raucous—an eclectic, blasting array of sounds with perceptible effects on attitudes. “Gangsta rap makes everyone grumpy, oldies put people in a good mood, punk makes them hyper, and country makes them sad,” the chef says. His crew can select the music, but he retains veto power over all selections. Steps away is the musically named Silver Trumpet, a hotel restaurant and bar also offering themed menus to coincide with Segerstrom Center programming. But general manager Paul Sanford and executive chef Carlos Garcia take it a step further. In addition to serving Argentine specialties during Evita, tango music played in the background, and tango dancers performed on opening day. But a contemporary mix of top 100 songs is what's usually played. “The dining music and musical presentations are very much a magnetic force to our loyal customers," Sanford says. Garcia’s menu offers modern takes on classic American fare: crab cakes with rémoulade or bacon-wrapped shrimp with Jack Daniel’s barbecue sauce preceding pepper-crusted filet mignon or Meyer-lemon-honey-glazed salmon. Specials are often influenced by the music the chef has been listening to. “What you feel inside is what your guests taste,” Garcia says. He offered tomahawk chops with achiotepepper sauce after hearing heavy-metal classics by Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe. Feeling
melancholy after listening to Boyz II Men, he opted for comfort food that reminded him of home. “My grandpa’s favorite was filet-mignon pot pie,” he recounts. Garcia immerses himself in music, in and out of the kitchen: “I want to be sure I spend time with my kids—not around the TV, but around music.” At work, his crew is exposed to a spectrum from Tupac Shakur to Carrie Underwood. When a mariachi band finished its wedding-reception gig at the hotel, the spontaneous chef lured all 16 musicians into the kitchen to continue their performance.
Rockin’ Out Crossroads at House of Blues is another restaurant provided as an amenity for concertgoers, in this case fans of Sweet and Tender Hooligans or the Vandals rather than Mozart or Schubert. But its food is no afterthought. All House of Blues locations—a dozen coast to coast—provide very respectable restaurants under the direction of celebrity chef Aarón Sánchez. At Downtown Disney, he entrusts the kitchen to chef David Suscavage; they’ve collaborated on a menu that combines Southern classics including jambalaya, Latin-inspired dishes such as adobo-rubbed pork, and allAmerican chicken wings and burgers. With its crystal chandeliers, seductively illuminated coffered ceiling and flamboyant color
palette, the decor is part Big Easy, part Hollywood. The Sunday Gospel Brunch—a festive ticketed event in the music hall presented by contemporary gospel singer Kirk Franklin— features a sprawling buffet of Southern specialties along with spicy bloody marys. There’s no need for a boom box in Suscavage’s kitchen. “We’re so close to the music hall we listen to whatever’s onstage,” he says. Bookings reflect everything from country to punk. “A live act is so much more powerful than ... a radio,” says the chef, who enjoys all musical genres. “My 3-year-old sings along to Pink in the car. I’m down for any kind of live music.” His prep crew, working when nobody is onstage, turns up a radio playing anything from mariachi music to hip-hop. “I consider what we do the entertainment business,” says Suscavage, noting that chefs and musicians tend to work the same brutal hours.
Two-Stepping The worlds of Hank Williams and Escoffier meet at The Ranch Restaurant & Saloon, on the ground floor of the Extron Electronics building in Anaheim. The restaurant is the vision of Extron founder/president Andrew Edwards. While diners at the restaurant sip first-growth Bordeaux from the 14,000-bottle cellar, suburban cowboys and cowgirls dance the two-step in the adjoining saloon.
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