Scarlett Kapella's Perfect Meal: Martinis and Peppercorn Steak

Scarlett Kapella wants her steak cooked to medium, her dirty vodka martini refilled at least two and a half times, and a peppercorn sauce that does the heavy lifting.

Kapella, a veteran dancer at Jumbo’s Clown Room and a visual artist with a catalog that spans photography, cookbooks, and pop-up dinner shows, has spent decades building what she’d call a serious relationship with the American steakhouse. She grew up near Palm Springs, where the steakhouse wasn’t a novelty but a given: the natural habitat of weekend golfers and silver foxes working the Coachella Valley circuit. “It’s always been a go-to for me when it comes to special occasion stuff,” Kapella told Eater. “And then obviously when I started dating, I felt like that was the safe bet.”

Safe bet or not, her steakhouse life has gotten considerably more interesting since then.

These days she’s drawn to the Venice Room in Monterey Park, a place she describes as seedy and campy, where you grill your own steak and karaoke runs almost every night. It’s the kind of room that makes sense for someone who performs under the stage name “Pantera” and once co-hosted a pop-up dinner show called “Topless Tapas” with the late chef Jonathan Whitener. Food and spectacle, for Kapella, aren’t separate categories.

She still talks about the now-closed Pacific Dining Car in Downtown Los Angeles like someone grieving a good ex. The late-night runs, the perfectly charred steak, the fact that you might end up seated next to anyone at two in the morning. “I just remember kind of ending up [at Pacific Dining Car] at wee hours of the morning and sitting next to a sex worker-John duo, but then having the perfectly charred steak,” she said. “I love all the family-style stuff. I really miss that place.” Her feelings about Musso and Frank Grill, the Hollywood institution that’s been pouring martinis since 1919, have cooled. She doesn’t say why. Some things just run their course.

Kapella’s case for why the steakhouse endures isn’t complicated. It’s the booth. The dim light. The ritual of it, the way ordering a New York strip or a filet mignon still carries some gravitational weight even after you’ve done it 50 times. She likes no fewer than two and a half dirty vodka martinis alongside. “I’m such a briny bitch,” she said. “I love a good olive.”

The cookbook angle is worth sitting with for a moment.

Last year Kapella published “Wine Me, Dine Me, 69 Me,” a cookbook that pairs recipes including Key lime pie with photographs of dancers at Jumbo’s. It’s the natural extension of a career that has always moved between the physical and the culinary. Her ongoing photo project “Bitch! You Strippin’” documents dancers across the country. “Topless Tapas” tried to collapse the wall between dining room and stage entirely. She sees a gap that the industry hasn’t filled. “There is a gap in the market when it comes to food and clubs, like strip clubs,” she said.

She points to the Lodge, a strip club in Dallas where dancers reportedly emerge from caves, as proof that someone out there is at least trying. Kapella’s fantasy version of working that room is immediate and specific: she’d come out dressed as a cavewoman, carrying a club. The Lodge also serves, by her account, the finest steaks she’s ever eaten in her life. High praise from someone who has eaten a lot of steak in a lot of rooms.

For anyone building their own steakhouse night from scratch, Kapella’s formula isn’t hard to follow. Find a red leather booth. Order the New York strip or the filet, medium. Get the peppercorn sauce. Start on the martinis before the bread arrives and don’t stop until the check comes. The Venice Room in Monterey Park offers one version of this, grill-your-own format included, with karaoke humming in the background to keep things from getting too civilized. It’s not Pacific Dining Car at two in the morning, but Kapella knows better than anyone that the best rooms are always the ones that let you get a little loose without ever losing the steak.

For more on steakhouse culture in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health maintains a searchable restaurant inspection database that lets you look up any establishment before you commit to your booth.