The Top 66 Places to Drink Near Holy Basil
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Rank 1. Mírate
Mexican Cocktail Bar
- The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
- 50 Best #93 · The World's 50 Best Bars
- VinePair Food & Beverage Program of the Year · The Next Wave Awards
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- 50 Best #68 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar
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Rank 3. Providence
Seafood
The dining room is styled after a yacht interior, which could read as a gimmick but lands as a mood. Providence is a three-Michelin-star seafood tasting menu restaurant on Melrose, where Michael Cimarusti builds multi-course meals around wild-caught American fish and whatever the farmers market offers that morning. The James Beard Award for Outstanding Hospitality is on the wall, and the front-of-house earns it. North America's 50 Best lists it at number 32.
- Michelin Guide 3 Stars
- Forbes Travel Guide Forbes Four Star
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Winner · Outstanding Hospitality
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Rank 5. Capri Club
Italian
- Esquire The Best Bars in America
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
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- Punch Real Charmer Daiquiri · Our Favorite Cocktails
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West
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Rank 7. Tiki-Ti
Polynesian Cocktail Bar
A tiki bar so small it was once a violin-repair shop, which tells you everything about the square footage and nothing about the ambition. Three generations of the same family have been pouring Mai Tais under the thatched canopy on Sunset since the sixties, and they do not serve beer or wine, so don't ask. Modern tiki bars tend to look like this place photoshopped. The original is still doing it straight.
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Rank 9. La Descarga Hollywood
Cuban Cocktail Bar
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Rank 10. Dan Sung Sa
Old-School Korean
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- Esquire Martini · The Best Martinis in America
- Esquire Musso + Frank Martini · The Best Martinis in America
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Rank 12. Donna's
American Italian
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Top 10 Nominee · U.S. Bartender of the Year · Linda Douglas
- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar – U.S. West
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best New U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
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A former church in Downtown LA, now a contemporary restaurant with an open ceiling that lets the room breathe and the people-watching practically do itself. The crowd comes for small plates and cocktails at the two circular bars or settles into the sofa-stuffed lounge like they own the place. The menu roams globally, though the kitchen keeps one foot planted in the familiar. Loud, beautiful, and a little theatrical.
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Tobin Shea
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
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Rank 15. Camphor
French, Contemporary
A Michelin-starred bistro in the Arts District where the steak au poivre and golden frites hold their ground alongside some genuinely inventive plating. The kitchen leans French but isn't reverent about it, which is part of the appeal. The Provence Martini made Esquire's list of the finest in the country, so the bar pulls its weight too. It fills up fast and the open kitchen keeps the room loud and kinetic.
- Esquire Provence Martini · The Best Martinis in America
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Time Out #18 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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Rank 16. The Let's Go!
Italian Cocktail Bar
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Rank 18. Firstborn
Contemporary Chinese
Tucked into Mandarin Plaza on Broadway, this contemporary Chinese American restaurant and bar is the project of a first-generation chef cooking his own story onto the plate. The cocktail program is serious enough to earn national bartender recognition, so start there before the food arrives. Dishes are built for sharing, the kitchen is open to the room, and the whole setup feels more like a dinner party than a transaction.
- Esquire Bartender of the Year · Kenzo Han
- World Culinary Awards 2025 · Nominee · North America's Best New Restaurant
- Punch Best New Bartenders · Kenzo Han
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Rank 19. Camelia
French Japanese
- Punch Best New Bartenders · Kevin Nguyen
- Esquire The Best New Restaurants in America
- The New York Times The Restaurant List
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Rank 20. Bestia
Italian
A flaming red domed oven anchors the warehouse-sized dining room, which also has a copper bar, tulip pendant lights, and booths that seem to float slightly above the floor. This is a buzzy Italian restaurant in the Arts District where the crowd's energy and the kitchen's output seem to feed each other. The blistered pizzas and rich pastas are the reason the room is always full, and desserts from the pastry side hold their own.
- Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Time Out #37 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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A wall lined with metal cafeteria trays and merit badges sets the tone at this sprawling Los Feliz bar, where the summer camp theme is played completely straight. The cocktail menu splits neatly into Citrus/Refreshing and Aromatic/Boozy, which is honestly a more useful taxonomy than most bars manage. The glassed-in fire pits on the patio do a convincing impression of a campfire, without the s'mores obligation.
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Rank 23. Lucia
Caribbean
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Rank 24. Sassafrass
New Orleans Cocktail Bar
A New Orleans cocktail bar where the inside has been dressed up to look like an outdoor street scene, the way a film studio backlot would imagine the French Quarter. Barrel-aged cocktails are the house move, and the 1920s theme is committed enough that someone looked up the etymology of sassafras before naming the place. The crowd tends toward people who wanted something more atmospheric than a standard Hollywood dive.
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A French spirits lounge on Melrose where the cocktail menu is divided into categories named Parfum and Potion, which tells you immediately what kind of evening they have in mind. The team also runs La Descarga and Harvard & Stone, so the theatrics are deliberate. Low lighting, a Parisian lounge sensibility, and a crowd that dressed for it. The menu leans heavily on calvados, armagnac, and eau de vie, which is either your thing or a prompt to try something new.
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Rank 26. Manuela
Southern
Inside the Hauser & Wirth arts complex in the Arts District, Manuela is a restaurant and bar where conceptual art hangs on the walls and the cooking tilts Southern with a serious commitment to local ingredients, some grown in their own garden. Cocktails use house-made bitters and tonics, and the food is the kind that makes a gallery crowd linger well past closing time.
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Rank 28. Caña
Rum Cocktail Bar
You reach Caña by walking through a parking garage in the base of a historic Petroleum Building until a podium appears, which is the kind entrance policy that filters out the uncommitted. Inside, a corridor lined with rum bottles leads to a wood-panelled room with leather banquettes and a ribbed concrete ceiling. It's a rum cocktail bar that takes the spirit seriously, and the dim lamplight makes everyone look like they have good taste.
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An unmarked door at the back of Cole's opens into a dimly lit cocktail bar where jazz plays low and Victorian oil lamps glow against wood-panelled walls. The late Sasha Petraske was a part owner, and the room feels exactly like something he'd have built: serious about its classic cocktails, quiet enough to hear the ice hit the glass, and a little too good at making you lose track of the hour.
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- Esquire Olive Drive · The Best Martinis in America
- Esquire The Best Bars in America
- Wildsam The 50 Most Essential Bars in America
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The chandeliers alone explain why every studio executive who ever needed to feel important has passed through here. Library Bar sits inside the Hollywood Roosevelt, a hotel so soaked in old Hollywood mythology it practically seeps into the drinks. It's a cocktail bar where the Spanish Colonial bones do most of the heavy lifting, and the clientele tends to dress accordingly. Order something classic and let the room do the rest.
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The entry corridor sets the tone: a wall-sized photo of the old Famous Department Store, vintage neighborhood shots lining the walls, and classic films rolling on the screens inside this cocktail lounge tucked into Glendale's historic Huntley-Evans building. Live bands and DJs take over on weekends. Most of the crowd is passing through before or after the Americana at Brand across the street, which makes the retro-local atmosphere feel like a quiet act of mild resistance.
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Rank 33. Saltie Girl
Seafood
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Three antique pool tables on tartan carpet greet you at the top of the stairs, which sets the tone for this whiskey bar doing a convincing impression of a Scottish gentleman's club in downtown L.A. The black walnut bar runs nearly the full length of the room, with shelves so tall the bartenders use a rolling ladder to reach the rarer Scotch, Japanese, Irish, and bourbon bottles, several hundred in all, including single-cask and collectible pours.
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Rank 37. Las Perlas
Mexican
Every bottle behind the bar at Las Perlas comes from south of the border, which means no vodka, no whiskey, and no gin to tempt you off the path. It's a cantina-style mezcal and tequila bar on Sixth Street, candlelit and maximalist, with Del Maguey mezcals and rare 100% agave pours listed by region and paired for the curious. The kind of place that makes an argument without ever saying a word.
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Four oversized bronze chairs whose frames spell out an "R" set the tone before you've ordered a thing. This is the bar side of a sleek Latin-themed restaurant, where the drinks program leans into tequila and mezcal with the same design seriousness the room applies to everything else. It's a long way from neon cantina signage, both in looks and in the glass.
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Rank 39. Edison
Cocktail Bar
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A long marble bar anchors this windowless cocktail bar on La Brea, where the Art Deco bones and Venetian chandeliers give the room the air of a Middle Eastern hotel lobby, in a good way. Gold leather tub chairs and plush booths line the perimeter, which draws a crowd that came dressed for it. The cocktail list keeps things short, leaning on classics and originals, which suits a room this serious about atmosphere.
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Rank 43. Funke
Italian
Evan Funke's eponymous Italian restaurant occupies a three-story art deco building in Beverly Hills, where a glassed-in room lets you watch pasta being made by hand before it reaches your table. Red leather booths, stone tables, and tall ceilings set a tone that takes itself seriously without taking the fun out of dinner. The menu moves through handmade pasta and wood-fired dishes, the kind of Italian cooking where focaccia alone gets its own moment.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Los Angeles Times #19 · The 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
- Time Out #21 · The 40 best restaurants in Los Angeles you need to try right now
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Rank 44. Daisy
Mexican
- 50 Best #44 · North America's 50 Best Bars
- Punch Best New Bars
- James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Best New Bar
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Rank 45. La Dolce Vita
Italian
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Rank 47. Dante
Upscale Italian
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Rank 49. Darling
Southern
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Rank 50. Ardor
Californian New American
The dining room at this West Hollywood EDITION hotel restaurant looks like a luxury spa that decided to feed people: white velvet booths, staff in beige, and enough greenery to require a groundskeeper. The menu leans vegetable-forward but keeps dry-aged lamb and steaks around for the unconvinced. Prices sit firmly in hotel territory, which the hotel guests seem not to notice.
- Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West
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A cocktail bar tucked behind a psychic shop on La Cienega, marked by a red neon hand in the window and, somewhat defeating the mystique, valet attendants and a sign on the pavement. Inside, it's all dark wood paneling, picture frames, antique stained glass, and a vintage mirror above the bar that promises "the best of everything and nothing but the best." Booths line one wall, low tables fill the back, and the lighting is dim enough to feel like a secret even when it isn't.
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Rank 55. El Carmen
Mexican
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- Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 10 Nominee · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West
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Rank 58. The Maybourne Bar
Seafood
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Rank 59. 1886 at The Raymond
High-end American
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- Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
- James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
- James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
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The name is literal: a neighborhood cocktail bar tucked into a quiet stretch of Washington Boulevard in Culver City, the part of LA better known for art galleries than drinking. Inside, it's casual and intimate, the kind of room that fills up with locals and after-work regulars who seem to have quietly agreed not to tell anyone else about it. The bartenders lean toward inventive riffs on classics.
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The California poppy, "copa de oro" in Spanish, cup of gold, lends its name to this Santa Monica cocktail bar a couple of blocks from the beach. Terracotta tile, dark wood, and a resident artist's work on the walls give it a warm Hispanic character that tips, even on a Wednesday, toward a genuine party. The kind of place that starts feeling festive before you've finished your first drink.
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- Spirited Awards 2026 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
- Spirited Awards 2025 · Regional Top 10 Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
- Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Cocktail Bar – U.S. West
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- The Pinnacle Guide 2 Pins
- James Beard Awards 2024 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program
- James Beard Awards 2025 · Nominee · Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program