4 days Ago By Michele Stueven
Once known as the famous International Ballet School West, the brick building tucked away on Montana Avenue that launched the careers of famous prima ballerinas has been transformed and into one of the most intriguing new bars and restaurants in Santa Monica at The Courtyard Kitchen. Originally started by the highly acclaimed dancers Joey Harris and Don Hewitt, the trainers launched the careers of such notable prima ballerinas like Santa Monica native Thais Leavitt, who went on to study at the Royal Ballet School in London, joined the Dortmund Opera Ballet in Germany, became a demi-soloist with the Lubeck Opera Ballet, dancing in classics such as Swan Lake, La Sylphide, and Giselle. She was a principal dancer with the Dusseldorf Opera Ballet and returned to L.
A. to join the Dance Faculty of the Los Angeles County High School of the Arts. International Ballet School West (Courtesy Don Hewitt) It’s also where the statuesque Marlene Vicente spent years training.
She was one of the first showgirls in Las Vegas who didn’t want to go topless, so they built a show around her. “My time there was golden,” Leavitt, who started dancing at the age of five, tells L.A.
Weekly. “It was in the mid-60s when I finally started to realize that I wanted to be a dancer, and I always aspired to be in that class of accomplished dancers. The training was very advanced at that time.
We were trained in the classic Italian Cecchetti method. We were already doing pilates then, muscle and core-type exercises that required a lot of strength. We’d do the bear walk after the bar and crawl to the center of the room, where we all would lie down and do 20 push-ups and then sit-ups for 20 minutes.
Then, after all of that muscular strength, we’d start the center work. If you could get through that type of syllabus, you could have a career somewhere; it was that intense.” International Ballet School West (Courtesy Don Hewitt) While the old ballet studio in the back of the rambling cobble-stoned space has been redesigned into a Baja-style bar and restaurant, the room somehow still maintains its original charm and magic.
The space feels like a small Mediterranean village. Other dining areas in the original building are a jigsaw puzzle of indoor and outdoor nooks and crannies that serve great breakfast and brunch. The huevos rancheros are a crunchy twist on the standard, with sunny-side-up eggs, beans, and pico de gallo mounded on top of crisp corn tostadas.
It’s a romantic spot for dinner and has a great happy hour where the original ballet bar was. There are pizzas like fennel sausage, Yukon potato, and coppa pork salami, as well as main dishes like polenta short ribs, grilled salmon, and bone-in ribeye. “When I was about ten years old on the weekends, I would sneak into the studio through the bathroom window,” says Leavitt, who still lives in the nearby Santa Monica house she was born in.
“We had records back then, not a pianist, and I would put on the records and seriously do my bar and classroom work all by myself in the studio. In the meantime, my mother was frantically looking for me everywhere. My father always found me there, pretending to be a swan.
It was a real testament to the type of training we had.” The meticulously reimagined space is the brainchild of designer, general manager, and founder Mirela Gabor, who spent this year pregnant while knee-deep in construction, expanding the cafe. Courtesy Courtyard Kitchen “The building was one of a few businesses on Montana when there was just a hardware store and a gas station there,” the Bosnian-born Gabor tells L.
A. Weekly. “Originally, it was also an old theater.
Our office and storage area behind the current bar is at a higher level than the rest of the restaurant because the new seating is where the audience sat.” Gabor’s labor of love that started in 2013 is a family affair, with father Ari Selimovic serving as the chef and mother Zorica also at the helm. “A triangle is the strongest shape,” she says.
Courtesy Courtyard Kitchen Huevos Rancheros (Michele Stueven).
