showgirls. The featured cocktail is the one-per-customer Zombie, and one of the dishes is the Chicken Chop Suey. I plan on making Chez Paree’s (p. 5) Chicago Cocktail (powdered sugar, brandy, triple sec, bitters and champagne) tonight.
I love the name dropping in each chapter. Performers such as Frank Sinatra, Glenn Miller and Louis Armstrong were mainstays at these clubs, and celebrities such as Jimmy Stewart, Spencer Tracy and Judy Garland were frequent diners. If you can believe it, these nightclubs could seat several hundred people; the Cocoanut Grove in Los Angeles (p. 29) fit 1,000 guests! That’s unheard of today.
Turback is educated in hotel administration and opened his first restaurant at age 22. According to his biography, Turback “was among the first to revive and re-imagine vintage [cocktail] formulas.” In fact, that’s the basis of his book titled, All the Gin Joints.
If anything, this book can serve as your guide to throwing your own roaring 20s/30s dinner and cocktail party, which is becoming more prevalent these days as we approach 2020.
What a Swell Party it Was is available at retailers including Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Tags: cocktails, supper club
