The Morning After - Los Angeles Times Magazine

The latest, possibly most fashionable place to jump-start your day is the new $25-million Sports CLub L.A. in Beverly Hills, followed by breakfast or lunch at the adjacent Oliver Café & Lounge. Owned by Mario Oliver of Linq, this sleek white and chrome restaurant, squeezed into a former bank vault, has something for everyone. Those looking to shed a few pounds can head to the spa menu, where many dishes have fewer than 400 calories. But you can also find panini and wraps, an old-fashioned quiche Lorraine, a New York pepper steak, miso cold-poached Norwegian salmon—and low-carb bagels. And hey, there's the Low-Carb Power-C Martini made with wheat grass or, for reprobates, the real thing straight up with a twist.

A Top Team Makes Oliver a Top Choice

Every aspect of Oliver represents the top talents in the field of design, business management, and innovative cuisine. The combined culinary talents of Executive Chef James Legge, the restaurant wisdom of Mario Oliver, and the genius of interior designer, Dodd Mitchell, add up to Oliver restaurant. Together the group made the most of a snug situation when creating a restaurant from an original bank vault. The new Sports Club/LA Beverly Hills was a bank building transformed into the new $25 million dollar, 40,000 square foot luxurious fitness complex. And the question of what to do with the bank vault gave birth to this fantastically unique place, with a tropical garden, waterfall, and first-rate menu. The isn't another place in Beverly Hills where you can will find this kind of extensive low-fat, low-carb menu, available from 6:00am until late evening. And without closing off the area, a separate dining counter runs through the glass wall of the restaurant into the fitness center, which is always in sight. Healthy cuisine has never tasted so good!

After entering, I asked where the dining room was, and was told we were in it. This amazing little place is walled with frosted glass windows ion stainless steel frames that provide privacy and intimacy. And the small circular room has a slick high-glossed teak wood bar with saddle stools for 12, along with white leather banquettes and chairs paired to teak slat- tables for 45-diners. If you look towards the ceiling, it would be easy to visualize a ship deck over the likes of their incredible floor, intricately designed in white marble basket weave. At the bar, creative light bulbs i balls of glass hang from above, and a display case of desserts is ever present. Chef Legge previously helmed the kitchens for the internationally acclaimed L'Ermitage Restaurant and La Parc Hotel (both in Beverly Hills) also the Marina City Club in Marina del Rey. He was more than prepared to have menus for every occasion, including invigorating tonic beverages for the mind, body and spirit. One of his blends is "Mighty Joe Yang," a men's classic sex tonic, or "Morning After" for hangovers. Others are for Energy, Vitality, Balance and Longevity; served hot or sparkling cold, with each ingredient identified.

This is not a health food restaurant, but rather a place where anyone can satisfy their diet, or not. In addition, the exceptional menus are in tune with today's dining, presenting "small plates," larger than "tapas," but with prices to make you smile. For those on diets, he's added asterisks on items having 300 to 500 calories, and contain 4-ounces of lean protein; and low-fat mayonnaise.

There are several fabulous menus with terrific tasting foods, starting with "All-Day," featuring enticing salads, such as un-traditional Caesars, Asian shrimp towers, many "wraps" with luscious fillings, and numerous choices, ($7-$13). In addition, you will find an entire pages of sandwiches, offering pepper crusted roast beef, paillard of chicken breast, turkey, tuna melt, ham and gouda, plus tuna; all embellished with additional complements, fresh fruit and salad, plus a choice of breads, or baguettes. Other select sandwiches are panini's, (Italian style) $8-$12.

We chose our dinner from "Evening Bites," priced from $3.75 for soup, to $10 for tequila-lime cured Norwegian salmon, served with potato-chive pancakes, salad, and low fat wasabi crème fraiche. Our other choices for less money were steamed shrimp dumplings, Chinese style, a'la ginger soy sauce; rock crab cakes; filo wrapped herbal goat cheese; and ceviche seafood of shrimp, scallop, fresh fish, onion, tomato, lemon, bell pepper, fresh mango and cilantro. It couldn't get any better.

Another menu page, priced from $8-$14 brought to light entrees of carpaccio filet mignon; mozzarella balls; flamed Cognac shrimp, hickory smoked salmon, and among others, a charcuterie plate.

Some special breakfasts, mostly under $10, feature Atkins Power, Japanese California, Beverly Hills, French, and the Sports Club/LA Breakfast. Stop by for a menu and you will be hooked - try the low-carbohydrate bagels, this place is hot!

by Shirley Firestone
Restaurant Scene - Park Labrea News/Beverly Press
Restaurant Guide - Entertainment Today - July 2004

Haute & Spicy - Beverly Hills

Beverly Hills is alive with the sound of sizzling spots, be they tried-and-true or wild and new.

To think it took Mario Oliver this long to open a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Although the dapper, golden-haired impresario-turned-restaurateur was born in France, he nonetheless would seem a worthy representative of all the city has to offer, from breezy style (he complements his Levi's with DKNY jackets and James Perse T-shirts) to royal-pleasing savoir faire (he dated Princess Stephanie in the '80s). Moreover, Oliver has made Beverly Hills his own since 1981, when he rooted himself by renting a guest house within walking distance of Rodeo Drive (these days, the expatriate and his son, Morgan, 12, share a home close by). The draw? The BH existence is akin to "living on Park Avenue," he says in his still-thick-as-beurre accent.

So, finally, Oliver-the restaurant-has arrived, and its timing couldn't be better. Just as the city is being treated to a diva's face-lift, from new sidewalks to budding shrubbery, Beverly Hills' restaurant and nightlife scene is enjoying not just a resurgence but a surprising hipification. While cozy standards such as the Polo Lounge and The Grill on the Alley continue to work their charms, there's a near-giddiness in the air that can be attributed to a mini-slew of new hot spots. From the Francoera-evocative tapas and wine bar Cobra Lily (which teams Steven Arroyo, the brains behind L.A.'s hot Cobras & Matadors, with former C Bar proprietor Cedd Moses) to the oven-tested Massimo-well, the town hasn't seen this much action since Shannen Doherty stirred things up on Bevelly Hills, 90270. No wonder there are rumors swirling that the storied Chasen's will return yet again in a new location, perhaps on Bedford Drive.

Oliver's venture is firmly planted on very prime property itself. "I'm right across from Barneys, I've got Saks on my right, and I'm a block west from Rodeo," the fortysomething says with an incredulous giggle. His fortune shouldn't elicit too loud a quelle surprise, in the '80s, he came up (or down) with Vertigo, the legendary club frequented by a brigade of Euros, vodka-cloused models, Armani-dressed stockbrokers, USC sorority vixens and other Reagan-era rollickers who lined up behind the city's tightest velvet rope. From there, he opened the fleetingly hot restaurant Tryst and a masses-appeasing club called The Gate before he finally found his groove again with Linq, the suave bistro on Third Street that has ridden the new millennium so successfully, it was perhaps bound to scream sequel!

Appropriately, Oliver (9601 Wilshire Blvd.; 310-888-8160) is ensconced in the latest branch of Sports Club L.A., where many of the restaurateur's tony and toned clientele have begun to flex (but not Mario himself; living, working and working out in the same tiny radius "would be too much," he pooh-poohs). The building was previously a Wells Fargo bank, and Oliver patrons can enter through what was once a vault.

Not that change purses are left dry at this café which ubiquitous designer Dodd Mitchell (see Falcon, Avenue, et al.) has accented with black-and-white tiled floors, Venetian plaster and a 30-foot-long bar. Chef Jim Leger's 6 a.m.-till-10 p.m. menu swings from organic ouefs to a reasonably priced seared New York steak with golden trumpet mushrooms and a Merlot shallot reduction sauce ($26). And, modeled after Lincq, Oliver is what its feng-shui-espousing namesake calls "a very sexy room that flows, where every corner, there is an attraction."

...back at a certain new café, Mario Oliver, the type to relish a challenge, is pretty convinced that he has the goods to hold his own among the city's entrenched establishments. His restaurateur's name has promise, he doesn't mind saying. "It's classy and clean", he adds with a wink. "It's great name for Beverly Hills."

by John Griffiths, a regular contributor to InStyle, Glamour and Premiere
Beverly Hills Magazine - Winter 2003/2004

CITY GUIDE REVIEW

OLIVER Cafe & Lounge - Healthy fare links up with BH sweat shop.

If sweating over a good table is something you're used to, feel right at home inside Mario Oliver's small, but shapely co-production with Sports Club LA in Beverly Hills. As uniquely styled as his other restaurant, Linq, Oliver Cafe & Lounge is a circular, domed structure with a 'Jetsons' quality, primed for both the freshly pumped and primped. After you enter from either inside the club, or on top of the backlit fiber optic walkway from the street entrance, you can order from a healthy amount of options at the counter before having a seat on a plush leather chair or at the wood-finished bar. Menu items include Elixir tonics and smoothies, as well as more dynamic, substantial items such as a New York pepper steak, soy Chilean sea bass or Quiche Lorraine. And in case you wondered whether there were any hedonist pleasures for health food fanatics, there are a slew of asterisked item that are between 300 and 500 calories -- such as the risotto breakfast brulee and steel cut Irish oatmeal with Vermont maple syrup. Open mainly during club hours (serving breakfast, lunch and dinner at selected times), guests are welcome to wander over through the Sports Club after a workout, but don't walk in right off the treadmill, because workout attire won't cut it, as this swank little cafe still commands a vestige of tact to go with its good taste.

The Meals in a Glass that are Instant Energy Boost