West Hollywood & Mid-City
Two-story Rage does theme nights – Asian Fridays, Latin Saturdays etc – with thumping music and lotsa bars and boys. We admit to having a soft spot for…
Must-see nightlife in Los Angeles
San Fernando Valley
Under a vaulted brick ceiling, this upscale neighborhood tavern had us at its list of Bloodys (Mary with vodka, Maria with tequila, hell with gin, etc),…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
A fun Little Tokyo bar with waxed concrete floors, a blonde-wood slab bar, common tables and built-in bench seating. Expect ball games on the flat screens…
Santa Monica
This neighborhood coffee shop is oh-so-LA. Think superfood coffee and tea drinks: matcha lattes, 'brain coffee' with MCT oil and ghee, sea-salt cold brew…
Los Angeles
This storefront across from the water does triple duty: cafe, bakery and possibly California's micro-est brewery. Tiny tanks in the corner dispense brews…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
A loud, cavernous, industrial Arts District hot spot, with huge brewing vats behind the bar, vintage Skee-Ball tables and a Charles Bukowski quote glowing…
Los Feliz & Griffith Park
Is it a Chinese restaurant? A '70s massage parlor? Actually, it's one of Los Feliz's older hipster dive bars. Step through the velvet curtains and into a…
Westlake & Koreatown
The jukebox is stocked with classics and neo-classics, and you have to know the password to get past the gatekeeper. Seriously. Call or log on to its…
Silver Lake & Echo Park
LA's original overly intellectual coffee house (and there are a number of them now) offers a marble island bar where you can sit with your laptop, and a…
Silver Lake & Echo Park
Echo Park's beloved and deceptively sprawling dive has a dance floor in one room, a bar strobing ballgames on flat-screens in another, and a pool table…
Malibu & Pacific Palisades
Right across from the ocean is this low-slung, converted whitewashed beach house with tasty flatbreads and a popular weekend brunch. But we consider it to…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
A retro-spirited watering hole with twirling ceiling fans, parlor floors and cocktails celebrating its Fashion District address. Chat hemlines and fabrics…
Silver Lake & Echo Park
A dark, sexy demi-monde where the walls are black, the lights red and the videos hardcore, the Eagle is as close as LA gets to a proper gay leather bar,…
Long Beach & San Pedro
Portfolio has been supporting the arts, and nurturing Retro Row, since 1990, with poetry readings, art exhibit space and live jazz performances on Fridays…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
Kick up your heels during Saturday’s Tropical Nights when a salsa band turns the heat up against the faux Mayan-temple backdrop. Don’t know how? Come…
Long Beach & San Pedro
In San Pedro's old warehouse district, this brewery opens to the public five days a week for tastings from beers such as the Popfuji unfiltered pilsner,…
South Bay Beaches
A nice counterpoint to the design-heavy sports bars on Manhattan Beach Blvd. This locals-heavy hole is dark, neon-lit and cozy, the tiles are chipped and…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
This dark basement lounge flashes old-school glamor with leather bar stools and lounges tucked into intimate coves. But the bar is the thing, armed with…
Westlake & Koreatown
A corner coffee shop in a mini-mall with an assortment of slushies, smoothies and teas, the best of which is the wonderful taro slushie with boba balls…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
With an old Mexico whimsy, more than 400 agave spirits and friendly barkeeps who mix ingredients such as egg whites, blackberries and port syrup into new…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
A vintage bar with old-school funk, groovy tunes on the stereo, sports on strobing flat screens and taps pouring suds from Cali craft brewers such as…
West Hollywood & Mid-City
This 1975 hippie classic – the first on the LA health-food, raw-power bandwagon – started out on Sunset when Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones used to…
San Fernando Valley
The bar at this restaurant has the sexiest library this side of an Anne Rice novel – bordello-red lighting, low-slung couches and flickering candles, all…
South Bay Beaches
Nestled thankfully off the Pier Ave crush, this decidedly grungy neighborhood joint has friendly (not bubbly) blondes behind the bar, boards (snow, skate,…
Silver Lake & Echo Park
What's better than a beer store? One with a bar. That's what you get here, where clued-up, attitude-free staffers are happy to help you decide between…
West Hollywood & Mid-City
The essence of cheap and cheerful, Fiesta packs in a vibrant crowd of 20-something twinks and other assorted revelers, thanks to extra-long happy hours,…
Hollywood
Easily the coolest coffee joint in this stretch of Hollywood. Expect hipsters with lap dogs and slackers sipping organic tea and Matcha lattes to keep the…
Silver Lake & Echo Park
Fun-loving, Casbah-style Akbar is a hit with queer Eastsiders of all ages – skinny-denim hipsters, greying daddies, skyscraping drag queens. There's no…
Venice, Marina Del Rey & Playa del Rey
A fun pub right on the Boardwalk on Venice's north end, blessed with ample patio seating for sunset people-watching, long boards suspended from the…
San Fernando Valley
This new, tastefully modern pub with wood floors, wood-slab bar and brick walls has an extensive craftsman beer and wine list on the chalkboard. It has…
Downtown Los Angeles & Boyle Heights
Climb the stairs to this sprawling, dimly lit, down-n-dirty, rock-and-roll-style bar where Downtown gays from twinks to bears frolic in a series of bars,…
West Hollywood & Mid-City
Aussie-run PCP gets its coffee from Sydney's famed Reuben Hills coffee roaster, and it makes its own almond milk and macadamia milk. Food includes…
Venice, Marina Del Rey & Playa del Rey
A sweet and cozy hideaway with louvered benches and tables so close together you will commune with strangers. Here, you may sip international wines by the…
West Hollywood & Mid-City
A two-story, quintessential WeHo dance club, with go-go boys, expensive drinks, attitude and plenty of eye candy. There's a marble circle bar, exposed…
Pasadena & the San Gabriel Valley
Although this is a sophisticated wine bar dressed in cocoa and candlelight, don’t worry if you can’t tell your pinot noir from your pinot grigio. Tapas…
Townhouse & Delmonte Speakeasy
Venice, Marina Del Rey & Playa del Rey
Upstairs is a cool, dark and perfectly dingy bar with pool tables, booths and good booze. Downstairs is the speakeasy, where DJs spin pop, funk and…
South Bay Beaches
A terrific gastropub with 24 beers on tap. The bacon and blue burger is popular (with blue cheese and carmelized bacon), as are the spice-and-vinegar…
Santa Monica
Cozy, dark and elegant with dangling chandeliers, twinkling candles, intimate booths, crisp white tablecloths and a chamomile mai tai that has earned rave…
Santa Monica
Rocking since 1959, this nautical-themed dive has seen its share of Hollywood intrigue from the Rat Pack to the Brat Pack. To this day it's dark and dank…
West Hollywood & Mid-City
Cramped but cool; too cool even to have a sign out front. When handcrafted, throwback cocktails first migrated west and south from New York and San Fran,…
