The Best Places to Drink and Stay in Los Angeles

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

A boutique hotel sitting right on Redondo Beach's harbor, Shade trades on a location that drew resort-builders here long before the boutique concept existed. Rooms lean coastal-modern without overdoing the nautical clichés, and the South Bay light does most of the decorating. It holds a spot in the Michelin Selected Hotels list, which tracks if you're after somewhere small and considered rather than a big anonymous beach block.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

The town was called Richland before it was called Orange, and this boutique hotel in Old Towne runs with that history without getting museum-y about it. A restored two-story wooden house, a freestanding cottage, a bar and lounge, and an event space are arranged among olive trees. Inside: bespoke wallpaper printed with citrus motifs, exposed beams, craftsman furniture, dark wood. California cool with enough vintage texture to feel like a place, not a set.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

Twenty-two rooms tucked into a hillside above the Pacific, with a garden courtyard quiet enough to make you forget Laguna Beach has been discovered. Casa Laguna reads more like a large, well-curated bed and breakfast than a proper hotel, which is part of the appeal. The breakfast has its admirers well beyond the coast, and the spa keeps things unhurried. A Michelin Selected Hotel for travelers who'd rather feel like a houseguest than a check-in number.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. AAA Approved

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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.

1. Punch Archie · Our Favorite Cocktails
2. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

1. AAA Approved

Directly across Pacific Coast Highway from the break that gave it its name, the Surfrider Malibu is a boutique hotel that took a Fifties building and quietly made it the thing Malibu somehow never had. The team behind it, a Californian architect and a couple of improbable partners, kept the bones and let the ocean do the decorating. Rooms fill fast with people who'd rather wake up to surf reports than room service carts.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Hotels

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.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. Spirited Awards 2023 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West

1. James Beard Awards 2026 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Professional in Cocktail Service · Jason Lee

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.

1. Esquire Bartender of the Year · Kenzo Han
2. Punch Best New Bartenders · Kenzo Han
3. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant

The smartest move Accomplice ever made was opening next to Taiwanese restaurant Little Fatty, so when the cocktails do their work, crab rangoon and shrimp chips are one door away. It's a moody cocktail bar in Mar Vista where the drinks lean into unexpected flavors, Japanese whiskey and oolong sharing space with goji berry and ginger. The 50 Discovery named it among their finds, which tracks.

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Top 10 Nominee · Best U.S. Restaurant Bar
2. The 50 The 50 Discovery
3. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Bar Team – U.S. West

1. Time Out The 17 best hotels in Los Angeles

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West

1. Spirited Awards 2024 · Regional Honoree · Best U.S. Hotel Bar – U.S. West

1. Time Out The 17 best hotels in Los Angeles

1. Time Out The 17 best hotels in Los Angeles

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Wine Enthusiast Forward 50 Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar
3. James Beard Awards 2024 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Bar

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4.5 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 4 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 3.5 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

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.

1. Difford's Guide 3 stars · Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide

1. Difford's Guide Difford's Guide