Angel City Brewery

In one of the more ambitious remodels in the city’s recent history, the Ace transformed the United Artists theater into a huge pull for locals and visitors alike. While downtown L.A. is undergoing a greater Renaissance, this 1920s institution is inarguably one of its crown jewels. Besides hotel rooms, there’s a coffee bar, and an Acne outpost just around the corner.

In a Frank Gehry building just across from the Walt Disney Concert Hall and steps from the Broad, the Conrad has: Sleek bedrooms with floor-to-ceiling windows, some of them overlooking the hotel’s pretty pool and the Grand complex. Two José Andrés restaurants, which both have stupendous service and several standout dishes, like San Laurel’s black Mission fig stracciatella salad and Basque-style cheesecake. And an outstanding spa that features an infrared sauna, Augustinus Bader facials, Gavin McLeod-Valentine–trained aestheticians, and harmonic therapy using binaural beats. It’s easily the best place to stay on Bunker Hill.

We’re longtime fans of the Proper hotels—and interior designer Kelly Wearstler’s worked some magic with this one again. The rooms, while mostly on the snug side, are gorgeously designed. There’s a rooftop pool with views of DTLA. And then there are the three excellent restaurants: Downstairs, James Beard Award-winning team of chef Suzanne Goin and restauranteur Caroline Styne run the Portuguese-inspired Caldo Verde. Dahlia is the speakeasy bar—it’s great for intimate nights out. And don’t skip the rooftop restaurant, Cara Cara, at sundown.

It took two years to restore this hotel to its 1926 glory, or what the hotel calls its “Spanish colonial splendor.” And it was worth it: Impressively grand common areas with soaring ceilings; hundreds of rooms, each classic and modern with a few artful touches thrown in; and an unusual (very cool) coffin-shaped pool surrounded by cacti. The hotel also makes an impressive showing of places to eat and drink: Veranda for Mexico City-inspired meals and Bar Figueroa for an old-Hollywood vibe. In fact, if you don’t stay here, it’s absolutely worth to at least stay the evening.

Hotel Per La is colorful and luxe without feeling too formal: The lofty lobby feels like verdant Italian garden; the rooms are chic and comfortable—some have standing tubs and courtyard patios. A rooftop with gorgeous views and a pool (and poolside bar, Bar Clara) make it the perfect downtown respite. Their ground-floor restaurant, Per L’Ora, serves excellent apertivos and agnolotti.

The Hoxton knows how to have a good time anywhere she goes, so we were thrilled when the hotel landed in the Los Angeles Railways Building in DTLA (after an epic renovation). One of the best things about the Hoxton’s approach to hospitality is that the hotel caters to people who just want to relax as well as bon vivants who just want to be bon vivants. Whether you post up in the lobby, which takes design cues from the building’s Beaux Arts roots, or at the mid-century-modern-meets-monstera-garden rooftop bar and pool, the whole place hums with energy. If you’re traveling alone (or even if you’re not), you’ll almost certainly make new friends here. Or at the very least, you’ll enjoy cocktails and conversation in one of the hotel’s two restaurants. Café Basque, the Hoxton’s lobby diner, has breakfast and an all-day menu to satisfy palates from hungover to health-conscious. Up on the roof, Cabra leans into a Mediterranean-inspired menu and ships out poolside snacks. Rooms come in four sizes—and the smaller ones are thoughtfully designed, so they don’t feel cramped or have those annoying shower doors that open the wrong way. If you’re looking for an event space that doesn’t feel like one, check out the Apartment, a five-room spread that can be rented out by the room or in its entirety.

Level is advertised as a luxury furnished apartment complex, which it is. But we've discovered it's also one of downtown LA's best secrets for a hotel stay. First off, it's immaculate. The design is modern, and the amenities are pristine—there's giant gym and a gorgeous rooftop pool with an area for screening movies. And second, we might actually be more inclined to stay here than at a traditional hotel. Each room has a full working kitchen, a washer and dryer, and a view that looks like the entire southern half of California. And it's located in walking distance of LA Live and some of downtown's best restaurants and bars.

Brothers Nakul and Arjun Mahendro enlisted the help of their classically trained chef dad Pawan Mahendro to open their Indian gastropub, Badmaash. The menu here is devoted to both traditional and reimagined Indian dishes: chili-cheese naan, Punjabi fish-fry, butter chicken, and chicken tikka poutine—an homage to the Mahendro’s Canadian roots.

Chefs Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis (both of Bestia fame, still, after all these years, a hard table to land) have opened Bavel. The duo’s roots span Israel, Morocco, Turkey, and Egypt, so the menu has a strong Middle Eastern bent. There’s the expected hummus, baba ghanoush, and assorted flatbreads, in addition to a Wagyu beef tagine and grilled lamb, finished in Menashe’s signature flavor-happy style—all meant to be shared. And because interiors can be just as much of a draw as the food, particularly downtown, where raw and industrial spaces prevail, Gergis tapped Studio UNLTD to collaborate on the light and bright décor (skylights, hanging planters, whitewashed brick walls, brass fixtures, and Moroccan tiles). Food photos: Nicole Franzen. Interior photos: DYLAN + JENI.

In an industrial-inflected, warehouse-like space in L.A.'s Arts District, you'll find Bestia, helmed by husband-and-wife duo, Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis. While the scope of the menu is ambitious (and innovative, as Ori hates to waste meat, meaning you'll find the occasional beef and lamb heart or chicken gizzard dotting the offerings), you should really go for the pizza: Ori gives his dough a good 24-hours to rise and fall before it heads into the wood-burning oven, and you can tell. A trip here requires Uber, as this place draws huge crowds—the bar is a fun place to wait, and the cocktails are delicious.

Brera Ristorante is almost hidden in a warehouse building in an industrial pocket of the Arts District—you need to know it’s there to find it. Angelo Auriana and Matteo Ferdinandi, who run this place, grew up in Italy’s Po Valley and, fittingly, serve no-nonsense, traditional Northern Italian trattoria food. Come hungry and order the beef carpaccio, drizzled in a grassy, green olive oil to start. The stinchetto—a big hunk of falling-off-the-bone pork shank on a bed of polenta—is ideal for three people to pull apart. Then the dumpling dishes: The capunsei are made with ricotta, the pisarelli with bread, and the gnocchi with potato. Oenophiles will appreciate the breadth of the wine list, full of the heavy-hitting Barolo and Amarone bottles alongside more unusual, small-production labels.

This natural wine bar, operated by the folks from Psychic Wines, is electric. The wine list is eclectic, the patrons even more so, and the dishes are simple but colorful and elegant. Every now and then, they turn the space into a nightclub for the evening—you can find details on their Instagram.

Cole’s is one of several spots in town claiming to serve the “original” French Dip sandwich, and though we can’t confirm or deny, we can say that their dip is bomb. Yeah, the dipping jus is flavorful and the prime rib tender, but it’s the Atomic mustard that pulls it all together. (Don’t forget garlic fries.) Post-dinner, proceed to the quirky little speakeasy in the back for an old fashioned.

There's something so comforting about a hot bowl of ramen on a cold day, and anytime there's even a hint of rain in Los Angeles, the lines at this Little Tokyo joint are out the door. What makes the ramen here stand out is the broth, which is cooked with pork bones for hours to achieve its thick, flavorful consistency. The portions are huge, so be prepared to take home leftovers. There's a second location on Sawtelle.

Across from Rossoblu is the latest from the Scopa Italian Roots team, this time a chic Latin-inspired venture with a lush, tropical feel. Everything is meticulously executed, from the vibe (gorgeous, open-air) to the food (whipped beans, spicy beef empanadas, and the corn—oh man, the corn with the queso fresco, cotija, and chili-lime salt). The drinks are in a category all their own; they’re inspired by vintage cocktails, so get into it. Order a daiquiri or piña colada at the bar.

De La Nonna is a great spot for group dinners. The focaccia-style pizzas are small; order a couple for the table. It’s a high-energy spot—if you’re feeling it, you might keep the party going at the Let’s Go! next door.

This is an offshoot of Chef Kazunori Nozawa's popular sushi restaurant, Sugarfish—and like Sugarfish, the emphasis is on the freshness and quality of the fish. But that's where the similarities end, as KazuNori is all about the hand rolls. They have two menus—one if you're ordering to go or eating on their patio, and another if you're sitting at the sushi bar.

In a city rife with delis, this is where you want to go for hot pastrami—the #19 is legendary. It’s also refreshingly simple: slow-smoked pastrami, Swiss cheese and slaw on fresh rye, and since the meat is so ridiculously juicy, you can easily skip the Russian dressing. The only setback is the skimpy opening hours (8am-4pm; closed Sundays), but coming right before closing and ordering to-go is a good workaround if you’re aiming for dinner.

Filipino spot Lasita has a lively dining room and patio that's perfect for date nights or get-togethers with a few friends. Order the rotisserie chicken and a bunch of sauces for dipping. (Unless you’re here on a Monday night, when they serve a seafood-centric menu instead.)

In 2015, Chef Tin Vuong opened his second Little Sister near Pershing Square downtown. Head here when you're in the mood for good Southeast Asian food.

The mild pandemonium around David Chang’s first West Coast restaurant is entirely warranted. The food is difficult to describe, not definable by any one region or culture. It’s a mishmash of foreign flavors that many will find unexpected and familiar at the same time. Definitely not a repeat of Chang’s greatest hits—there’s no ramen here. Instead, this is an entirely new menu of shareable dishes that are often prepared tableside. The grilled bings (a type of Chinese flatbread), topped with everything from cultured butter to uni, are something we’ve never seen before. Sausage-stuffed peppers with buttermilk and the short ribs with all their many fixings are reason enough to book a table. Call a few weeks ahead for a table, or if you’re just two, go early and try for a walk-in (then get a cocktail at nearby Apoteke while you wait).

Located in the Hauser and Wirth gallery complex in DTLA’s Arts District, at Manuela, chef Wes Whitsell nostalgically cooks the food he ate growing up in Texas, injected with modern flavor and technique. The restaurant is very much farm-to-table, the garden eggs really do come from the garden (they have their own chicken house, home to twelve rare-breed birds). All the smoking, fermenting, preserving, and pickling are done in-house. The sides really stand out, featuring vegetables commonly eaten in the South but rarely seen on LA menus like okra, scarlet runner, and dragon beans.

Marugame Monzo is the place to go for udon of all flavors—from curry udon to uni creamy sauce udon, shrimp tempura udon, and seafood tomato cream udon. The real draw of Marugame Monzo, though, is that you get to watch the udon being made in the glass-enclosed kitchen—the impressive pounding, rolling, and cutting of the dough into thick udon noodles. An entertaining and tasty meal.

Fittingly situated behind the Broad contemporary art museum, Otium’s box-like, wood, steel, and glass building can easily be mistaken for a large-scale art installation. Inside, the large light-filled dining room and communal table area revolve around a sprawling open kitchen and are meant to accommodate the museum crowds without making anyone feel, well, overcrowded. Chef Timothy Hollingsworth, formerly of The French Laundry, developed a menu that’s at times experimental but always approachable and delicious, think: artichoke and burrata, bacon tart, and falafel.

Downtown Los Angeles in a word? Colorful. And in three words: loud, congested, and hectic. Which is what makes us especially grateful for the succinctly named Q Sushi. Beyond a heavy wooden door on bustling W 7th Street, Q Sushi is a transporting and utterly serene getaway in the middle of the endless energy of the city. Classical music alongside perfunctory service devoid of small talk, it’s the kind of place that lowers your blood pressure as soon as you walk in. It’s also the kind of place that was recently awarded a Michelin star for its omakase-only experience. So settle in and clear your schedule—you’ll be here for about twenty mind-blowing courses.

Sonoratown is sensational. The meats here are charred over a mesquite grill instead of a flat-top. The carne asada is made with beef short rib instead of the traditional skirt steak. They have another location in Miracle Mile, if you happen to be coming from the Westside.

The long, sinuous sushi bar is where it's at, though you'll need to order a minimum of four items to sit here, which, once you taste the fish, won't be a problem. Fresh as can be, the sushi is prepared diligently by experienced chefs who emphasize the high-quality cuts with a light ponzu sauce here, a sprinkling of lemon and sea salt there. It's located in a strip mall and ideal for a business or casual lunch. Don't be intimidated by the line, as it moves fast.

At Sushi Zo, the policy is omakase only, so it's an indulgence in all ways, but it's a place for purists, as the incredibly high-quality, fresh but uncomplicated fish actually melts in your mouth.

Yangban serves up creative interpretations of traditional Korean dishes, made with Californian ingredients. The whole operation is a marvel: It’s one part restaurant, one part deli counter, and one part minimart, which sells everything from pantry staples to incense and streetwear by LA-based Asian-American designers. The twice-fried Yangban wings are insane; we order them with kimchi and pickled veggies.

Named after the province of its founders, Yang Chow serves up authentic Mandarin and Szechuan cuisine in a simple downtown space. Their signature slippery shrimp is worth the trip alone.

Dig into yellowtail sashimi, shisito peppers, spicy albacore crispy rice in an industrial space. If the wait time is up there, grab one of their takeout handroll kits.

Apotheke is nearly impossible to find—though not for long, given that David Chang’s Majordomo is next door. It’s on a slip of Spring Street that’s...not quite Chinatown...not quite DTLA. The interior of the bar, with its low rosy lighting, blush banquettes, leather armchairs, and pretty tile, is reminiscent of a French boudoir; that is to say that while so many bars feel inherently masculine, this one skews feminine. The outdoor patio is just as comfortable, with Turkish rugs scattered over the deck, big sofas to sink into, and plenty of space heaters. The beauty of the off-the-grid location is its size: You can sit outside and stargaze, never experiencing the claustrophobia so prevalent in other LA bars. The drinks are more like elixirs spiked with alcohol and divided into “aphrodisiacs,” “health & beauty,” and “painkillers.”

In a lofty warehouse with games and high-top seating, Arts District Brewing has a ton of taps and a solid food menu. They have a speakeasy-style cocktail bar behind the brewery, too. It's a good option for big groups without much fuss.

EightyTwo is a bar, but the drinks are more like a bonus here. The real draw: one room full of quarter-operated classic video games and another dedicated to the great game of pinball. Rotating food trucks make regular stops in the back courtyard, so you can take a break in the middle of a Pac-Man tournament.

It's a little bit off the beaten path, but that's part of the charm of this old-school, urban bar with a great craft beer selection, reasonably priced cocktails, a photo booth, Pac-Man, jukebox, and more. There's also a great happy hour and a takeaway liquor license, which is pretty clutch in this town. P.S. Check out the ladies bathroom. Here's a hint: It smells oddly of bubblegum.

This brewery is low-key and has some of the best craft beer in the city. It’s a relatively small operation—more tasting room than the sprawling warehouse vibe that’s become so common for LA breweries.

This hot-pink Italian disco, situated just behind De La Nonna, is a great place to go out. If you come early in the evening, the groovy, mirrorballed space is a chill spot to have a drink and listen to music. The dancing really picks up at around 9 p.m.

A truly good bar speaks to our purist hearts: great music, solid drinks, and excellent service are what we crave. Wolf & Crane triple-checks all these boxes. This drinks-only establishment (an anomaly in its food-driven Little Tokyo neighborhood) serves up an inventive cocktail list with a rare bent toward Japanese whisky. The staff is incredibly knowledgable about every bottle on the shelf (some holding very rare whiskies) and willing to explain the history and notes of each, sommelier-style, which makes a trip here even more enjoyable.

Endorffeine’s owner, Jack Benchakul, is a former biochemist turned pastry chef turned barista, and he personally brews every single cup of the phenomenal coffee served here. He hosts ticketed desserts-and-drinks tasting menu experiences, too.

Built in 1917, restored in the '90s, and then revamped in the past few years, this downtown market—which has operated continually for the past century—still maintains its original façade in the Homer Laughlin Building. Nowadays, you'll find specialty shops like DTLA Cheese, along with small food joints serving up Mexican, Chinese, and Japanese food, ideal for the downtown office crowd and tourists alike.

There's no short supply of Mexican food in LA, so when we say that Guisado's has some of the best, it's a hefty stamp of approval. Guisado is the Spanish word for stew—the kind of slow-braised, spiced meats that taste just as good with a side of rice and beans as they do starring in a taco—and that's exactly where this spot excels. Slow roasted pork with pickled red onions is the fan favorite, but they also do excellent fish, steak, and chicken. The original is in Boyle Heights, though they now also have locations in Echo Park, Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Burbank, and West Hollywood.

It’s pretty typical of L.A.'s fusion culture that the best po'boys in the city come from a tiny deli in the heart of Old Chinatown, complete with black-and-white linoleum floors and an old-school green striped awning. The deli is tucked into a specialty grocery store, where you can buy hard-to-find Southern ingredients like Andouille sausage, Zapp's potato chips, and Café du Monde coffee. Behind the counter, they make shrimp, oyster, and catfish po’boys served with creamy remoulade sauce that are about as close to New Orleans as you can get in Los Angeles.

Any given morning, you can expect the line for Maru to dribble down the block. The crowd skews creative, and the craft of coffee is taken seriously. They also make delicious tea drinks, including one of our favorite matcha lattes in the city. There's another location in Los Feliz.

These purveyors of ultra-creamy ice cream got their start in Santa Barbara in 1948, and the heritage of their brand is hugely important to them. Their dairy is sourced from grass-grazed cows which are raised just north of LA on the central coast, and they've been working with the same creamery since they got their start (eggs are cage-free, too). This is the kind of place where classics like vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry reign supreme. Kids obviously can't get enough of it. You can buy this stuff at many upscale grocery stores, but we prefer to have it scooped for us at either their Grand Central Market or Studio City locations.

Since the regeneration of the area in the 30s, the main plaza on Olvera Street has hosted a vibrant Mexican marketplace. It's home to some of the city's oldest and most historic buildings (26 of them) including the Avila Adobe, built in 1818, LA's oldest surviving residence; Pico House, a luxury hotel built in 1870; and the Plaza Substation that used to form a part of the Yellow Car network.

French-born chef Christophe Happillon has become known as L.A.'s oyster sommelier through his oyster pop-ups at high-end restaurants and hotels. In 2014, he brought The Oyster Gourmet to Grand Central Market in the form of a tiny stall with wood-canvas wings that open and close not entirely unlike...yes, an oyster. Like the space, the menu is small but satisfying—oysters, of course, and also a selection of clams, shrimp, and some raw fish, along with wine and beer. In addition to his space at Grand Central Market, Happillon still does seafood catering, and brings oyster pop up bars to events and parties in Los Angeles.

Another stellar French Dip joint that swears theirs started it all, Philippe’s has been around since the ‘50s, and therefore, might just have the original “original” on the menu. There are actually five dips on offer, the beef being the obvious fan favorite. That said, we like the turkey as it’s lighter but just as flavorful.

By day, this Chinese tea house and restaurant in Mandarin Plaza serves excellent noodles and small bites along cups of oolong. By night, people flock here for tea cocktails, which are a little unexpected—you might order a drink with pu-erh, tequila, chili pepper, and lime, for example—and always fabulous.

There was once a time you could get Stumptown only in Portland, Oregon. Thank goodness things have changed. We keep the bold roast on tap at goop HQ and happily visit the shops when we're in the Pacific Northwest, New York, New Orleans, and downtown Los Angeles. Stumptown’s latest location, in the fashion district along bustling Los Angeles Street, offers a good amount of seating for the smallish space. We like to come here for downtown meetings or lazy Sunday pour-overs.

Whether you order the mushroom or the adobada tacos, get it “con todos”—the team applies salsa, onions, and other toppings with mixologist-level precision. Victor Delgado and Jorge “Joy” Alvarez-Tostado understand, in the same way a white-tablecloth restaurant does, that the excitement and energy a dish is served with is critical to the dining experience—their version is just way more fun.

Tea Master serves some of LA’s best matcha in a Little Tokyo strip mall. This place is the real deal; the owner is a student of Edosenke, a centuries-old Japanese school of tea ceremony. And their matcha soft serve is a treat after lunch at Sushi Gen across the way.

Verve practices direct trade with the farmers who source their coffee beans—an important (and very difficult to execute) practice that allows them to exceed fair-trade minimums when they pay farmers for their goods. Here, you'll also find reliable internet and plenty of seating housed in a sleek, urban-feeling space.

Wexler's Deli in Grand Central Market occupies a remarkably small space considering the insane volume of good food it produces. Their focus is on Jewish comfort food, with a simple menu that’s focused on the classics: bagels with lox and shmear, pastrami and smoked fish (cured and smoked on-site), and insanely good pickles that they make themselves. Good to remember: They deliver.

This teeny but beautifully curated vintage store is arguably one of the best in L.A. It’s also the place you want to be when hunting down the perfect pair of vintage Levi’s—the selection here isn’t necessarily vast, but each piece is lovingly chosen, washed, and repaired by the owners themselves to look its best. There are also band t-shirts, army jackets, and a few racks of dresses—all in excellent shape. If pins and patches are your thing, the semi-annual pin-and-patch parties are a gold mine.

As the West Coast's largest art and architecture-centric bookstore, this is the sort of place where you can put together a stack of beautiful coffee table books.

Straddling downtown and Little Tokyo, the Japanese-based Kinokuniya offers great notebooks, stationery, pens, and gifts. Kids, in particular, go nuts here. There's also a location in Culver City.

New to DTLA, Kinto focus on striking a balance between beauty and functionality when it comes to building out the ultimate home cook’s kitchen. In other words, not only will the delicate Japanese pottery and double-wall champagne glasses on offer add pizzazz to your counters but, thanks to Kinto’s obsession with quality, they’ll stand the test of time, too. With the coffeeware collection of carafe sets and porcelain brewers, you’ll navigate your kitchen with the dexterity of an artisanal coffee-shop barista.

A hugely successful used books and record shop may seem like an anachronism but this shop keeps expanding.

This lending library lets readers borrow or buy books in a very relaxed way, as the staff here seems to care more about getting people to read the books than buy them, and lending times, unlike a typical library, vary according to the length and difficulty of the novel. It's a little out of the way, but worth the trip if you're looking to do some serious reading.

This quaint bookshop, nestled in the heart of Chinatown, is made for those rare, rainy afternoons in Los Angeles. (Though we’ve been known to use the stacks as a hiding place from the sun, too.) You could spend hours getting lost among the hundreds of curated cookbooks and knickknacks ranging from salt cellars to vintage bandannas all tucked away on the corner of North Hill Street. Not only does it offer an extensive range of unique reads, such as the Portuguese tea magazine Eighty Degrees, but Now Serving regularly hosts book signings and guest speakers with many of the authors whose work lines the shelves. Follow them on Instagram (@nowservingLA) to stay up to date on upcoming events.

Olive Ateliers curates vintage home goods sourced from around the world—patinated pots, stone sinks, elm consoles, and so much more. They release new items on a first-come, first-serve basis; if you’re a serious shopper, get on their email list to know when new inventory drops.

Downtown's wholesale flower market (it takes up close to two city blocks) is a DIY goldmine. Yes, there are fresh flowers and succulents—both locally and globally grown—as far as the eye can see. But you can also come here to snag supplies like vases, gardening tools, and ribbon for a song. Pros get first dibs daily; the general public can pay a $2 admission fee during the week and $1 on weekends.

There’s no way to grasp the size and scope of ROW DTLA without seeing it in person, so we won’t attempt to describe this massive conglomerate of industrial structures as anything but WOW. What we can put into words is the impressive the curation of places to eat, shop, work, and just chill. A sampling of restaurants includes Japanese food at Hayato (order a bento box), and the flakiest, crunchiest Japanese fried chicken we’ve ever had at chef Kuniko Yagi’s Pikunico. Stores are focused on locally owned businesses, like Kinto and Bodega—arguably the most well-stocked sneaker store in the city. On weekends, the streets are closed off to cars, leaving ample space for kids to shake the willies out. On Sundays, Smorgasburg LA takes over ROW DTLA’a neighbor, the Alameda Produce Market.

Located on an unassuming street, this gallery-boutique hybrid is one of the most delightfully unexpected finds in LA. Owners Jodi and Stephen Zeigler had their first exhibit in 2014 and have since been featuring some of the most compelling works on display in the city. Hosted in a stellar light-filled room, the art covers a wide range, from nostalgic punk rock memorabilia to experimental photography ane mixed media pieces. On the other side of the space is the boutique, where the duo offer a well curated mix of wares, from indigo-dyed fabrics to Le Feu de L'eau candles to out-of-print photography books and zines, all of which make ideal gifts.

Kimm Birkicht is a beloved LA-based floral designer with deep industry roots, which translates to an innate understanding that every arrangement—whether it's for a wedding, family gathering, or work event—needs to speak to the client's individual aesthetic.

The Broad's modern and contemporary art collection is vast—what you see on any particular visit represents only a smidge of the total collection. Luckily, they're constantly rotating pieces in and out of the museum, and the gallery looks a little different every time you go. You can solidly expect to see Warhols, Basquiats, Harings, and Lichtensteins, and surely some massive Jeff Koons balloon sculptures. Admission is free, and the museum releases a limited number of same-day tickets, but it's best to book in advance. If you'd like to see the museum's special exhibitions, you'll need to book a timed-entry ticket for a fee.

This makers market pops up at ROW DTLA one Saturday a month—see their website for their upcoming dates—and features local Asian artists and food stalls.

Until the opening of the Broad across the street, MOCA was LA's only museum wholly dedicated to contemporary art. As always, there's something great to see at their downtown location, their outpost in the Pacific Design Center, and the super rad Geffen Contemporary, housed in a former police car warehouse in Little Tokyo.

Since the early 1900s, L.A.'s Natural History Museum has been playing host to millions of artifacts from the past five or so billion years—and the collection keeps growing. (In 2011, they opened Dinosaur Hall.)

Perhaps one of the most significant things to come from the Ace Hotel's renovation of the United Artists building was the restoration of the original United Artists Theatre. Built in the 1920s and extravagantly decorated with Gothic design flourishes (including thousands of tiny mirrors in the ceiling), the three-story space is one of the city's most important architectural gems. Under the art direction of the Ace, it's also become a hotspot for some of coolest cultural activities in LA.

Designated for the 5 to 11 set, this LA Phil concert series at Walt Disney Hall touches on everything from Tchaikovsky to the incidence of repetition in minimalist music.