2. PLACES AND HIGHLIGHTS (Suburb Guide)

NAVIGATION:

Sunset Boulevard

Perhaps the most amazing street in the world. It starts in DTLA goes (past my old house) through the heart of Echo Park, Silver Lake, Hollywood, West Hollywood - where it becomes the (in)famous Sunset Strip, Beverly Hills, The Palisades - literally all the way to the ocean. You will drive past the full spectrum of humanity all on a single street. It's a fun thing to do - particularly in a convertible on a sunny day. I’ll be happy to be your tour guide if this is of interest. The late Christopher Hitchens wrote a wonderful piece about it in Vanity Fair that's highly worth reading.

Silver Lake / Echo Park

Great food, my favourite bars, amazing vintage shops, cool artisanal stuff, interesting people. I'd love to take you around the area one day. I had 24 bars and alcohol-serving-restaurants within 0.6 miles of my old house in Echo Park. I’ve conflated the two suburbs here because they’re next to each other and the vibe is similar. Silver Lake is generally a little more monied and is very historical from a film perspective, Echo Park is grimier, slightly younger, and has a much heavier hispanic influence. Basically Echo Park is about 10-15 years behind Silver Lake on the gentrification tract, but it is catching up at breakneck speed. As a Sydney comparable, I used to relate Echo Park to Redfern of about ten years ago, and Silver Lake to Surry Hills or Paddington. They’re imperfect descriptions but it’ll kind of give you the vibe. Echo Park used to be the most hipster place in America next to Williamsburg, but for LA that title might belong to Highland Park, Lincoln Heights, or Frogtown now… still very hipster in any event. 

Echo Park

The actual park itself is really pretty and only about two blocks from Sunset. It’s a really charming little place to wander around - the corn on the cob that random old hispanic blokes cook and sell from portable barbecues is awesome. Favourite/best coffee: Woodcat. Best burgers (and $10 bottomless mimosas!): Lot 1 Cafe. Best (moderate) fine dining/nice restaurant: Ostrich Farm. Best Tacos (I've ever eaten): Guisados. Best burrito from a taco truck: Tacos Ariza (next to the Walgreens car park). Best tacos from a taco truck (and try the mulitas!): Taco Zone (next to the Vons carpark). Best random old lady who serves amazing purple quesadillas on the sidewalk: That lady (look out for the rainbow coloured umbrella next to the car park on Echo Park Avenue and Sunset towards Echo Park, she only does weekends).

Best vintage store: LOOK, though Luxe de Ville is also phenomenal, so is Sleeper, and Worship is rad too. Also check out the amazing vintage glasses/sunglasses store across the road from Luxe and Worship: Gentleman's Breakfast. If you want to do vintage shopping have a chat with me because there's about half a dozen I really recommend and a few that are awful (and if you’re really keen we can do them as a bar crawl - perhaps my #1 thing to do on a Sunday in LA). Best jewellery store: Esqueleto. Best book store to buy a gift: Stories (mix of new and second hand books - no sci fi). Best wine bar: Bandini. Best old-school video arcade bar: (weird category, but it's great - basically cheap booze and eats and a shit tonne of old game machines like from a Timezone arcade) Button Mash. Best live music venue: The Echo (funky soul night on Saturday is really fun and a great option if you don’t want to deal with a WeHo scene. There’s a nominal cover but super cheap drinks). Second best live music venue: The Lost Room (arguably better, but rarely/mysteriously open). Favourite dive bar (my old local): Little Joy. Best chic little cocktail bar: Bar Caló. Best old diner: The Brite Spot. Best chic diner: Winsome. Best curbside cafe (I used to dream about the waffles): Dinette. Best cheap and manky (but delicious) burgers: Patra Burger (also do the California burrito with avocado if you really want to be scandalous).

Silver Lake

There is no Lake! The LA Lakers basketball team used to be in the Great Lakes before they moved to LA and just kept the name. I’m not really sure why Silver Lake has the name it does. There is a (frankly pretty ugly) reservoir that a lot of people walk around in their best athleisure wear (it’s a real scene) but if you’re looking for a lake as I once did you will be disappointed. Still the suburb is one of my absolute favourite places in the world. It's actually kind of the original Hollywood - Mack Sennett Studios is the oldest in LA - and the film industry runs deep here.

Best fine dining: Cliff's Edge. Best cocktails (in LA I would argue, though Apotheke in the Arts District has taken a bold shot at the title, but seriously this place is fabulous): Bar Stella - as a note, you want the chic little cocktail bar at the front. There’s another pub-like bar at the back, and a whole French bistro which is also very charming (perhaps slightly overpriced) - but find the cocktail lounge. Best place to watch the sunset (down Sunset Boulevard), have a cider, and people watch: The Black Cat - absolutely beautiful interior too, and reasonable prices (excellent midnight-to-2am option). Best Pho (I've had anywhere): Pho Cafe. Best outdoor beer garden/Indian Mexican fusion restaurant: Cowboys and Turbans. Best chic Mexican: El Condor - a great date spot - there are three restaurants next to each other here. Kettle Black is Italian, Sawyer is seafood, and El Condor is Mexican. I’ve enjoyed all of them and wouldn’t say there’s a particular standout. If you’re unsure of what to eat, come here and scope them out. They’re all rad. Best Thai (I’ve had in LA): Nightmarket and Song - your wait for a table might be up to an hour though. Best coffee: Intelligentsia. Best Tiki bar (worth a visit!): Tiki Ti. Best bizarre late night haunt and personal favourite bar in all of LA (that I don’t want to tell you much about so it doesn’t spoil it): Good Luck Bar (CLOSED 😭😭😭).

Essentially what you want to do in Silverlake is get an Uber to Sunset Junction (just take it to Bar Stella or to Intelligentsia) then wander up the hill away from Hollywood towards Downtown. You will go past numerous great bars, restaurants, and cool shops. It ain’t Paris, but it’s an excellent little slice of LA. The very best cool/chic walking areas in all of LA are Sunset Boulevard here, Abbott Kinney in Venice, and Melrose in WeHo (West 3rd in WeHo is pretty good for this too). Echo Park is also awesome for a wander along Sunset Boulevard (start as Esqueleto and head down the hill away from Downtown). It’s notably more gritty than Silverlake but is a longer adventure with more and better shops. 

Los Feliz

Los Feliz kind of overlaps Silverlake and is a strong place for cool, low-key bars where you'll get more of a sense of "the real Hollywood," which is to say a lot of better known people just hanging out and having a drink or a boogie. Best bar: The Friend. Place that can be quite cool/had a serious problem for a long time with rape and girls getting their drinks spiked (supposedly better now, but be on your toes - to give a little clarity on this as it’s a very serious allegation, I personally spoke to a girl who woke up somewhere she didn’t recognize after a night there and a total blackout. I also know another girl who was drugged but whose boyfriend rescued her. The whole thing was incredibly shady. There are numerous reports of this.): Out of Order/Tenants of the Trees. Out of Order is at the front and more "exclusive". Should be easy entry though, perhaps barring after 9pm on a Saturday or a Friday. Buzziest hipster bar/live music venue (get there early if someone cool’s on - place gets slammed): Zebulon (technically this is in Frogtown). Best vegan restaurant: Little Pine (Moby owns it which is hilarious, but it's really great food and wine, a great building and setting, and really reasonable). Best brunch spot: Home. Best place to watch a movie: The Vista (1920's Ancient Egyptian theatre - totally love this place, plus tickets are $9.50!). Best late night haunt: The Dresden (Marty and Elaine have been playing the piano here every night for like a century - they're a total LA institution, and the space has appeared in a lot of movies and shows like Mad Men). 

Venice

Venice is pretty fantastic, especially if you love people watching. The boardwalk is kind of a zoo - cool though. Abbott Kinney Boulevard - about a half mile from the beach - is the super trendy street that has most of the best shops and the best coffee. But there are other real gems like Gjusta (best bakery/cafe in LA that I've discovered) that are in Venice but a bit back from the beach and half a mile or so from Abbott Kinney. Essentially being in the middle of nowhere is a typical feature of cool places in LA generally. There's only a handful of areas where you can really walk around a cool spot for more than an hour or two - Abbott Kinney is one of them. Long walks between places in LA can also be a little/very, very sketchy. Everything's discombobulated - it's why you need a car or lots of Ubers. Venice is fun to just wander around in though (but dangerous late at night!). You'll see quite a few Frank Gehry houses and loads of great old cars. I also like swimming there - people say the water's gross, but I've always found it to be fine, and the people watching is par excellence.

Oddly the nightlife tends to suck. Traditionally Venice had really great house parties, but in the five+ years since I've been here the whole vibe of the place has noticeably shifted - a lot of tech money has come in and it is starting to have a real San Francisco feel. That isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but it really feels like the place is getting very square on one side, and rampantly homeless on the other. As a rough rule of thumb, I'd say spend a day in Venice, but come the night time head East young man. Best shop: Tortoise General Store. Best place for a dinner date: Wallflower - kind of asian fusion. Best book store: Small World Books. Best super random, weird/hilarious place in the approximate vicinity to spend a few hours in (it's up Venice Boulevard in Palms): Museum of Jurassic Technology. Best bar if you're stuck on the West Side and the night has fallen: The Lincoln. Best bar on Abbot Kinney: Roosterfish. Best (kinda pricey) chic bar/beer garden restaurant: Neighbour. Best vegan: The Butcher's Daughter. Best (only?) rooftop bar: Hotel Erwin. Hell of a view but no seating unless you book quite a ways in advance. Best coffee - an LA standout: Intelligentsia. 

Santa Monica

I don’t much like Santa Monica. It’s very white upper middle class - yet lots of homeless. The beach is really, really wide and incorporates the world’s largest car park - not a great place for a swim. There are no good places at all for coffee near the pier. Santa Monica is kind of like Venice’s less charismatic brother who became an accountant. Best wine bar: Bodega. Best Tiki bar: The Galley (love the inside of this place!). Best fun little bar: Circle Bar. Nicest place for an evening drink with a view: Elephante. As a general rule you don’t especially want to be in Santa Monica after like… 9pm. For some reason it gets super crowded and honestly none of the bars are that great. Very bro-ie, white college kid kind of vibe at most of them. I wouldn’t personally bother with Santa Monica generally. 3rd Street promenade is where all the shops are (which should NOT be confused with West 3rd street in WeHo - which actually runs all the way from DTLA to Beverly Hills and is great at the part around WeHo), but they’re all pretty boring high street shops in Santa Monica. You’ll have much more fun wandering around Melrose, La Brea, Fairfax, or W. 3rd street (see West Hollywood).

West Hollywood

Or WeHo - pronounced 'wee hoe' - Pretty glamorous part of town with a lot of the best clubs (also the douchiest too - helps to have some guidance - see Getting In below), the most beautiful people on the planet, and some amazing shops if you've brought your wallet (if you’ve forgotten your wallet think about wandering Melrose from about Crescent Heights down to around Poinsettia. There are a lot of random/wacky/fun stores - particularly on either side of the top of Melrose/Fairfax). Favourite casual cocktail bar: Melrose Umbrella Company. Favourite low-key/cool restaurant: Jones (old school style pizza joint/bar). Best speakeasy: the Roger Room. Best old world glamour (think white tuxedos and where Frank Sinatra kept three of his mistresses): Sunset Tower - great place for a cocktail, but very expensive. Best vegan: Gracias Madre (this is probably your best option for a real "taste of West Hollywood" restaurant - great food, chic decor, beautiful people, reasonable prices). Best casual evening cocktails, lunch, brunch: Goldies. CLOSED 😭. I was pretty devastated to lose Goldies as it was one of the best outdoor dining options in LA. While it has lost its outdoor bit, a quite charming and very buzzy Mediterranean place has opened in its stead. It's called Kassi Club. Very attractive clientele and the lamb is absolutely delicious. Cocktails are great too, and it sometimes turns into a lounge around 10pm, but it's expensive! About 17 bucks a pop for a cocktail. A cool place to check out, but you'll be dropping about $60 a person for two drinks and one course. Inching towards $80 per person if the drinks are cocktails and you share a starter or two. NOTE: Kassi Club and Magnolia Bakery [below] are on West 3rd Street. I mention other destinations in that area under the Miracle Mile section below. It truthfully isn't really in either/is in both. Suburban boundaries in LA are very dubious.

Second best reasonably priced champagne breakfast: Laurel Hardware (or Gracias Madre is great for this too). Best place for a chill glass of wine and a bite: Zinque. Good very West Hollywood place to impress an out-of-town date: Cecconi’s (great happy hour!). Best Indian (I’ve found in LA): Anarkali - hilarious decor like a cut-price Aladdin's harem and very reasonable prices. Best banana pudding - OH MY GOD IT’S INCREDIBLE: Magnolia Bakery. Best old school American diner (a real institution): Canter’s. Best place to take a client who works in finance or exclusively wears polo shirts and boat shoes: Ysabel. Favourite fine dining: EP/LP - it's owned by the guys that did Long Grain in Surry Hills, and is delicious, but probably over a hundred a head. Best expensiv(ish - used to be very expensive but the prices have come down) vegetarian: Crossroads Kitchen. Best super rad clothes/furniture/everything store I wish I could afford to buy clothes/anything at: Maxfield. Best Chinese/updated old Hollywood chic: Formosa Cafe. This recently reopened after a long and very expensive renovation. It was founded in the late ‘30s and was a real-deal Hollywood staple for decades - the dive bar to the stars. When I first moved to LA it was incredibly underwhelming and had been the victim of atrocious renovations and apathy over decades. The revitalization is extremely good. It’s old Hollywood glamour meets opium den chic and has slightly de-salted my wounds from losing Good Luck Bar. The Chinese food is very passable. Dine out on a reasonably priced dinner, or just have a cocktail in a booth.

Getting In

The following is probably the most obnoxious part of a publicly posted guide to Los Angeles, but is frankly also going to be extremely useful to those looking to party (i.e. >90% of my visitors). The nightlife ecosystem in this city is quite unique to my experience - or certainly is far more extreme. There are a small number of nightclubs in LA that you are very unlikely to get into unless you have a “connection“. All that “connection” really means in this context is that either, you or a friend know the doorman/owner/manager/password (not joking on passwords, though often it’s effectively just dropping the name of the owner/manager, but I’ve legit been to places that had like an “open sesame“ thing going on); you have a friend who’s already booked a table or is famous; or you’ve been invited to an event or are on the list.

Fortunately the bulk of this guide is focused on a bunch of great places where you will have no sweat and no drama getting in. The WeHo/Hollywood scene we’re about to dip into, is, by its nature, considered very uncool by a bunch of people who are quite cool and thus by one of the dumbest alchemies ever described (and dumbly described at that), this only relates to a very particular subset of cool places in LA, which are: those requiring a connection to get into. If you’re an out-of-towner, and you’re just trying to roll up to these places you’re going to get rejected 50-100% of the time depending on the particular spot.

The first thing to understand is that for a lot of nightclub owners in LA being “cool” is the most valuable currency they have. It’s the foundation stone for their entire business. I’ve seen guys turned away from a joint who had the intention of spending thousands, potentially tens of thousands of dollars in a single night (they had just won a lot gambling). But they were a little sleazy looking and not very cool. Frankly I don’t know of any other city I’ve been to where that would happen. It sounds like a dumb business decision on the part of the club, but the fact of the matter is that bars and clubs have mercilessly short shelf lives in this city, and the cachet they live by is the quality of their clientele. The trajectory from Hot to Not Hot for most nightclubs in LA is about six months. If you own a super popular bar here, cash flow (when you’re cool) won’t be a problem. As soon as you’re not cool it will become a big problem fast.

If you’re an extremely glamorous young female you’re unlikely to have problems anywhere at any time, and none of this really applies to you. If you’re a dude, even if you’re a male model or a quasi-famous actor, it probably still does, at least occasionally. Though if you have a fierce look your prospects of getting in rise exponentially. For information on dress code, check the What to Wear section under Cultural Issues.

Getting In: Weho
Entry to the following places can be tricky by varying degrees (often depends on the night). Some of these are bottle service type places where you can pay to get in. Some of them your money is no good if you ain’t their desired clientele or you don’t have a connection. (Formerly) favourite bar: No Name's (varies on the night. Can be a bit of a ghost town these days, but when it’s good it’s still so, so good, and the decor is rad - UPDATE - Currently closed as of July ‘19 for renovations. Likely will be #1 again for a little while when it reopens). (Formerly) favourite nightclub: Blind Dragon (it's really not nearly as good as it used to be either - it's still a pretty cool place but it was so rad when it first opened and you had to traipse through a shipping container in a carpark to get into it - they still do a bitching Karaoke night on a Thursday though). Best bar that makes you feel like you're in 1929 pre-The Crash: Delilah (probably my favourite in LA for setting the night to STUN - also the Sunday jazz is incredible). Best high-end cocktail bar/Italian restaurant/nightclub: The Nice Guy. It can be fun, but it’s overpriced and is kind of like a less cool, more modern Delilah (it’s kind of ‘60s themed). The Nice Guy and Delilah both have the same owners and are similarly both restaurants and night clubs. It’s relatively straightforward to just book (a quite expensive) dinner at either of them online for certain nights. Rolling up for a drink at either may prove quite difficult without a connect or a very glamorous person in your group. Most glamorous: Chateau Marmont - entry's very tricky to the outdoor restaurant/bar which is by far the best part. Don't get confused with Bar Marmont - which is cool and just down the road, but not even close to the same. If you try to make a booking for the Chateau they will google you. Unless you’re either quasi-famous; have worked in a job that’s very connected; stay there regularly; or are friends with someone that works there, your chances as an outsider of getting a table at night are approximately zero. You should be able to book for brunch though without too much fuss. Best Vegas-style bottle service dance club: Nightingale. Best nightclub for trap music and the feeling that you're in a video clip: Poppy. Worst bottle service club: Sunset at Edition - There is literally nothing chic about this entire place, perhaps barring the crowd who was exceptionally attractive when I was there. My guess is this place will be a ghost-town by mid-2020 unless they do something drastic with the decor. Mirror balls on the roof. Wow. Yay. I think they must have run out of budget.

Bottle Service

To explain a bottle service club: they're the clubs with the biggest lines and the highest number of "aspirational legends" for want of a better term. Essentially they're clubs that charge eye-wateringly high admissions to nobodies/anybodies/aspirational somebodies/professional sportsmen(/slebs who get booze for free), and have tables available that usually have a minimum spend of at least a couple of hundred bucks. In Vegas these places can be 10K plus. In LA you're probably looking at $200-3K minimum spend. It's easy for me to set up on a discount if you're keen, but I personally only ever go to these sorts of places when there's some comped party or you're with people who are flaunting (see: not my cheque). If you're a glamorous girl they're a good place to go as you'll probably get in for free and without much hassle, you probably won't pay for booze, and there'll be a lot of great people watching with folk dressed to the nines (girls in very short dresses and big heels, guys in Gucci loafers). If you're a bloke or a gal looking for a more casual evening then I'd probably dodge the hell out of them. They often have "high profile" DJs playing... ZZzzzzzzzzzz

As a final comment on a murderously long and obnoxious section, a note on queuing: If you’re queuing in LA at most of these places you’re probably not getting in because as a rule, apart from at airports, people in LA don’t queue. Some clubs won’t even have a queue, but instead have a big rectangle of red carpet where you can be adequately judged by the doorman/woman and their muscle. The bars are financially motivated to have big queues and clusters of people around them. They cultivate it. It’s all about generating layers of exclusivity to exploit an obscure psychological weakness people have for wanting to be a part of somewhere they’re not wanted. I ran a lot of events in LA for three years and it never ceased to amaze me how eager people were to get into the VIP section. Often there’s a VIP within the VIP, with the regular VIP more like economy plus. These are generally just the rooms with the most coked out people. And that’s about it.

Hollywood

Some great bars, but also pretty awful in a lot of ways. Avoid the Avenue of Stars, it's one of the most profoundly underwhelming places on the planet. Best rooftop for a glass of champs: Mama Shelter. Best bar for a beer after work: Sassafras (it's New Orleans/Wild West themed). Best bar through a hidden door into what supposedly used to be Charlie Chaplin's old house: No Vacancy (door can be ugly. See Getting In in the WeHo section). Best ramen: Tatsu (but doesn't serve booze). Best place for a coffee/sandwich (also the dinner looks totally amazing but is $$$): Gwen - owned by a famous Aussie chef. Best restaurant in the Hollywood Hills: Pace (you will almost always see famous people here). Best Italian: Osteria Mozza (recently won a Michelin star). Strong place for stroppy late night fun or an old Hollywood dinner: La Poubelle. La Poubelle is in a little strip called Franklin Village which is a string of cafes, bars, and restaurants just below the Hollywood Hills. Next to Silverlake it's one of the best areas for a legit Hollywood feel. Very young, cool, and sceney, but very casual too - and still with a bit of grit. I really love it. My favourite cafe in Franklin Village is the Bourgeois Pig. Best burlesque/strip bar: Jumbo's Clown Room - a real institution - hard to describe but it genuinely isn't as sleazy as it sounds, and is really fun - best to go with a big mixed group. Best place for Mermaids to come out of the ceiling: Pour Vous. Best magical themed bar with opium den themed nightclub downstairs: Black Rabbit Rose (the magical one - magicians wander the floor and they also do ticketed magic shows) & Madame Siam (downstairs). Best place for a magic show: The Magic Castle. You have to know a magician to get into the Magic Castle and you book in advance for an (overpriced) dinner and get access to a bunch of shows. It’s a really fun experience and quite unique. Some of the magic is completely baffling. Black Rabbit Rose will be less fuss and significantly cheaper. I do know some magicians though if you’re keen for The Castle. Best fuck-off bottle service club: Avenue - but I'd probably give it a miss and go to Nightingale in WeHo if that's your game.

Miracle Mile/Mid-Wilshire

The place for art deco architecture. Less glamorous than WeHo, less cool than Echo Park, but it’s where I live and it’s one of my favourite places in LA, and by far and away the most convenient place to get to everywhere else (very central). Miracle Mile was originally envisioned as LA's answer to the Champs-Élysées/Fifth Avenue, it boomed in the '20s-'50s and was one of the most glamorous parts of town, before going to the dogs a bit. It's now become quite glam again. It's wedged between Beverly Hills and Korea Town and has a charming fusion of a semblance of the luxury of one and a toe-hold in the vibrancy of the other. The revival and art deco architecture is epic. Great place for wandering the residential streets adjacent to Wilshire Boulevard (if you like walking around suburbs). All of the best antique stores are on La Brea north of Wilshire up to about Melrose. Best Fine Dining: Republique - incredibly good food and super cool setting (built by Charlie Chaplin), the pasta is divine, and it's quasi famous for its oysters, hard to escape for less than $100 a head though. Also to have a little rant: I get extremely pissed off with their entry level wine selection. It’s fine dining so I get that the cheapest bottle needs to be >$50, but it’s just indecent that they serve utter plonk south of ~$70. Really pisses me off when I can get a better wine for $10 at Smart & Final. NOTE: Republique does an amazing and reasonable lunch and brunch service - one of the best in LA. You will probably queue, but it moves.

Best museum: LACMA (see the Things To Do section). Best picnic area: The La Brea Tar Pits - Kind of fascinating to see actual tar pits. They're massive graveyards for mammoths, and there are displays, exhibits, and the like, also a nice big park. Close to the pit the smell is a bit wiffy if the wind's the wrong way. Smashing place for a picnic though - pack a blanket and head around the back towards 6th Street. Best French: Petite Trois - super charming little French bar/bistro, most legit Parisian place I've been to in LA - very cosy and the food is epic (the burger covered in gravy is ridonkerous). Best mezcal/tequila bar in LA: El Carmen - my second home. Best chic little cocktail bar (no menu, you just provide a flavour profile): Blue Collar. Best quirky old-school Mexican: El Coyote - made famous in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (food's better at El Carmen though - which isn’t necessarily saying a lot - go for vibes and drinks to both these places, not the food). Best buzzy brunch spot: Bacari W 3rd. Best gastro pub (I hate the name “gastro pub”, it sounds like an infection): Fat Tire. Best chic/casual pub: The Phoenix. Best Sake Bar/Japanese Izakaya (love this place): Sake House (the one on La Brea). Best cheap and cheerful Japanese: Yuko Kitchen - it's awesome sitting in the nooks and crannies of the garden - no booze though. Best dive bar: The Little Bar. Best bar with a mini golf course in it: Busby's East. Best waffles, good coffee, most confusing name (doesn’t serve booze I haven't been in a while, but word on the street is they finally have their bar license!): Met Her at a Bar. Best diner: Eleven City. Aesthetically this is one of the best in LA, being tucked inside a beautiful art deco tower. They serve amazing frosé and the food is good but not incredible - a little overpriced. Best wine bar/casual date place: Rascal. Best Burrito (one of the best in LA - the Habanero garlic sauce is preposterous): El Cartel. Best clothing store: American Rag. Pretty huge selection of both vintage and new for men and women. Pricing is inconsistent and if you pick up a t-shirt it might be a $20 vintage bargain or it might be $100 and brand new. Fun to explore. There’s also a large homewares section.

Best coffee: Bluestone Lane (it’s an Aussie coffee shop chain), but probably THE drawback to this area generally is a paucity of coffee shops/cafes that aren't starbucks (of which there’s a gazillion), however for great coffee take a little ride to: Go Get 'Em Tiger in Larchmont Village. Larchmont's really cool - a quite European (as in walkable) style little strip with really nice shops. It's kind of its own place but is pretty much wedged between KTown, Hollywood, and Miracle Mile/Mid-Wilshire. On the opposite side of Miracle Mile from Larchmont, if you head down Fairfax a bit towards the West Side you’ll hit Little Ethiopia - a really charming little area with fantastic food (Ethiopian food obviously). Best food/best $$ restaurant: Meals by Genet. Best $ restaurant: Messob. Most comical decor $ restaurant: Merkato.  

ARTS DISTRICT (DTLA)

Great place to wander around on the weekend. There's always cool openings and shows on (google the For Your Art newsletter to find out what’s on). Be mindful that you're very close to Skid Row (a tent city of homelessness, it's honestly quite jaw dropping, I’ve heard the number is close to 20,000 souls), so don't wander too recklessly, especially at night. It's one of my favourite parts of town though. If you seek out an "After Hours" (bars in LA shut at 2am) you will very likely end up in a warehouse here. They're serious raves but can be really fun. Best place for brunch: Zinc (not to be confused with Zinque in WeHo or Venice, though these are cool too). Best art gallery for a wander (also a cool bar space): Hauser, Wirth, & Schimmel. Best ice cream: Salt and Straw. Best Italian (maybe in the city): Bestia - usually bookings are out to a few weeks/months delay unless you want to eat after 10pm, but I've landed a same-day table via Opentable, so can be worth checking. Most overpriced/overrated Italian (+horrible service): Officine Brera. Best Cuban(ish feeling) Restaurant: Dama - one of the best outdoor dining options in LA, particularly with a big group. Best cocktails (amazing place - actually kind of in Chinatown though, it would be a long [and very sketchy] way to walk [don’t be a pedestrian!! But do go to the bar!]): Apotheke. As a final note, there’s also an Arts District in North Hollywood, and I think there’s even one in Culver City. The DTLA one is the one you want.

DTLA / DOWNTOWN LA

Some super cool restaurants and bars, but also a bit of a dog's breakfast. Quite dangerous in a lot of places, so stay on your toes, especially late at night. I've seen some truly wild shit go down around here, and in places - particularly around Skid Row, which is/is almost the Arts District - you literally feel like you're in the Zombie Apocalypse. Broadway is really wonderful though - the architecture's great - it's in the 'Historic Core' part of the DTLA map above. Strangest bar[/collection of bars] (100% worth a visit - words can't describe how odd it is, possibly my favourite place in Los Angeles if not America): Clifton's Cafeteria. Be sure to ask about the hidden Tiki bar through the mirror. Best Margarita: Las Perlas. Best rooftop: Ace Hotel. Alternate best rooftop: Perch (but the crowd tends to be a lot of tax attorneys, see: kind of square). Cool (though kinda pricey) place for dinner: Red Bird. Best/favourite restaurant I've been to in all of LA: Broken Spanish - super unique fine dining experience - very cool cuisine, essentially high-end LA Mexican. It’s a little inconsistent and the service is hit and miss, but to me it’s been the best fine dining experience that truly captures what’s unique about LA food. Best restaurant to take a date: Woodspoon - it's homely Brazilian, totally delicious. Best place to go if you can't decide what you want to eat: Grand Central Market - awesome, awesome food market, bundle of restaurants and specialty food stores, all under shelter in this big open space - think Paddies Market but full of high-quality eateries. Best coffee (and rad interior): GiorgiPorgi. Best buzzy restaurant - Israeli Middle-Eastern cuisine with ludicrously cool and unique decor (by Roman and Williams no less): The Exchange - it’s in the Freehand Hotel. Best sushi train: Sora - absolutely mind blowing view though quite expensive. Best nightclub design: The Edison. The crowd leans towards the squarer side (or this may be a function of the dress code), but the interior is extraordinary. One of the most impressive renovations I’ve seen - essentially it’s the basement of a very old building where they’ve kept all the power plant machinery and furnaces, and turned them into features. Vast high ceilings and naked columns. Lots of fun nooks and crannies to explore. Double check the dress code before you roll up, but it doesn’t seem too rigid. I think there’s a nominal cover.

Korea Town / K-Town

Really funky part of town. Best Korean BBQ (I've ever tasted by far): Kang Hodong Baekjong - but be wary of a one hour wait (even for two)! Best nightclub: Breakroom '86 - it's an '80s themed bar that is really, really fun - one of the best in LA. Best Karaoke: I know a few karaoke places but I'm not sure I'd nominate any as the "best." I only end up at them usually when I'm incredibly wasted. Try google and see where you land. Failing all else, try Pharaohs or Soop Sok. Best Korean bar/bar food: Toe Bang Cafe. Best brunch spot (in all of LA): Escala - it's Colombian/Korean fusion, has bottomless mimosas (for 15 bucks I think) and is super fun and always surprisingly pumping on a Sunday afternoon. Best bar (one of my absolute favs in LA): the Prince - imagine 1920s American notions of European sophistication, with no decor update since 1957 and a Korean restaurant slapped inside. It’s been in a lot of movies including Chinatown. Best chic cocktail bar: The Walker Inn - expensive but great. Best ramen: Slurpin’ Ramen.

Beverly Hills

Doesn’t have good bars. Restaurants are overpriced, occasionally extremely overpriced. A walk down Rodeo Drive can be fun though. Best cafe: Sweet Beverly is reasonable and great. It’s situated on the edge of a public garden and is your best bet for lunch. Best restaurant for the BH experience that won’t break the bank: Cafe Gratitude (really dumb and funny if you’re an out-of-towner. They ask you hairbrained things about how your chakras are feeling and say hollow compliments depending on what you order - vegan menu though, so watch out). Best deli/diner: Nate ‘n Al - great people watching if you sit outside, food’s a bit ordinary though. Best place to wine/dine/hang out generally: Spring Place - to my taste this is the coolest co-working space/private member's club in LA. You can only get in if you're with a member, but fortunately for you I now work out of there a lot. Much less of a party than Soho House though! Best rooftop dining: Waldorf Astoria. Take the elevator up to the pool and go to the restaurant around the other side. It's really lovely. Comfortably one of the best rooftop food options in LA. Not cheap but not hideously expensive. $20 cocktails. Rest of the Waldorf is blah though. See my diss in the Where To Stay section.

Malibu

Really beautiful and worth a visit or even just a drive-by. The highway sticks to the sand the whole way up. You can keep driving north along the coast up to Santa Barbara too. If you feel like a long day trip, or even an overnight, Santa Barbara is absolutely awesome and really stunning. It's about two hours drive from my house. In the other direction and a little further is Palm Springs which is also real cool though more of a weekend away kind of place in my opinion (you'd usually do Palm Springs and Joshua Tree together, both of which are rad as fuck). Best expensive brunch spot: Geoffrey's. Best roadside bar/restaurant (less expensive and actually kind of a dog's breakfast type of place, but hella beautiful setting): Moonshadows. Best fish and chips: Malibu Seafood. Best bar: Soho House Malibu. Unfortunately it’s a private member’s club, and even if you are a member of another Soho property you aren’t guaranteed entry. It’s fun though. Pretty much just a very chic bar that’s right on the sand with beach access. I’m not a member but if you’re hell bent on it, it can possibly/probably be arranged.

other SEGMENTS:

1. Geography

3. THINGS TO DO

4. PLACES TO STAY

5. CULTURAL ISSUES