Kate The Great

Kate Mantilini, a restaurant in Beverly Hills, is closing today.  It's been an institution since I moved here years ago.  I haven't been there in a while, but, more than once, when friends were in town and wanted to go to a real L.A. place, I took them there.

Harry Lewis, who'd been a contract player at Warner Brothers, and his wife Marilyn, started the Hamburger Hamlet chain in 1950.  In 1987, they opened Kate Mantilini, a place with roadhouse cuisine, but a bit classier. Lewis died last year, though I believe the reason the place is closing is the rent was too high.

Kate Mantilini had a general menu with good food and reasonable prices.  You didn't need reservations.  And it was open late, which I liked. 

The restaurant appeared in movies, such as Heat.  And it was a hangout for a lot of Hollywood names.  I still remember my first trip there.  I'd moved to L.A. not that long before, and a friend "in the business" took me.  We walked in and right there, in one of the booths looking out on Wilshire, was Ann Miller.  She's gone and now so is Kate Mantilini.