![\"The](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screen-Shot-2020-10-21-at-8.14.30-PM.png\")
<\/a>The exterior of Dan Tana’s.<\/p><\/div>\n
For those who don’t know, Dan Tana\u2019s is the best Italian restaurant in Los Angeles. I’ve been dining there since my early twenties. The first one to take me there was a gal pal who\u2019s an LA native, and who loves restaurants as much as I do, so she knew the good ones. And then one of my suitors began doing the same shortly afterwards. I\u2019m not the only one who loves that place!<\/p>\n
But it was not until I got together with Mr. X that we became regulars. The ma\u00eetre d\u2019 back then was a wonderful guy named Jimmy. Everyone in this town loved him. I’m sure he was good to all their patrons, but he was especially wonderful to Mr. X and me. At first, Mr. X was the famous one of our duo, so whenever we stopped by for dinner, we appeared in the gossip columns of the day, (such as those in The Hollywood Reporter and Variety,) stating that we were \u201cspied\u201d or \u201csighted\u201d there the night before. But it was always Mr. X\u2019s name first, “with girlfriend, actress Karen Salkin.”<\/p>\n
<\/a>The late Jimmy Cano hosting at Dan Tana’s.<\/p><\/div>\n
And then, as soon as I started doing my own local TV show, Karen’s Restaurant Revue, we were treated like extra royalty. We could pull up at 8 o’clock on a Saturday night, I\u2019d run in and tell Jimmy, \u201cI\u2019m hungry,\u201d he’d say, \u201cGive me one minute,\u201d I’d go back to the car and get Mr. X, and when we got back in, Jimmy would already have one of the best tables in the place ready for us! I still have no idea how he always got that done for us!<\/p>\n
Actually, most<\/em> of the tables at Dan Tana\u2019s are pretty good, but there are a few that are not<\/em> in the main room that are kind of out of the way. I sat in that room twice with friends, and it was definitely good enough, (especially the night that I was right next to Nick Lachey, whom I loved at the time.) But Mr. X and I were always seated right where we could see, and be seen by, everyone, (including Magic Johnson, Dave Mason, and a few Yankees!) It was wonderful to be treated that way.<\/p>\n The main room of Dan Tana’s.<\/p><\/div>\n And we usually had the most adorable little real Italian waiter, Tony, and at the end of every meal, he came over and offered us drinks on the house. He’d say something like, \u201cWe would love for you to have after-dinner drinks on us,” which was so lovely of them. But we’d gratefully decline because I don’t drink at all, and Mr. X drinks very rarely, and definitely not when he’s about to get back behind the wheel of a car. But we still loved hearing it all the time. As a matter of fact, we always ordered their amazing ice cream sundaes for dessert, which did have a tiny bit of alcohol in them. So one time, when Tony left the table after his kind offer, I whispered to Mr. X, \u201cSince our dessert has pear liqueur in it, do you think they can count that as a drink?\u201d I said it is a joke, of course, and after that, we\u2019d always say it to each other after Tony\u2019s perennial offer, and giggle like idiots.<\/p>\n<\/a>