Photograph: Jordan Michelman
4222 Vineland Ave., North Hollywood, (818) 980-8000
“The Valley” isn’t just one place, either—a collection of unique cities and subcultures that occupy the environs north of LA proper, this is the land of Paul Thomas Anderson films, immortalized in the music of Tom Petty and Frank Zappa. If you’re in the Southlands for events in and around the television and film industry, or to check out the Universal Studios theme park complex, you’ll save time and money by staying close.
The Garland is your Valley adventure home port. This place manages the neat trick of being both hip and eminently utilitarian: You could come here to lounge by the pool, take in the gardens, and hang out at the busy bars and restaurants, or you could use this place as a spot to drop your bags between all the other things you’re in town to do. There’s an impressively beautiful outdoor pool (with a massive fireplace), guided neighborhood tours (the Brady Bunch house is nearby), and ample parking. The whole thing has a Spanish colonial flair with flashes of 1970s tiki. This place gets double points if you happen to be traveling with your family—kids love the Garland.
Photograph: Jordan Michelman
8221 Sunset Blvd., (323) 656-1010
I don’t know what you’re here in town for, or what qualifies to you, personally, as a business trip. The hotels I’ve recommended so far are all swell, but I’ve included them first and foremost for reasons of practicality and geography. That’s not why you stay at the Chateau. You come here instead for the myth and the history, the infamy and the iconic status of it all: here, where Duke Ellington composed “Swingin’ Suites,” where Stephen Stills wrote “For What It’s Worth” (“stop, hey, what’s that sound”), where Jim Morrison swung from the chandeliers, where Dominic Dunne lived while reporting the OJ Simpson trial for Vanity Fair. God only knows what’s gone on in these elevators, to say nothing of the guest rooms, which are appointed more like apartments and come swathed in spectral haunted metaphysical atmosphere, baked in California sunshine.
You can work here; so much incredible work has happened here! Nicholas Ray and James Dean rehearsed Rebel Without a Cause here! Whatever project it is you’ve got cooking—a novel, a screenplay, a symphony, or just a humble pitch deck—I don’t think there’s a concept in the world that can’t be improved by injecting a little Chateau mystique into its DNA. You will see celebrities; you will find quiet moments to yourself among the ghosts; you will find yourself quietly reflecting to yourself, alone in your room, “Holy shit, I can’t believe I’m really here!” There’s no other hotel in the world that is remotely like it.
Where to Work
LA is freelancer central, and the sort of place where working on your screenplay (or whatever) from the bar or coffee shop has attained a kind of mythical status. The city has plenty to offer in the form of traditional coworking spaces, private clubs, and laptop gardens. Here are some of my favorites.
360 E. 2nd St., 8th floor, (213) 433-2400
The Centrl Office chain of coworking spaces is well-represented across Los Angeles, with locations in Downtown and Marina Del Ray, and two spots in the South Bay city of El Segundo, aka “Silicon Beach” (at least one part of the wider massif known by this moniker). Each location has its own way of leaning into the “creative campus” vibe, offering a variegated array of services from suites and meeting rooms to day offices, drop-in coworking open plan spaces, and virtual office options that allow for mail and package delivery. Centrl Office does what it says on the tin—this is a classic approach to the coworking space model, and sometimes that’s exactly what you need, with supersonic Wi-Fi and printers and kitchens and lounges.
1370 N. St Andrews Place, (323) 381-5996
Part coworking space, part event venue, the Preserve feels uniquely LA. Truly a campus take on coworking, the facility boasts more than 6,000 trees and plants, a very cool series of indoor/outdoor working spaces, a library, bungalows, studio offices, and meeting rooms, plus an on-site cafe and soundproof phone rooms. Wi-Fi here is 1 GB per second; there’s valet parking and nursing rooms and wellness classes and Corian desks; people run whole companies out of this facility, and also they host weddings. The building, which underwent a multimillion-dollar, award-winning renovation in the late 2010s, was originally designed by Paul Revere Williams, a 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 for your coworking needs—perhaps with an intent to hunker down for multiple days, so as to truly absorb the entirety of what goes on here—the Preserve is for you.
5971 W. 3rd St., (323) 933-2112
Like the Preserve, the Rita House could only be here, in Los Angeles, but the two spaces couldn’t feel more different. Rita is located inside a 1927 Spanish colonial building originally constructed for prop and costume design for the film studio industry in Hollywood. The building’s unique history goes back to the roots of coworking as a creative pursuit. There are monthly membership options, day rates, and a real focus on content production, with dedicated rooms for self-tape auditions and podcast taping, as well as larger meeting and screening rooms. You’ll find the requisite 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 coworking space that doubles as a people-watching and networking hub, and in LA I think that’s here.
4334 Sunset Blvd., (213) 200-0969
I love working from Los Angeles coffee shops, and Dinosaur is one of my favorites for this particular pursuit. Located on the border between Silver Lake, Los Feliz, and East Hollywood, this place is a creative laptop melee of people whose names you’ve seen in the writers’ credits at the end of various films and television shows—or those who’d like to someday be. The coffee comes from Woodcat Coffee, whose flagship store is over on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, and the store is bright and full of that good California light. It just feels creative here—get shit done on the front patio, or eavesdrop on the interesting conversations all around you. I visit nearly every time I’m in LA.
Where to Eat
How could I pick 10 places to eat in Los Angeles? How could anyone pick 20, or 50, or 101 like they do each year at LA Times Food? That section’s weekly (daily!) reporting on food across LA should be something you start scouting now, in the weeks before your trip, so as to stay hip to the most interesting new stuff happening across the region. For me, these are 10 restaurants I’ve personally visited and enjoyed, running the gamut across price, location, and experience. They aren’t even necessarily my 10 favorite LA restaurants, but they’re all spots I’d gladly go back to, and in a city so thoroughly spoiled for choice, that’s saying something.
2736 W. Sunset Blvd., (213) 913-6850
Avish Naran cracked some heretofore unknown atom when he opened Pijja Palace in 2022. I guess it is an Indian sports bar? But it is also sort of a red sauce Italian joint, a cocktail destination working more or less entirely in its own creative idiom, a really swell place to watch the Lakers lose their way through the dregs of the executive-produced-by-LeBron-James era, and so forth. There’s green chili pickle masala wings and korma curry pizzas and dosa onion rings (a required order) and plenty of beer from near and far to enjoy it all with. Do not miss ordering a cocktail here—this is quietly one of the more inventive cocktail programs in the city, which is saying something, because nothing is really quiet about Pijja Palace. Go here with a big group, or sneak in solo at the bar. I wish it were three times as big, but also I don’t want to change anything about it at all.
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