Photograph: Jordan Michelman
4222 Vineland Avenue, North Hollywood, (818) 980-8000
“The Valley” isn’t just a place, either — a collection of unique cities and subcultures located just north of L.A., it’s the land of the films of Paul Thomas Anderson, immortalized in the music of Tom Petty and Frank Zappa. If you’re in the Southland for events surrounding the television and film industry or to see the Universal Studios theme park complex, you’ll save time and money by staying nearby.
Garland is your valley adventure home port. This place manages the neat trick of being both luxurious and extremely utilitarian: you can come here to lounge by the pool, enjoy the gardens, and hang out in the busy bars and restaurants, or you can use this place as a place to stash your bags in between all the other things you’re in town to do. There’s an impressively beautiful outdoor pool (with a giant fireplace), guided neighborhood tours (the Brady Bunch House is nearby), and ample parking. The whole thing has a Spanish colonial flair with a touch of 1970s tiki. This place gets double points if you are traveling with your family – kids love Garland.
Photograph: Jordan Michelman
8221 Sunset Blvd., (323) 656-1010
I don’t know what you’re in town for, or what suits you personally, a business trip. The hotels I’ve recommended so far are all upscale, but I’ve included them first for reasons of practicality and geography. That’s why you don’t live in a château. Instead you come here for the myth and history, the infamy and iconic status of it all: here, where Duke Ellington composed “Swingin’ Suite,” where Stephen Stills wrote “For What It’s Worth” (“Wait, Hey, What’s That Sound”), where Jim Morrison swung from chandeliers, where Dominic Dunne lived while reporting the OJ Simpson trial. Vanity Fair. God only knows what goes on in those elevators, to say nothing of the guest rooms, which are appointed like apartments and exude a California sun-baked, haunted spiritual atmosphere.
You can do work here; So much incredible work has been done here! Nicholas Ray and James Dean rehearse rebel Here! Whatever project it is you’ve got the chance to cook up – a novel, a screenplay, a symphony, or just a simple pitch deck – I don’t think there’s a concept in the world that couldn’t be improved by injecting a little Chateau Mystique into its DNA. You’ll see celebrities; You will find quiet moments for yourself among the ghosts; You’ll find yourself alone in your room, quietly reflecting to yourself, “Oh crap, I can’t believe I’m actually here!” There is no other hotel in the world that is even remotely like it.
where to work
LA is freelancer central, and a place where working on your screenplay (or whatever) from a bar or coffee shop has gained a kind of mythical status. The city has much to offer in the way of traditional coworking spaces, private clubs and laptop gardens. Here are some of my favorites.
360 E. 2nd Street, 8th Floor, (213) 433-2400
The Central Office chain of co-working spaces is well-represented in Los Angeles, with locations in Downtown and Marina del Rey and two in the South Bay city of El Segundo, aka “Silicon Beach” (at least a part of the broader mass known by this nickname). Each space has its own way of leaning toward the “creative campus,” offering a variety of services from suites and meeting rooms to day offices, drop-in coworking open plan spaces, and virtual office options that allow mail and package delivery. Central Office does exactly what it says on the tin – it’s a classic approach to the co-working space model, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need, with supersonic Wi-Fi and printers and a kitchen and lounge.
1370 N. St. Andrews Place, (323) 381-5996
Part co-working space, part event venue, The Preserve feels distinctly LA. Truly a campus akin to a coworking space, the facility features over 6,000 trees, a great range of indoor/outdoor work spaces, a library, bungalows, studio offices and meeting rooms, as well as an on-site café and soundproof phone rooms. Wi-Fi here is 1 GB per second; There’s valet parking and nursing rooms and wellness classes and Korean desks; People run entire companies out of this facility, and they even host weddings. The building, which underwent a multi-million dollar award-winning renovation in the late 2010s, was originally designed by Paul Revere Williams, the patron saint of Los Angeles architecture and design, whose other works include the iconic LAX Spaceship Tower and the Beverly Hills Hotel. If you’re looking for a Los Angeles experience tailored to your coworkers’ needs – perhaps with the intention of staying for several days, in order to really absorb the entirety of what happens here – the Preserve is for you.
5971 W. 3rd St, (323) 933-2112
Like the Preserve, Rita’s House may only be here, in Los Angeles, but the two locations couldn’t feel more different. Rita is located inside a 1927 Spanish colonial building that was originally constructed to house prop and costume design for the film studio industry in Hollywood. The building’s unique history goes back to the roots of co-working as a creative endeavor. It has monthly membership options, day rates, and a real focus on content production, with dedicated rooms for self-tape auditions and podcast tapings, as well as large meeting and screening rooms. You’ll find the expected high-speed Wi-Fi and business center amenities here, but it’s inside a space that feels more like classic Hollywood Boulevard than Sand Hill Road. Every great city has a co-working space that doubles as a people-watching and networking hub, and I think LA has it right here.
4334 Sunset Blvd., (213) 200-0969
I love working in Los Angeles coffee shops, and Dinosaur is one of my favorites for this particular job. Located on the border between Silver Lake, Los Feliz and East Hollywood, this place is a creative laptop melding of people whose names you’ve seen in the writers’ credits at the end of various movies and television shows – or who would like to do so someday. The coffee comes from Woodcat Coffee, whose flagship store is on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, and the store is bright and filled with good California light. it just feels Be creative here—get work done in the front yard, or pay attention to interesting conversations around you. I go there almost every time I’m in LA.
where to eat
How Do I Pick 10 Places to Eat in Los Angeles? How does one pick 20, or 50, or 101 like they do every year in LA Times Food? That section’s weekly (daily!) reporting on food across LA should be something you start exploring now in the weeks before your trip, to keep up with the most interesting new things happening throughout the area. For me, these are 10 restaurants that I have personally visited and enjoyed, ranked by price, location, and experience. They don’t have to be my 10 Favorite LA restaurants, but they’re all places I’d happily go back to, and in a city that’s completely spoiled for options, that’s saying something.
2736 W. Sunset Blvd., (213) 913-6850
Avish Naran cracked some unknown nuke when he opened a pizza palace in 2022. I think it’s an Indian sports bar? But it’s also like a red sauce Italian joint, a cocktail destination that works more or less perfectly in its own creative idiom, a really great place to watch the Lakers waddle their way through the remains of the executive-produced-LeBron-James era, and so on. There’s green chilli pickle masala wings and korma curry pizza and dosa with onion rings (a must order) and plenty of beer from near and far to enjoy. Don’t forget to order a cocktail here – it quietly has one of the more inventive cocktail programs in the city, which is saying something, because there’s really nothing cool about a pizza palace. Go here with a larger group, or go alone to the bar. I want it to be three times larger, but I don’t want to change anything about it.
<a href