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Hollywood Nights
By Paul Chai
For years Hollywood's historic drinking dens, many dating from the golden years of film, have languished. But, as Paul Chai discovered, renewed interest and a renovation of the Hollywood area mean it's time to raise a glass to the past.
Visitors to Los Angeles often find that Hollywood can fall short of the romantic ideal. But the alluring LA we travel to in our minds does still exist, thanks largely to a late '90s resurgence in the city's lounge-bar scene. Until then, the historic haunts got by with the help of old regulars and the occasional lost tourist, but a decade ago, young hipsters rediscovered the art of the cocktail and started to treat the city's dignified digs with the respect they deserve.
But we can't be complacent. Last year, Trader Vic's Beverly Hills, a storied tiki bar that had served Tinsel Town's great and good for 52 years, shuttered its bamboo doors for the last time to make way for modern condos. So, here is our pick of LA's best old-school drinking dens.
Musso & Frank Grill
Alma mater F. Scott Fitzgerald; Raymond Chandler; Keith Richards.
Drink A martini, as dry as a Sam Spade comeback (Dashiell Hammett used to drink here, too).
The details 6667 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood; +1 323 467 7788.
The chairman of the board when it comes to venerable Hollywood, Musso & Frank's continued to serve what is reputed to be the best martini on Mother Earth since 1919, even as the surrounding suburb of Hollywood crumbled around it. For the past few decades, this LA legend has maintained its dignity in the face of an onslaught of tatty tourist shops, like Gene Kelly gamely battling his way through the car wreck that was Xanadu.
Red leather booths ring the large dining room - where classic fare includes shrimp cocktails and Welsh rarebit - and the whole place fairly drips in dark mahogany detail; the waiters are rarely a day under 60 and their red suit jackets are so sharply pressed they could open letters.
Now, with the return of the Oscars to the new Kodak Theater nearby, Musso & Frank's is just there, waiting, like it always has.
Formosa Cafe
Alma mater Grace Kelly, Humphrey Bogart
Drink Signature margarita.
The details 7156 Santa Monica Boulevard; +1 323 850 9050; www.formosacafe.com
Built in part out of a railcar from the Pacific Electric Railway (it forms the dining room), the Formosa is a sumptuous noir nook that transports you back to the era of prohibition and jazz - just as soon as your eyes adjust to its perpetual darkness.
Inside, it's a kitsch, deep-red Chinese box of a bar with glass cabinets of ceramic Elvises and statues of Marilyn Monroe, dress flying up around her ears. A string of Chinese lanterns adds a ruby glow to the proceedings. Running the length of the bar is a gallery of headshots of the actors that used to frequent the place, but they speak to another time; James Dean, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando - we pulled up a stool beneath Kirk Douglas and Gilligan and the Skipper.
The Formosa, opened in 1939, has benefited from its close proximity to Warner Bros and is perhaps best known for its role in LA Confidential - the scene where Detective Ed Exley is slapped in the face by Lana Turner after he accuses her of being a hooker lookalike - but it is also a lively place where deals are made. Long before shooting started, this was the bar where LA Confidential director Curtis Hanson offered parts in the flick to Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger.
In 1991 the Formosa was almost torn down, but LA had the good sense to save it and declare it a landmark. A history lesson and a mean margarita? School was never like this.
The Dresden Room
Alma mater Vince Vaughn; Mel Gibson.
Drink Blood and Sand.
The details 1760 N Vermont Avenue, Los Feliz; +1 323 665 4294; www.thedresden.com
Locals enter via the rear in the same way that Vince Vaughn and his crew did in Swingers, the film that helped put the Dresden on the hipster drinking map. But it is so much more than a movie-tourist spot. To the left is the bar, all green upholstery, rock wall centrepiece and sooty, smoke-infused cork. It is so unabashedly '70s all it needs is a key party - and it has a real piano bar, the best seat in the house.
To the right is the grand opulence of the dining room, with high-backed, curvaceous white leather booths, though it is rarely used in the evenings.
Mumu-clad musical duo Marty and Elayne are the heart of the Dresden and have been playing their unique brand of lounge music - Marty's dusky baritone, Elayne's falsetto scat - for nearly two decades. If there is a song they don't know, then it ain't worth singing.
Boardners
Alma mater Robert Mitchum, Erroll Flynn, W.C. Fields, Charles Bukowski
Drink Sidecar
The details 1652 North Cherokee Avenue, Los Angeles; +1 323 462 9621; www.boardners.com
This dark and brooding snug just off Hollywood Boulevard is dive bar personified - and all the more interesting for it. Black as a moonless night even at 2pm, you'll find its grizzled patrons belly up to the cracked leather bar revelling in the anonymity the darkness brings. Boardners has always been more of a local gin joint than a star hangout. If actors made their way here they were the ones that were known to like a drink and at its peak in the '50s, this proud dive tended to attract boxers, bookies and a range of well-known mobsters and crooked cops. To set the tone, Elizabeth Short was a regular before she was immortalised as the victim in LA's Black Dahlia murder case.
Now it revels in its faded grandeur, and while newcomers may be greeted with a kind of urban Deliverance vibe upon entry, a few visits and this place will feel like your favourite comfy overcoat.
Barney's Beanery
Alma mater Led Zeppelin; Jimi Hendrix; Quentin Tarantino (he wrote Pulp Fiction in its booths).
Drink Beer. Patrons who turned up after conquering Route 66 used to hand over their number-plates as a symbol of shedding their past. They received an ice-cold draught in return.
The details 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood; +1 323 654 2287; www.barneysbeanery.com
Barney first opened his eponymous joint in 1920 and it moved to its current spot in 1927. At the time, Barney's marked the end of the legendary Route 66, the start of the City of Angels and the beginning of dreams of stardom for many a starry-eyed bumpkin. In the '60s and '70s it became a counter-culture hang out and attracted rockers like The Doors.
Barney's little shack is now dwarfed by the surrounding city, but it hangs on with its eclectic interior: a mish-mash of ephemera, car number-plates, pinball machines and pool tables. It is a friendly place where a brief chat with the “background artist” next to you means that on your return from the bathroom there is an unidentified shot waiting; and where you can pass the afternoon listening to the banter between the regulars and the tattooed enchantress pouring one of the 20-odd beers on tap.
Five of the best contemporary bars in Los Angeles
Forty Deuce
Everything old is new again in this popular retro-burlesque hangout that is set to open branches in New York (with the backing of Sting and David Bowie) and London.
5574 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood; +1 323 465 4242; www.fortydeuce.com
Geisha House
Ashton Kutcher has invested in this hip sake bar and Japanese restaurant right next door to Musso & Frank Grill; new Hollywood meets old in the best possible way.
6633 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood; +1 323 460 6300; www.dolcegroup.com
4100 Bar
Oriental-themed hotspot that is doing for the run-down Sunset Strip what Geisha House is doing for Hollywood Boulevard; candlelit atmosphere and Asian-influenced tipples.
4100 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood; +1 323 666 4460.
Skybar
While its so-hip-it-hurts status has cooled, this is still a hangout for Hollywood's pretty young things.
Mondrian Hotel, 8440 Sunset Boulevard; +1 323 650 8999; www.mondrianhotel.com
Blue on blue
Sophisticated Beverly Hills poolside bar and restaurant in the swish Avalon Hotel.
9400 W Olympic Boulevard, Beverly Hills; +1 310 277 5221; www.avalonbeverlyhills.com
Where To eat
Swingers
Morrissey warbling plaintively over your huevos rancheros; a bottomless cup of coffee; Pop Art-inspired cow-print wallpaper and sassy waitresses in fishnets. You and your hangover should not be anywhere else.
Breakfast for two $35.
8020 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles; +1 323 653 5858; www.swingersdiner.com
Dan Tana's
Serving the best Italian food in LA for over 40 years, this famed eatery is packed to the gills every night and its petite horseshoe bar is chock full of stars, diners and locals waiting for their takeaway. An institution.
Dinner for two $150.
9071 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood; +1 310 275 9444; www.dantanasrestaurant.com
Campanile
Housed in Charlie Chaplin's former office, this LA eatery boasts Spago's alum Mark Peel behind the pans and has the fab La Brea Bakery attached.
Dinner for two $185.
624 S La Brea Avenue; +1 323 938 1447; www.campanilerestaurant.com
Pink's Hot Dogs
You'll find generations of Angelenos that will argue these dogs - doled out since 1946 - are the finest in the world.
709 N La Brea Ave Los Angeles; +1 323 931 4223; www.pinkshollywood.com
By Paul Chai
For years Hollywood's historic drinking dens, many dating from the golden years of film, have languished. But, as Paul Chai discovered, renewed interest and a renovation of the Hollywood area mean it's time to raise a glass to the past.
Visitors to Los Angeles often find that Hollywood can fall short of the romantic ideal. But the alluring LA we travel to in our minds does still exist, thanks largely to a late '90s resurgence in the city's lounge-bar scene. Until then, the historic haunts got by with the help of old regulars and the occasional lost tourist, but a decade ago, young hipsters rediscovered the art of the cocktail and started to treat the city's dignified digs with the respect they deserve.
But we can't be complacent. Last year, Trader Vic's Beverly Hills, a storied tiki bar that had served Tinsel Town's great and good for 52 years, shuttered its bamboo doors for the last time to make way for modern condos. So, here is our pick of LA's best old-school drinking dens.
Musso & Frank Grill
Alma mater F. Scott Fitzgerald; Raymond Chandler; Keith Richards.
Drink A martini, as dry as a Sam Spade comeback (Dashiell Hammett used to drink here, too).
The details 6667 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood; +1 323 467 7788.
The chairman of the board when it comes to venerable Hollywood, Musso & Frank's continued to serve what is reputed to be the best martini on Mother Earth since 1919, even as the surrounding suburb of Hollywood crumbled around it. For the past few decades, this LA legend has maintained its dignity in the face of an onslaught of tatty tourist shops, like Gene Kelly gamely battling his way through the car wreck that was Xanadu.
Red leather booths ring the large dining room - where classic fare includes shrimp cocktails and Welsh rarebit - and the whole place fairly drips in dark mahogany detail; the waiters are rarely a day under 60 and their red suit jackets are so sharply pressed they could open letters.
Now, with the return of the Oscars to the new Kodak Theater nearby, Musso & Frank's is just there, waiting, like it always has.
Formosa Cafe
Alma mater Grace Kelly, Humphrey Bogart
Drink Signature margarita.
The details 7156 Santa Monica Boulevard; +1 323 850 9050; www.formosacafe.com
Built in part out of a railcar from the Pacific Electric Railway (it forms the dining room), the Formosa is a sumptuous noir nook that transports you back to the era of prohibition and jazz - just as soon as your eyes adjust to its perpetual darkness.
Inside, it's a kitsch, deep-red Chinese box of a bar with glass cabinets of ceramic Elvises and statues of Marilyn Monroe, dress flying up around her ears. A string of Chinese lanterns adds a ruby glow to the proceedings. Running the length of the bar is a gallery of headshots of the actors that used to frequent the place, but they speak to another time; James Dean, Clark Gable, Marlon Brando - we pulled up a stool beneath Kirk Douglas and Gilligan and the Skipper.
The Formosa, opened in 1939, has benefited from its close proximity to Warner Bros and is perhaps best known for its role in LA Confidential - the scene where Detective Ed Exley is slapped in the face by Lana Turner after he accuses her of being a hooker lookalike - but it is also a lively place where deals are made. Long before shooting started, this was the bar where LA Confidential director Curtis Hanson offered parts in the flick to Kevin Spacey and Kim Basinger.
In 1991 the Formosa was almost torn down, but LA had the good sense to save it and declare it a landmark. A history lesson and a mean margarita? School was never like this.
The Dresden Room
Alma mater Vince Vaughn; Mel Gibson.
Drink Blood and Sand.
The details 1760 N Vermont Avenue, Los Feliz; +1 323 665 4294; www.thedresden.com
Locals enter via the rear in the same way that Vince Vaughn and his crew did in Swingers, the film that helped put the Dresden on the hipster drinking map. But it is so much more than a movie-tourist spot. To the left is the bar, all green upholstery, rock wall centrepiece and sooty, smoke-infused cork. It is so unabashedly '70s all it needs is a key party - and it has a real piano bar, the best seat in the house.
To the right is the grand opulence of the dining room, with high-backed, curvaceous white leather booths, though it is rarely used in the evenings.
Mumu-clad musical duo Marty and Elayne are the heart of the Dresden and have been playing their unique brand of lounge music - Marty's dusky baritone, Elayne's falsetto scat - for nearly two decades. If there is a song they don't know, then it ain't worth singing.
Boardners
Alma mater Robert Mitchum, Erroll Flynn, W.C. Fields, Charles Bukowski
Drink Sidecar
The details 1652 North Cherokee Avenue, Los Angeles; +1 323 462 9621; www.boardners.com
This dark and brooding snug just off Hollywood Boulevard is dive bar personified - and all the more interesting for it. Black as a moonless night even at 2pm, you'll find its grizzled patrons belly up to the cracked leather bar revelling in the anonymity the darkness brings. Boardners has always been more of a local gin joint than a star hangout. If actors made their way here they were the ones that were known to like a drink and at its peak in the '50s, this proud dive tended to attract boxers, bookies and a range of well-known mobsters and crooked cops. To set the tone, Elizabeth Short was a regular before she was immortalised as the victim in LA's Black Dahlia murder case.
Now it revels in its faded grandeur, and while newcomers may be greeted with a kind of urban Deliverance vibe upon entry, a few visits and this place will feel like your favourite comfy overcoat.
Barney's Beanery
Alma mater Led Zeppelin; Jimi Hendrix; Quentin Tarantino (he wrote Pulp Fiction in its booths).
Drink Beer. Patrons who turned up after conquering Route 66 used to hand over their number-plates as a symbol of shedding their past. They received an ice-cold draught in return.
The details 8447 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood; +1 323 654 2287; www.barneysbeanery.com
Barney first opened his eponymous joint in 1920 and it moved to its current spot in 1927. At the time, Barney's marked the end of the legendary Route 66, the start of the City of Angels and the beginning of dreams of stardom for many a starry-eyed bumpkin. In the '60s and '70s it became a counter-culture hang out and attracted rockers like The Doors.
Barney's little shack is now dwarfed by the surrounding city, but it hangs on with its eclectic interior: a mish-mash of ephemera, car number-plates, pinball machines and pool tables. It is a friendly place where a brief chat with the “background artist” next to you means that on your return from the bathroom there is an unidentified shot waiting; and where you can pass the afternoon listening to the banter between the regulars and the tattooed enchantress pouring one of the 20-odd beers on tap.
Five of the best contemporary bars in Los Angeles
Forty Deuce
Everything old is new again in this popular retro-burlesque hangout that is set to open branches in New York (with the backing of Sting and David Bowie) and London.
5574 Melrose Avenue, Hollywood; +1 323 465 4242; www.fortydeuce.com
Geisha House
Ashton Kutcher has invested in this hip sake bar and Japanese restaurant right next door to Musso & Frank Grill; new Hollywood meets old in the best possible way.
6633 Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood; +1 323 460 6300; www.dolcegroup.com
4100 Bar
Oriental-themed hotspot that is doing for the run-down Sunset Strip what Geisha House is doing for Hollywood Boulevard; candlelit atmosphere and Asian-influenced tipples.
4100 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood; +1 323 666 4460.
Skybar
While its so-hip-it-hurts status has cooled, this is still a hangout for Hollywood's pretty young things.
Mondrian Hotel, 8440 Sunset Boulevard; +1 323 650 8999; www.mondrianhotel.com
Blue on blue
Sophisticated Beverly Hills poolside bar and restaurant in the swish Avalon Hotel.
9400 W Olympic Boulevard, Beverly Hills; +1 310 277 5221; www.avalonbeverlyhills.com
Where To eat
Swingers
Morrissey warbling plaintively over your huevos rancheros; a bottomless cup of coffee; Pop Art-inspired cow-print wallpaper and sassy waitresses in fishnets. You and your hangover should not be anywhere else.
Breakfast for two $35.
8020 Beverly Boulevard, Los Angeles; +1 323 653 5858; www.swingersdiner.com
Dan Tana's
Serving the best Italian food in LA for over 40 years, this famed eatery is packed to the gills every night and its petite horseshoe bar is chock full of stars, diners and locals waiting for their takeaway. An institution.
Dinner for two $150.
9071 Santa Monica Boulevard, West Hollywood; +1 310 275 9444; www.dantanasrestaurant.com
Campanile
Housed in Charlie Chaplin's former office, this LA eatery boasts Spago's alum Mark Peel behind the pans and has the fab La Brea Bakery attached.
Dinner for two $185.
624 S La Brea Avenue; +1 323 938 1447; www.campanilerestaurant.com
Pink's Hot Dogs
You'll find generations of Angelenos that will argue these dogs - doled out since 1946 - are the finest in the world.
709 N La Brea Ave Los Angeles; +1 323 931 4223; www.pinkshollywood.com
