If you find yourself in Venice Beach (Los Angeles) craving a good cup of espresso and a vastly different cafe experience, head over to Intelligentsia Coffeebar on Abbott Kinney Boulevard. Intelligentsia roasts their own coffee and sources them directly from coffee growers they work with to ensure high quality. The coffee bar is a cross between a chemistry lab and a high-tech Italian bar/cafe.

Intelligentsia’s website says:

“[G]uests are not met with the standard experience of waiting in line. After passing through the iron gates facing the bustling boulevard, visitors walk down an ivy-covered hall open to the sky where they are greeted at a butcher block “concierge desk.” From this point, they are taken to one of four custom-fabricated espresso machines where their espresso drink or coffee-by-the-cup is prepared. The idea is for a barista to stay with one person throughout the interaction to create an individualized experience for every customer, regardless of how many are being served.”

There are hardly any tables, just an open space with stadium-like concrete steps on which people sit with their coffee, croissants and newspapers (make sure you grab one of the cushions if you are going to linger).

Intelligentsia Coffeebar
1331 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice, CA 90291
+1 310 399 1233
www.intelligentsiacoffee.com
Hours:
6am – 8pm Monday – Wednesday
6am – 11pm Thursday – Friday
7am – 11pm Saturday
7am – 8pm Sunday

* * * * *

Check out all of Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles and see the Google Map of Los Angeles with my favorite hotels, restaurants and cafes.

If you are going to Los Angeles, make sure you visit The Bazaar by Jose Andres, a well-known Spanish chef, at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills. The Bazaar is a massive space cleverly divided up into:

• Bar Centro (a cocktail bar with high chairs and tables, and comfy lounging sofas);
• Rojo y Blanca: a restaurant that serves traditional and modern Spanish tapas (the modern ones are created using molecular gastronomy techniques);
• Patisserie: a playful space with cute loveseats and pastry displays where, after dinner, you are taken to indulge in decadent pastries.

The Bazaar is designed by Philippe Starck and it is quite possibly the most quirky, amusing and engaging restaurant/bar I have seen in a long time. Here and there you see strange video installations showing famous figures from history whose faces slowly morph into ape faces, gigantic candles designed to look like fancy cakes (available for purchase, over $100), odd bits of furniture sprinkled here and there.

If you reserve a table at the restaurant, I suggest starting out earlier for Bar Centro and hanging out there before dinner. There is a vibrant bar scene where you get to check out the latest designer shoes, bags and outfits worn by the men and women who come to flirt and preen. The bar menu has a vast array of cocktails and small bar bites to get you started.

The restaurant menu is impressive because you rarely get to see such a good selection of typical Spanish (and Catalan) tapas, for example: Pa’amb tomaquet (Catalan style toasted bread, Manchego cheese, tomatoes), Jamon Iberico de bellota Fermin, Escalivada, Rossejat (paella style pasta and shrimp), chipirones in su tinta (baby squid in its own ink). Then there are the modern tapas (using molecular gastronomy technigues) – these are truly divine. The caprese salad is nothing like you’ve ever tasted before (see below).

Photo by Matthew Lankford

Instead of just putting some cherry tomatoes and mozzarella au naturel, they did something to the tomato and mozzarella so that they explode in your mouth. The textures are airy and out of this world. We asked our server to describe what they had done and it appears to me that they have something akin to a chemistry lab in the kitchen. Other modern tapas include watermelon tomato skewers, Japanese eggplant with hon-dashi, yogurt and bonito flakes, miso linguini with smoked trout roe, and more.

Photo by Matthew Lankford

After dinner, if you are still eager for dessert, the staff will escort you to the other side of the room where the delightful patisserie awaits you. If you are lucky, one of the two-person love seats will still be available and you can indulge in chocolate bon bons, macarons, millefeuilles and other sweet delicacies, followed by espresso.

The service at The Bazaar is impeccable. You are prepared for the worst – a chilly reception and snooty staff – but this is not the case. The staff at The Bazaar go out of their way to help you and to make the experience truly memorable.

Do not miss The Bazaar if you are going to Los Angeles!

The Bazaar by Jose Andres
SLS Hotel Beverly Hills
465 S La Cienega Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90048
+1 310 246 5555
http://www.sbe.com/sls/bazaar/

* * * * * *

Check out all of Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles and see the Google Map of Los Angeles with my favorite hotels, restaurants and cafes.

You would never know from the location (two doors down from a Starbucks and around the corner from an unremarkable shopping center off the 10 Freeway) and the plain interiors that Sushi Zo serves some of the best sushi in Los Angeles. The dining room is small and you do not order from a menu. At Sushi Zo, it’s omakase style, which means they bring you whatever the chef decides. They do ask if you don’t eat certain things. Some people dislike sea urchin because of its strange consistency while others despise oysters. I eat everything.

Whenever a member of the staff brings a dish, they announce its identity (“butterfish”), then they issue a command, “soy sauce” or “no soy sauce”. An entire evening progresses with the march of more than twenty truly delicious dishes (monkfish liver, sea urchin, and others) plus the corresponding instruction: Soy Sauce! No Soy Sauce!

If you are looking for a Japanese restaurant with atmosphere or romance, this is definitely not the place. There are no gimmicks; there’s no trendy bar scene. But if your sole intention is to savour good sushi without all the distractions, Sushi Zo is for you. You must make a reservation and be prepared to show up later in the evening.

Sushi Zo
9824 National Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
+1 310 842 3977

* * * * * * * * *

Check out all of Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles and see the Google Map of Los Angeles with my favorite hotels, restaurants and cafes.

Roy Choi, chef of Kogi, the famous Los Angeles Korean barbecue taco truck, has just opened a restaurant in West Los Angeles called Chego. Kogi has a massive following among foodies in L.A. (especially young Asian foodies) and the taco truck (which serves Korean barbecue dishes on tacos) is followed by fanatics via Twitter. Fans even have a Kogi Barbecue Truck Junkies group pool on Flickr where they post photos of the truck and their favorite meals. Roy Choi has also been named by Food & Wine as one of the best new chefs of 2010.

Chego has a simple and inexpensive menu. There are four main dishes, all in a rice bowl (not tacos this time): pork belly, vegetable (kim chi), chicken and short rib. The most expensive thing on the menu – the short rib – costs $9. It’s open till midnight from Tuesday through Saturday. The website is hilarious. Check out the Kogi BBQ Flickr photostream.

Chego
3300 Overland Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90034
+1 310 287 0337
www.eatchego.com

* * * * * * *

Check out all of Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles and see the Google Map of Los Angeles with my favorite hotels, restaurants and cafes.

When you arrive at the Farmer’s Daughter, a boutique hotel in the Fairfax district of Los Angeles, the first thing you notice is how seemingly out of place it is: a rustic themed former motel in the heart of Jewish-Russian Los Angeles, home of kosher bakeries, temples and Russian mini-marts. Except across the street is the famous Farmer’s Market so perhaps it’s not so weird to deck out an entire hotel in country style. After all, this is Los Angeles where a home is literally a man’s castle and whatever fantasy he may have in mind as an abode. In the neighborhood behind the Farmer’s Daughter you find miniature faux chateaux, white-washed bungalows in Spanish hacienda style, and little Tudor mansions. Everything is possible.

The Farmer’s Daughter lives up to the name. The open lobby looks like an L.A. decorator’s vision of how a modern farm home might be styled. Rooms are outfitted with gingham curtains and pillows, and when you eat out on the patio of the restaurant “Tart”, across the hotel, you stare at farm implements such as pitchforks mounted on a wall. The rooms are classic motel rooms, but they have been renovated so you don’t feel like you are staying in a cheap Hollywood motel. Nevertheless it still feels like a motel, which is a fascinating experience for non-Americans. There’s the tiny motel pool, a motel hallway and motel bathrooms — all done up in a modern, funky style.

Just across the motel on the same property is Tart Restaurant, a delightful little place that serves southern style comfort food like fried green tomatoes, crispy alligator and chicken sliders.

It is surprisingly good and the outdoor patio, with its large wooden tables and free Wi-Fi, is a great place to park yourself on a warm afternoon sipping wine and beer, munching on tiny burgers and fries. Not all of the food at Tart is fried. I had a veggie bouquet that featured avocado and mushroom carpaccio with jalapeno oil and lime juice, grilled eggplant, and red pepper roll ups with basil pesto and balsamic glaze. It was very delicious. The service at Tart and the Farmer’s Daughter are excellent.

The hotel is located in the Fairfax area close to Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Across the street lie the Farmers’ Market and The Grove, an upscale outdoor shopping mall that purportedly receives more visitors each year than Disneyland. The Grove has all the usual suspects: Nordstroms, the GAP, Barney’s Co-Op, and other large American retail chains.

Although the hotel is centrally located, the area is very busy with traffic. The hotel itself is quiet and you never hear the street noise. But it is far from the beach and after a short while, having cars whizzing around you all the time really gets to you. On the other hand if you have meetings at CBS or in Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, it’s a good place to stay.

If you are looking for good places to eat near the hotel, a short drive down West 3rd Street brings you to AOC Wine Bar (8022 West 3rd Street) and Joan’s on Third (8350 West Third Street), a gourmet marketplace and cafe with excellent croissants, breads, salads, cheeses, charcuterie, olives and more. Joan’s is open for breakfast in case you don’t feel like Tart’s southern fare.

Prices at the Farmer’s Daughter start at $159 per night. They have several packages that include dining at Tart Restaurant, so book via the website.

Farmer’s Daughter
115 South Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
+1 800 334 1658
+1 323 937 3930
www.farmersdaughter.com

* * * * * * * *

Check out all of Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles and see the Google Map of Los Angeles with my favorite hotels, restaurants and cafes.

Gjelina is at this moment my favorite restaurant in Los Angeles. Located on Abbott Kinney Boulevard in Venice Beach, Gjelina serves truly delicious Mediterranean food in an industrial chic space that has an outdoor patio in the back. When I go to restaurants like Gjelina which serve small plates, pizza, tempting vegetable dishes and salads, I skip the main course and share small dishes with my dining companions. As you can see from the dinner menu below, they also serve charcuterie and cheese plates.

If you are dining with a group of friends, my advice is to order different dishes from the small plates menu (see below). For 2 persons, three small plates plus two vegetable dishes and a dessert are sufficient.

Everything we had at Gjelina was outstanding:

• Braised cavolo nero with smoked tomato, vinegar and honey: I love cavolo nero (a very dark green Italian vegetable that resembles the lacinato kale). This one is served with a bit of sweet-sour broth and tomatoes, with hints of vinegar. Lovely!
• Marinated artichokes with burrata, pistachio pesto and crispy shallots: if you like burrata, this is your dish. The pesto was delicate, so it did not overwhelm the creamy lusciousness of the burrata and the artichokes were fresh.
• Hen of the Woods mushroom toast with crème fraîche and truffle oil: my favorite of all the dishes I tried. Huge pieces of mushrooms in a scrumptious light creamy sauce with a hint of garlic, made even more divine by the addition of truffle oil. Because they use crème fraîche instead of heavy cream, the mushrooms’ flavour truly stands out and the dish is not heavy.
• Grilled local squid with warm lentil salad and salsa verde: the squid was fresh and tender, served on a bed of lentils flavoured with vinegar.
• PEI mussels with housemade chorizo, confit tomato, white wine and grilled bread: Fresh mussels in a white wine broth gets me into a Côte d’Azur mood. The only disappointment is the chorizo — I was expecting Spanish chorizo (cured meat) which is what people in the south of France and in Spain add to this dish. Spanish chorizo would have gone better than the Mexican chorizo (ground meat, tends to crumble when cooked, fattier than the Spanish version) which Gjelina used.
• Dessert: banana chocolate bread pudding with fresh cream and caramel. The dessert was surprisingly light with just the right amount of sweetness. The cream and caramel provided the perfect finishing touches to the banana and chocolate. It was difficult deciding between this and the butterscotch pôt de crème with salted caramel and creme fraiche. There is a next time . . .

Gjelina has a small but good wine list, and wines priced by the glass are a bit on the expensive side. Service is excellent! Although the restaurant was packed, there were no terrible delays and our server never appeared harried.

If you have any choice in the matter, sit in the outdoor patio behind the restaurant. It’s a great place in the evening, with heaters if you get too cold. The outdoor patio boasts a lively scene, with view of the kitchen inside.

Gjelina
1429 Abbott Kinney Blvd.
Venice, CA 90291
+1 310 450 1429
www.gjelina.com
Open 7 days a week till midnight.

* * * * * *

Check out all of Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles and see the Google Map of Los Angeles with my favorite hotels, restaurants and cafes.

There are few cities in the world that blend urban living, fashion and design, with beaches, mountains and deserts. Los Angeles is one of them. You can ski in the San Bernardino mountains in the morning and be back at the beach in the afternoon driving down Pacific Coast Highway with your convertible top down. In the evenings, there are so many good restaurants to choose from. Since LA is a melting pot of so many nationalities, you’ll find Vietnamese, Filipino, French, Indian, Korean food and many more.

But finding a hotel is not as easy. You want to stay near the beach, but most beachside hotels are rundown or old-fashioned. In Beverly Hills and downtown, there are too many chain hotels. So we’ve gone through the trouble of selecting boutique hotels — small scale and more intimate — that provide good service and beautiful interiors at a reasonable cost.

Farmer’s Daughter Hotel
115 South Fairfax Ave, Fairfax & 3rd
Los Angeles, CA
+1 323 937 3930
www.farmersdaughterhotel.com

Avalon Beverly Hills
9400 West Olympic Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA
+1 310 277 5221
www.avalonbeverlyhills.com
Find out more and book online

Luxe Hotel Rodeo Drive
360 N. Rodeo Dr.
Beverly Hills, CA
+1 310 273 0300
www.luxehotels.com/hotels/RodeoDrive

Maison 140
140 S Lasky Dr.
Beverly Hills, CA
+1 310 281 4000
www.maison140beverlyhills.com
Find out more and book online

Le Montrose Suite Hotel
900 Hammond Street
West Hollywood, CA
+1 310 855 1115
www.lemontrose.com

Palihouse Holloway
8465 Holloway Drive
West Hollywood, CA
+1 323 656 4100
www.palihouse.com
Find out more and book online

The London West Hollywood
1020 N. San Vicente Blvd.
West Hollywood, CA
+1 310 854 1111
www.thelondonwesthollywood.com

Luxe Hotel Sunset Blvd
11461 Sunset Blvd
Brentwood
Los Angeles, CA
+1 310 476 6571
www.luxehotelsunsetblvd.com

Shade Hotel
1221 N. Valley Drive
Manhattan Beach, CA
+1 310 546 4995
www.shadehotel.com

- – - – - – - – -

Related stories:

Mapplr’s favorite restaurants in Los Angeles

Additions to list of favorite restaurants

Jin Patisserie in Los Angeles: luscious pastries in a Zen garden

Fraiche in Los Angeles: French and Italian food in an airy elegant space

Ocean views and innovative seafood dishes at Catch in Santa Monica

Google Map of LA restaurants and hotels

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

Sponsored Link: Find the best luxury hotels in Los Angeles.

For non-American readers, a “taco truck” is a truck out of which tacos and other Mexican food is served — a mobile restaurant, if you will. Many taco trucks park near office complexes that are far away from restaurants so the workers don’t need to drive (or walk far) to find food. In San Francisco, however, there are taco trucks even in areas that have a lot of cafes and restaurants. Because of their success, “taco trucks” now sell everything from Vietnamese food to Korean BBQ and are not necessarily run by Mexican entrepreneurs.

Kogi’s
Korean BBQ
www.kogibbq.com
Location – on the go twitter.com/kogibbq

Ford Filling Station
9531 Culver Blvd.
Culver City, CA
+1 310 202 1470
www.fordsfillingstation.net
California cuisine

Grace
7360 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
+1 323 934 4400
www.gracerestaurant.com
Contemporary American

BLD
7450 Beverly Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA
+1 323 930 9744
www.bldrestaurant.com
A less formal version of Grace

BottleRock
3847 Main St.
Culver City, CA
+1 310 836 9463
www.bottlerock.net
Wine Bar

Joan’s on Third
8350 West Third Street
Los Angeles, CA
+1 323 655 2285
www.joansonthird.com
Gourmet marketplace, Café: breakfast and lunch

Loteria
6627 Hollywood Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA
+1 323 465 2500
www.loteriagrill.com
Mexican

- – - – - – - – -

Read all of my LA reviews and go to my Google map of LA favorites.

What would you do if confronted with choices such as these on a menu:

(1) Desire: velvety Manjari chocolate mousse with vanilla crème brulee, crunchy feuilletine and French griottine cherries on a chocolate sponge.

(2) Mysterious: passion fruit with hazelnut cream filled with spiced diced pineapple.

Jin Patisserie in Venice Beach has even more tempting delicacies. Hidden in a quiet Zen-inspired garden, you can have high tea or lunch, which if you are very naughty, will include one or more of the pastries on the menu.

• Vibe: quiet garden with bamboo trees and little tables, perfect for lunch or afternoon tea.

• Pros: the most tempting, unusual pastries this side of Los Angeles, good sandwiches (prosciutto, smoked salmon, cucumber-gruyere); a quiet civilized place in the midst of the Abbott Kinney neighborhood.

• Cons: the worst place to discuss health issues, such as cholesterol levels and the epidemic of obesity around the world.

Jin Patisserie
1202 Abbot Kinney Blvd
Venice Beach, California
+1 310 399 8801
Creative, unusual pastries
www.jinpatisserie.com

- – - – - -

Check out my list of favorite restaurants in Los Angeles.

Going to a new restaurant is always an adventure. Will it be a disappointment or a pleasant surprise? I went to Fraiche in Culver City (Los Angeles) recently and wondered which one it would be. When I opened the menu and saw that they served finocchiona, a Tuscan salami made with fennel seeds, I felt more at ease. One rarely comes across a restaurant in California that serves finocchiona. The food turned out to be very delicious: piquant farro salad with blood oranges, savoury pappardelle with oxtail ragout, succulent duck leg confit. I could have tried one of the desserts but alas, I had already eaten so much. Fraiche is now one of my favorite places to eat in LA.

• Vibe: airy open restaurant with outdoor seating, tables spaced apart for civilized conversations, elegant but unpretentious decor

• Pros: delicious French, Italian and Mediterranean dishes cooked to perfection, excellent wine list; valet parking.

• Cons: the neighborhood (Culver Boulevard) is dead at night so you will need to drive elsewhere for a nightcap.

Fraiche
9411 Culver Boulevard
Culver City, CA
+1 310 839 6800
www.fraicherestaurantla.com

- – - – - -

Click to see my other favorite restaurants in Los Angeles.

View Larger Map