Culinary Cool Lives In Palm Springs
Yesterday the bocce court was crammed with a camera crew and models from German Vogue, and this morning a table of starlets prep for their photo shoot over bowls of chilled yogurt on Norma’s restaurant patio. They say nothing tastes better than being skinny feels, but my banana-macadamia nut flap jacks with, “whipped banana brown sugar butter,” confirms that ‘they’ don’t know what they’re talking about. I’ll only imagine what the lobster frittata tastes like: at $1,000.00 a dish – with 10oz of Sevruga caviar – I imagine it’s a bit rich.
Norma’s is fun and delicious, but the real action happens at night past the psychedelic door and beyond the velvet curtains in the hotel’s dark Mister Parker’s restaurant. Barry White drips out of the speakers as I settle into a corner banquette amid walls filled with vintage erotic paintings. In one of them a classic California blondesmoulders in a leather belted white bikini, sporting a Mona Lisa smile. A pair of porcelain lions guard the entrance to a private room in the back that comes complete with its own private bar.
The room seems to have drawn its inspiration from an imagined Burt Reynold’s man cave, circa the Gator/Semi-Tough period
The room seems to have drawn its inspiration from an imagined Burt Reynold’s man cave, circa the Gator/Semi-Tough period. Even chef Herve Glin’s menu seems to acknowledge that era, updating it in clever ways. Where you might expect shrimp cocktail there’s Tuna Tartare, the shrimp cocktail of the 21st century, that comes not with cocktail sauce, but yuzu crème fraîche, mango chutney, crispy potatoes and wasabi tobiko. Similarly, red wine braised Wagyu short ribs with sweet potato and creamed watercress are the steak au poivre of our age, a nearly ubiquitous and always delicious menu staple. There’s also steak au poivre.
Wine pairing is made easy thanks to a list that divides choices into Crazy, Sexy and Cool categories. After dinner, retire to the lobby, where the six seat, green marble lined Mini Bar makes a mean grasshopper, and see where the evening takes you. Back in the day that could have meant just about anything – when the hotel was the Givenchy, Robert Downey Jr. Was arrested for heroin possession in room 311, now though, things are as PG as the latest Iron Man movie.
If the party carries on back to your villa, and the evening turns to morning, it might be a good time to seek breakfast off the property. The line moves quickly at Cheeky’s where the workout gear clad crowds queue to indulge in a little pre or post tennis carbo-loading. This is the first restaurant in a growing restaurant empire from chef Tara Lazar and her partner Marco Rosetti that includes the Italian influenced Birba.
