NONFICTION - Jan. 19, 1997

THE BROWN DERBY RESTAURANT: A Hollywood Legend By Sally Wright Cobb and Mark Willems. (Rizzoli, 160 pp., $30). If a restaurant’s food and service were good enough, a raconteur named Wilson Mizner said one evening in 1925, “people would probably come and eat it out of a hat.” So was born the concept for the Brown Derby restaurants, which in their day were the ultimate show business places to see and be seen. Of the four Derbys, only one (on Wilshire Boulevard across from the Ambassador Hotel) was actually shaped like a hat, but all of them, as the warm, intimate photographs in this handsome book co-written by the owner’s widow shows, served as clubhouses for the Hollywood elite. Also included are many of the restaurant’s most famous recipes, notably the celebrated chopped salad that owner Bob Cobb originated and the Grapefruit Cake that Cobb came up with when gossip columnist Louella Parsons insisted on going on a diet. Anyone looking for a sign of the times can note that the only Derbys still in existence are in Disney World and the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.