(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
Wine, coffee and cocktails: 7 special spots to grab a drink in L.A.
From Boulevardiers in Downtown L.A. to ice-cold martinis in Hollywood and rare ryes at a beloved bar brought back to life, it’s never been a better time to go out for a drink in Los Angeles. At our favorite bars and restaurants, it’s not just what’s in your glass, it’s how you feel when you’re sipping or shooting it back. — Jenn Harris
Restaurant critic Bill Addison and columnist Jenn Harris rank the 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles.
101 best restaurants, Hall of Fame, great drinks and more: This guide is essential to dining in Los Angeles.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
The Benjamin
Fairfax American $$
You’re reading a guide written by two devotees of martinis — classic, pure, stingingly cold martinis. The Benjamin, an ode to cinematic Hollywood poshness and the first restaurant by the Hundreds streetwear co-founder Ben Shenassafar, has a long list of martinis. Some of them are abhorrent enough (looking at you, Be Bright Martini with espresso, Japanese whiskey and Black Hjerte) that I would engage beverage director Nathan Oliver in a philosophical debate. But Ben’s Martini is the essence of martini veneration: Monkey 47, Noilly Prat Dry Vermouth and a spritz of lemon oil, served with stacked waffle chips as Shenassafar favors. I like to sip slowly at the bar, with a view of the dining room’s mohair-covered booths soaked in Cognac-colored lighting, while demolishing a wedge salad and chef Johnny Cirelle’s precision-engineered cheeseburger.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
1010 Wine
Inglewood Wine Bars $$
Wedding planner Leslie Jones and attorney Le Jones turned an auto body garage into the first and only wine bar in Inglewood. The siblings live in the area and were tired of driving elsewhere for a night out. Now, every day at 1010 Wine Bar feels like the entire room is one big party. There are meet-and-greet nights with a winemaker. Or Black-Out Game Night, when a group that aims to amplify Black game designers brings dozens of board and card games to play at your table. The bar boasts the largest selection of wines from Black-owned wineries in California. And you can be as nerdy as you’d like, with wine flight tasting sheets you can fill out as you sip. On a recent visit, my bartender introduced me to a Kumusha Sauvignon Blanc from South Africa, bright with melon and passion fruit, and Aslina Umsasane, a Bordeaux-style red blend that was the perfect match for my suya-spice-rubbed beef skewers. I appreciate the extensive knowledge of the bartenders, but what keeps me at the bar for another round is their real eagerness to share their favorites.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
Dahlia
Downtown L.A. Cocktails
I appreciate a bar that introduces me to small-batch liquors from around the world. Thanks to Dahlia, the monochrome pink oasis tucked into a ground-floor corner of downtown L.A.’s Proper Hotel, I can count Vusa Vodka among my new favorites. The copper-distilled spirit, bottled in South Africa and made from sugarcane, imparts a mild but distinct sweetness to the bar’s Springwater martini. And when the weather cools down, I appreciate a place that serves a Boulevardier, the bourbon-spiked cousin of the Negroni. For Dahlia’s version, beverage directors Michael Scribner and Caroline Styne use Flor de Caña aged Nicaraguan rum, which mimics the flavor profiles of a good aged bourbon. Drinks are served in squat glasses with grooves that look like they were pulled from the set of “Mad Men.” And the Kelly Wearstler-designed room makes me feel as if I’m sitting inside my dream home Pinterest board. During the day there’s tea service, and in the evenings, light bites such as first-rate salt cod fritters from Suzanne Goin, who also oversees the menus at the hotel’s Caldo Verde and Cara Cara restaurants.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
Yala Coffee
Studio City Middle Eastern Coffee $
In a region powered by first-rate espresso drinks, Zain and Marissa Shammas opened a Studio City shop this summer highlighting an under-represented corner of caffeination culture: Middle Eastern coffee traditions. They reimagine the Turkish practice of brewing coffee in a copper pot placed in a sand-filled pan heated to blazing temperatures. Here, the couple makes sand coffee in a warming station fitted into the front counter. The results are fudgy and strong. Its intensity is nicely tempered in drinks like the Evil Eye: a cup served with a rim of raw sugar, topped with cardamom-scented cream and finished with coffee grounds to resemble a nazar, the eye-shaped bead or amulet meant to ward off malicious glances. Yala is right in step with the espresso tonic moment, mixing a lemony version for fall sweetened with apricot-cardamom preserves.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
Old Lightning
Venice Cocktails Speakeasy Bar $$
In 2019, Pablo Moix and Steve Livigni’s Venice bar hidden behind Scopa Italian Roots was catching fire as one of the nation’s most unusual drinking destinations. The pair had spent years scouring Southern California and beyond for the rarest spirits, particularly whiskies and tequilas, procuring bottles that went back a half-century. One could taste rare mezcals or bourbons made in the 1970s from recipes that no longer exist. An expensive foray into connoisseurship, Old Lightning wasn’t built to weather a pandemic. It took Moix, with new partners Sal Autora and Mario Gudemi, four years to reopen, and what a windfall for Southern California’s drinking culture that they’re back in action. Staffers will ask after your interests and preferences. A short, ever-changing list of cocktails dips into aged spirits as ingredients, and it would be a pleasant part of an evening to swing by for a drink or two in the cloistered, handsome room. The big thrills here, though, come with splurging on flights of peerless finds. Give the bartenders a price and they’ll work with your budget. The flavors of decades-old ryes are particularly twisting: spicy, sweet, layered, complicated. To sip one is to swallow a detective novel.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
The Georgian Room
Santa Monica American $$$
It doesn’t matter what drink you order at the bar of the Georgian Room, the restaurant and bar at the base of the Georgian Hotel in Santa Monica. If you crave a martini with two dashes of bitters and an olive, like your daiquiri so tart it makes your lips pucker or want your Old-Fashioned made with toasted pine nut-infused bourbon, you’re in luck. The restaurant originally opened in 1933 and boasted Clark Gable and Dick Van Dyke as regulars. It was brought back to life in 2023 as the Georgian Room as part of the hotel’s remodel. Reservations are required and the staff place a sticker on your phone camera to discourage guests from taking photos. With no cell reception, it’s easier to be in the moment and enjoy the live music coming from the Steinway & Sons piano built into the golden quartzite bar. There’s a full menu of steakhouse favorites, but the chunks of Parmesan cheese with aged balsamic vinegar and nduja-stuffed fried olives make for great drinking fare at the bar.
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(Andrea D’Agosto/For The Times)
Dada Bar
Echo Park Cocktails $$
The entrance to Dada Bar is through an alley behind the Dada Market and Little Fish restaurant. It feels like you’re going the wrong way, but continue up the ramp and you’ll find yourself in exactly the right place. The bar is new enough and hidden enough to still feel like an intimate space on a particular stretch of Sunset Boulevard where parking and traffic can border on hellish. There’s a small patio out back and a full restaurant in the front, but I prefer a stool at the bar, where I can watch my drinks being assembled. Cocktail descriptions sound like revitalizing tonics, incorporating fresh juices and teas. The Press Pause, a barley Old-Fashioned, gets its pleasant toasty, bitter flavor from mugicha tea. Lately I’ve been partial to the Orange Velvet, a gimlet made with damiana tea, fresh carrot and orange juices, chicory water, lime and honey. It’s the sort of thing I’d imagine sipping if I spiked my juice at a wellness retreat. The bright orange concoction renders me surprisingly energetic, like liquid sunshine in a glass.
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