Hats off to everyone at Somerville, the best-dressed crowd in Los Angeles. If you’ve been itching to wear your favorite linen suit, consider this your moment. Whatever the occasion, dinner at this retro supper club will feel innately special, and it’s not because of the Ruinart champagne by the bottle or the caviar dripping from your fried chicken slider. A splashy night at Somerville is special because it’s an unabashed celebration of its community, as much as it is somewhere to celebrate anything with a glorious bang. Luxuries like truffle butter and fancy cocktails are part of what makes this South LA spot a destination for upscale dining, a category of restaurant Slauson Avenue has historically lacked, but its most enjoyable attributes come from the transportive space. From the Hilltop Coffee + Kitchen people (and a little-known actress named Issa Rae), Somerville pays tribute to the neighborhood’s bustling jazz scene that dates back to the 1920s, and the results are undeniably cool. A nightly jazz band with a grand piano lights up the handsome mahogany-clad room as vested servers refill wine glasses. Dates, birthdays, and family gatherings line every curved gold-tinged booth. And while Somerville’s glammed-up American menu has some notable hits—and a miss or two—they ultimately feel secondary to the energy in the room. Somerville’s dishes can best be described as comfort foods with premium touches, like glossy parker house rolls that melt on your tongue with chive-y truffle butter. A collard green lasagna glued together with bechamel is a bomb of richness at first, but grows on you as the bitter greens shine through, and the caviar-studded créme fraîche on the fried chicken delivers a tangy-briny double punch. Aside from the inconsistently cooked steaks, nothing at Somerville flat-out disappoints, even though many dishes do feel relatively simple for their steep prices. But when the check arrives, it’s worth remembering that many other places in town with live jazz bands playing nightly tend to charge a cover just to enter. At Somerville, a special evening like this comes baked into the menu.