Otto's Pink Pig Offered Fine Dining in High Style

If you wanted the fine dining experience in the early 1950s in Sherman Oaks, there were a few choices along Ventura Boulevard: Ricky's Valley Inn, the Grey Goose and Robaire's French restaurant. However, if you wanted to venture north on Van Nuys Boulevard for a high-level culinary experience, there was really only one choice: Otto Nasser's Pink Pig restaurant, at 4958 Van Nuys Blvd., just a few blocks north of Riverside Drive.

Restaurateur Nasser opened the place in the late 1940s for a lot of his show-business pals, including Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, who were living in the Toluca Lake area at the time.

They would come with large groups for steaks, prime rib and spaghetti dishes.

A postcard photo is attached here of the Pink Pig as it first looked, circa 1950. The restaurant was a hugely popular spot known for its homemade Italian pastries and prime rib.

In the early 1960s, Nasser wanted to keep up with the hipper image of the period, so he remodeled the Pink Pig and named it Otto's Pink Pig—which is how I remember it as a boy, going there with my family, who lived in nearby Encino.

The "mod" look of Otto's Pink Pig is seen in the rare photos (attached), including the orange, crushed-velvet center booth.

As I remember the restaurant's interior, I think it could have been the inspiration for a set in the current hit TV series Mad Men—the kind of place where Don and Betty Draper would meet for dinner to discuss their faltering marriage over martinis at the piano bar.

I recall in later years, during the 1970s tennis boom, that tennis courts were added to the property. When the restaurant closed around 1979, there were more tennis courts added and the property became a mini tennis club.

Jenny Fowler of Encino recalled visiting Otto's Pink Pig with her dad, the famous newspaper writer and author Will Fowler.

"Pop and our family would always have special family dinners at the Pink Pig restaurant," Jenny said. "I remember what a treat it was to go there."