Seventy Miles
of Pacific
and Everything Else

The name is the myth; the neighbourhood is more complicated. The Hollywood Walk of Fame (2.5 miles of pink terrazzo stars on Hollywood Boulevard, 2,700 celebrities from Marilyn Monroe to Elvis to Godzilla) is legitimately interesting as a cultural artefact. The Hollywood Bowl (the finest outdoor amphitheatre in the USA — summer symphony, big-name concerts, BYO food and wine) is extraordinary. TCL Chinese Theatre (the handprint forecourt, the original 1927 cinema interior) is worth a visit. But Hollywood itself — the neighbourhood — is gritty and commercial and frequently disappointing as a walking experience. Use it as a base for the Bowl and the Observatory, not for daily life.

West Hollywood is the most functional neighbourhood in LA for visitors — dense enough to walk, central enough to drive everywhere, and blessed with the highest concentration of excellent restaurants per block of any area in the city. The Sunset Strip (from La Cienega to Doheny on Sunset Boulevard) has the Chateau Marmont (where everyone famous has stayed or been photographed leaving), the Mondrian, and a continuous strip of restaurants and bars that has been LA's entertainment hub since the 1920s. Melrose Avenue south of WeHo is the design/fashion district: Paul Smith's pink wall, vintage clothing, and furniture showrooms. The Pacific Design Center (three enormous blue/green/red glass buildings) anchors the neighbourhood culturally.

Beverly Hills is one of the world's most recognisable addresses and more interesting than the cliché suggests. Rodeo Drive (three blocks of Chanel, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Cartier — the physical concentration of luxury retail is genuinely extreme) is worth walking even without purchasing. The Beverly Hills residential streets (particularly Camden, Lexington, and the streets north of Sunset in Trousdale Estates) contain mid-century modern architecture of extraordinary quality, often visible from the street. The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel (pink, with booths that have hosted every Hollywood deal for 100 years) is the most LA restaurant experience available. The Museum of Tolerance is on Pico — powerful and significant.

Santa Monica is the most coherent and liveable neighbourhood for visitors — a self-contained beach city with a pedestrianised shopping street (Third Street Promenade), outstanding restaurants at all price points, a direct freeway-free connection to Venice and Malibu, and the symbolic terminus of Route 66 on the Pier. The Santa Monica State Beach is 3.5 miles of clean, lifeguarded sand. The Palisades Park (bluff-top linear park above the beach — palm trees, ocean views, sunsets) is one of the finest free public spaces in California. The Brentwood Country Mart and Montana Avenue are excellent shopping streets without the Rodeo Drive pricing.

The eastside triangle — Silver Lake, Los Feliz, and Atwater Village — is where LA's creative class actually lives, and the neighbourhood character reflects it. Independent coffee shops (Intelligentsia on Sunset Boulevard, Dinosaur Coffee in Silver Lake), independent bookshops (Skylight Books on Vermont in Los Feliz), vinyl record shops, vintage clothing, and the best value restaurants in the city (Botanica, Sqirl, HomeState for Texas breakfast tacos) are concentrated here. The Silver Lake Reservoir circuit walk (2.2 miles around the reservoir, mountain views, local dog walkers) is the neighbourhood's public living room. Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz and Sunset Junction in Silver Lake are the main pedestrian strips.

Koreatown on Wilshire Boulevard is the densest Korean restaurant and business district outside Seoul — and arguably home to the finest Korean food available in the Western Hemisphere. The Korean BBQ restaurants (Quarters Korean BBQ, Park's BBQ, Soowon Galbi) are the most social dining experience in LA — grilling your own meat at the table, ordering banchan (side dishes), and drinking soju with your table. The spas (Wi Spa — 4 floors, 24 hours, separated gender floors, communal jimjilbang sauna rooms — is the most genuinely Los Angeles experience available at any price point) are extraordinary. Koreatown also has the best cocktail bar scene in LA — The Prince (in a 1940s restaurant interior) and R Bar are the anchors.

Downtown Los Angeles has undergone one of the most dramatic urban transformations of any US city district in the past 15 years. The Arts District (east of the 110 freeway) is the most interesting — converted warehouse galleries, Bestia restaurant (the best Italian restaurant in LA, book 6 weeks ahead on Resy), Bavel (Middle Eastern, same chefs), and the LA River bike path. Grand Central Market (on Broadway, since 1917) is the finest food hall in LA — Egg Slut, Wexler's Deli, DTLA Cheese. The Broad museum (Koons, Basquiat, Kara Walker — free with timed reservation, book 2 weeks ahead at thebroad.org) and the Walt Disney Concert Hall (Frank Gehry's stainless steel exterior, world-class acoustics) are within walking distance of each other.

Venice is LA's most theatrically itself neighbourhood — the Boardwalk (muscle beach, street performers, rollerblade rental, street art) is a genuine spectacle of organised chaos that has been performing its version of California counterculture since the 1960s. But one block inland on Abbot Kinney Boulevard (voted “coolest block in America” by GQ) is a different city: boutique shops, great restaurants (Felix for pasta, Gjelina for wood-fire, Salt & Straw for ice cream), and coffee shops where working screenwriters outnumber tourists on weekday mornings. The Venice Canals (a residential grid of actual canals with arched bridges, built in 1905 to replicate Venice, Italy — 3 blocks from the beach) are peaceful, beautiful, and almost entirely unknown to visitors.

Malibu is a 27-mile strip of Pacific Coast Highway with the Santa Monica Mountains on one side and the Pacific on the other — and the most expensive residential coastline in the USA in between. The celebrity homes (Barbra Streisand, Nobu Matsuhisa, Pierce Brosnan — most visible from the beach itself at low tide, walking the wet sand) are a secondary pleasure. The primary one is the drive itself: PCH northbound from Santa Monica in morning light, windows down, ocean 2 metres away. Stop at Zuma Beach (the finest beach in LA — wide, clean, with parking), the Nobu Malibu deck for lunch, and Point Dume State Beach (a headland with tide pools, sea caves, and whale migration views December–April).