Bill Kay steps back in time to art deco

It's a hackneyed phrase, but last night I came as close as I can ever imagine to stepping back in time. Once I had collected a valet parking ticket for my 21st-century Ford Escape (at a decidedly modern $7 before a tip, and I have never seen anyone count my $3 change so slowly), from the moment I walked through the art deco metal gates into the sheletered Lalique forecourt leading to the double doors where I was greeted by a cloaked, uniformed doorman, I was in the 1920s. This was the Cicada Restaurant on Olive Street in downtown LA, in the historic Oviatt Building, which really was built in 1928.
It's a beautifully room, two storeys and 30 feet high, creating space for a gallery containing tables overlooking the main floor and a spacious bar at one end. The ground floor tables feel as if they on an ocean liner, with high pillars supporting the gallery and a huge main area for diners, dancers and a band - on this occasion the impeccably apt Janet Klein and her Parlor Boys. The whole place is done out in dark brown mahogany and everyone is encouraged to dress in 1920s style. Not everyone does, of course, but the women take advantage of the opportunity to wear their best flapper outfits while I counted at least a dozen pairs of two-tone shoes on the men, led by the owner, Maxwell de Mille, who has the whole rig: trilby, pencil moustache, chalk-stripe suit, black shirt, white tie.
It all added up to the sort of atmosphere that sweeps everyone into its vortex, and for a couple of hours we were all sent back 80 years.
The food is imaginative and well-executed Italian - all overpriced, but in the circumstances it's worth it because it's part of an experience which goes well beyond eating. It's play-acting on a grand scale, and I think it's going to spearhead a revival of downtown as the entertainment centre it used to be before the cinemas decamped to Hollywood and the wealthy quit Bunker Hill for Beverley Hills.