SONGS FROM ABOVE VITELLO'S OFFERS EVENING CABARET.

Byline: BRENT HOPKINS Staff Writer

STUDIO CITY - If life is indeed a cabaret, then Michael Sterling's about to start living.

The producer, director, publicist and theater aficionado long dreamed the impossible dream of running his own nightclub. Next month, he'll fulfill it by opening Sterling's Upstairs at Vitello's, a joint atop the storied restaurant where chanteuses will belt and croon and piano men will tickle the ivories.

The deal came together in a matter of weeks, but the velvet-voiced entrepreneur has kicked this idea around pretty much his entire life.

``I was introduced to this music as a baby in the crib,'' he said, relaxing at a round table next to the bandstand. ``My mom's favorite singer was Rosemary Clooney. She tried to sing me to sleep every night using Brahms' ``Lullaby,'' but when she got tired of that, she'd put on a record of Rosemary singing the song. Every night, I fell asleep to that.''

As an adult, he road managed the famed songbird, represented singer/actor Robert Goulet and directed musical theater across Los Angeles. But he never satisfied his jones for a place of his own, where he could shine spotlights on singers offering standards and show tunes as diners sip wine.

Cabaret occupies an unusual spot in American culture, with a small, but intensely loyal following concentrated on the East Coast and sprinkled throughout major cities. Generally composed of a singer and piano or small musical combo, the music thrives on the emotional bond between artist and audience -- a bond Sterling loves but had never been able to replicate.

That all changed due to a dinner date and a chance series of conversations that made a former storage room into a slickly tricked out jazz club, upstairs from a notorious booth where an actor's wife ate her final dinner and above a kitchen that once served up some heavenly manicotti.

To back up and explain a bit, Sterling has a professional relationship with Joan Ryan, a Studio City-based singer. She got her start singing at the Gardenia, one of the few Los Angeles clubs dedicated to the cabaret, and went on to win acclaim singing at the Hollywood Bowl and the Cinegrill.

Several weeks ago, she had dinner at Vitello's, her neighborhood Italian restaurant. The place, known for fine calamari and the prominent role it played in actor Robert Blake's criminal and civil trials in the death of his wife, has hosted opera nights for years and offers jazz music upstairs in a converted storeroom.

Ryan ran into Matt Epstein, who bought the restaurant a year ago and whose children attend the same school as Ryan's. He showed her the jazz space. Ryan wanted to sing there.

She called her manager, Sterling, who called Epstein, and the two turned out to have all sorts of roundabout connections. Sterling outlined his dream of a club that could attract singers like Johnny Mathis and Michael Feinstein.

The three got to talking and soon worked out a deal. Two nights a week, the banquet room would become Sterling's Upstairs, where patrons will munch and listen to music, live and loud. They'll dine on a four-course meal for $25, then pay about $50 to hear the musical act. Ryan will be artist-in-residence, using the 100-seat space to try out new material.

``From a singer's standpoint, there's not a lot of places in L.A. to do this,'' she said. ``But there's fantastic theater coming to the Valley now. With all the things going on in NoHo, it really feels like things are finally coming this way.''

Epstein, a big, gregarious guy who plays the drums and digs old cars, seems to think so, too. A real estate agent by trade, he bought the restaurant for its property value, then fell in love with its quirky ambiance. He recently installed a wax figure of actor Marlon Brando in his Don Corleone getup from ``The Godfather,'' courtesy of the shuttered Movieland Wax Museum, to watch over the cash register.

``Blake put this on the map as the Italian restaurant where he took his wife for her, unfortunately, last meal,'' Epstein said. ``But when I bought it, it needed a tune-up. Not the food or anything -- that was always great -- but the paint, the booths, all sorts of stuff.''

Some of that stuff comes in the form of big changes, like adding the cabaret. And some comes in rather odd ways, such as the so-called Miracle Manicotti.

As the story goes, several months ago, a patron who'd been suffering from a bit of stomach distress came in seeking some comfort food. While forking through a plate of tube-shaped pasta, the diner glimpsed an image of Jesus Christ. He was cured, bought the plate on which he said the Lord appeared, the incident made ``The Late Show with David Letterman'' and Epstein had himself a legend on his hands.

That's the backdrop for Sterling's lifelong ambition. He'll announce the lineup sometime in the next week, then strike up the band for the first time on Friday, June 9.

``I just always wanted to have my own nightclub,'' he mused. ``This is my passion... this is so cool, I can't even tell you.''

brent.hopkins(at)dailynews.com

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(color) Vitello's owner Matt Epstein, singer Joan Ryan and publicist Michael Sterling try out the cabaret setting at the famed restaurant. Log on to the Daily News Web site -- dailynews.com -- to hear a music clip from one of Sterling's acts.

John McCoy/Staff Photographer