I was recently researching Romanoff’s restaurant in Beverly Hills for a scene from my next book. Regular commenter on my Facebook page—Susan Milner—helped me out by finding this shot from 1952. For such a super-popular and super-famous restaurant, I was surprised how plain the décor was. (Does anybody remember the color of those walls?) I do find it ironic that the only decoration is the faux emblem of the fake prince who owned the place: Harry Gerguson who went by the name of Prince Michael Dimitri Alexandrovich Obolensky-Romanoff. Even the restaurant biz is show biz!

Susan says: “The above photo doesn’t show off the lighted murals on the far wall well. Here’s a photo of the far left side of this room that shows those wall murals (and the RR emblem on the back wall) better. The walls were sort of a grayed green at this point (we would call that shade deep sage today). The accent shades in this, the last Romanoff’s location, were light cream, dark brown and deep rose/almost burgundy. Some of the walls in the restaurant were covered in suede. The 2nd smaller back dining room had some modern art framed pieces. There was also one wall opposite what you see in the photo above that had an odd assortment of shapes done in a unique wooden very open lattice like wall enhancement.”

Another interior view (undated)

“Prince” Michael Romanoff in 1949:

Here is their menu (undated)

For more information on Romanoff’s, see my blog:

Romanoff’s – the quintessential restaurant in Make-Believe-Ville