Things to do in Los Angeles 2022: Restaurants, museums and festivals

Sun, sand, celebrity sightings in their natural habitats: Tourists have long been down in Los Angeles for some combination of the above. If you like this cocktail, rest assured that it is still on offer: you will make your way to a coastal hot spot like Nobu Malibu or Giorgio Baldi and you will be able to enjoy it with abandon.

But Los Angeles has more to offer than is obvious. New restaurants and genre bars have consolidated the city’s status as the world’s culinary capital. The stages, both outdoors and indoors, are full of acts, large and ascending. Museums, including the $ 484 million homage to Hollywood, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, are courting the crowds. Travelers come en masse.

“The story of Los Angeles’ return is underway,” said Adam Burke, president and CEO of the city’s tourism board, adding that Los Angeles is expected to see more than 46 million visitors this year. close to the record 50.7 million in 2019. tourists. “We are optimistic that we will see a full recovery in Los Angeles by the end of 2023,” Burke said.

Although California lifted almost all Covid mask regulations in February, Los Angeles officials still require masks in public transportation and transportation hubs, including airports, buses, and shared travel. (One morning in late April, about half of Los Angeles International Airport passengers appeared to be wearing masks.

Restaurants and bars

If Los Angeles wasn’t the preeminent city for sushi in the country, it is now. Sushi Tama, Morihiro and Kinkan are some of the high-end omakase slingers, chef-curated tasting menus, which opened during the pandemic and captivated fans with takeaway boxes that shine like jewels. You can now book seats at their respective sushi bars, but plan ahead: Seating at the Kinkan counter, where meals range from $ 125 to $ 250 per person, can be especially difficult to get.

The Black Lives Matter movement drew renewed attention to Los Angeles’ black-owned businesses, especially restaurants. Critics are excited about Berbere, an Ethiopian-inspired vegan restaurant that opened in Santa Monica in 2021 (most dishes cost less than $ 20), and it would be hard for you to find a more beautiful latte than it used to be. serves Bloom & Plume, a coffee shop and coffee shop that the famous florist Maurice Harris opened next to his flower shop on the east side just before the pandemic (espresso drinks start at $ 3.50). Several websites offer guides to the best black-owned restaurants in the city; Thrillist is especially robust.

The low carb clutter is damn good, pizza is happening for a while. Cake after cake fly out of the open kitchen of Mother Wolf, Hollywood’s liveliest new restaurant, among fans of Rihanna and Michelle Obama, which occupies a golden art deco landmark, the Citizen-News building. (Heard in the bar: “If you open your eyes, it’s almost like you’re in New York.”) Downtown, De La Nonna serves grandma-style cakes ($ 16 or more) and crunchy Negronis. In Echo Park, in the east of the city, Grá argues for pizza as a healthy food, with its base of organic mother dough, “seasonal ferments” (kimchi, pickled cucumber salads) and natural wine. which, by the way, has inspired so many new things. In bars, you might be forgiven for thinking that someone had stumbled upon an underground supply.

In Silver Lake, Melody, which opened in 2017 and was renovated during the pandemic, Voodoo Vin and La Pharmacie Du Vin are a mile apart. The neighborhood also caters to Bolita cocktail lovers, a Cuban-inspired cocktail bar that opened in February, and De Buena Planta, a Tulum-inspired patio open in March that specializes in tequila and mezcal. Non-drinkers, you know that elixirs without ABV (alcohol by volume) abound throughout the city: Bolita, for example, serves several spirits ($ 8 or more) this will not leave you with a hangover.

Museums and live events

The main museums in Los Angeles are reopening: from May 21, the Broad will show a new collection of works by Takashi Murakami, as well as a series of art around the theme of the American flag. Many of the city’s museums, including the Broad, the Getty, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Academy Film Museum, which opened in September and include six floors of industry memorabilia. cinematic, require advance reservations and have their own mask. and vaccination protocols. It is best to check your websites before visiting them.

There is no shortage of events that unite fans of different races. The Hollywood Bowl and the Greek Theater, Los Angeles’ top outdoor venues, are back with a full list of concerts. Foodies will be breaking bread on May 21 and 22 at EEEEEATSCON LA (yes, that’s really how it’s spelled), a May food festival hosted by the restaurant review website Infatuation (tickets starting at $ 10); baseball fans will gather at Dodger Stadium for the MLB All-Star Game on July 19; south of Los Angeles, jazz enthusiasts will gather at the Newport Beach Jazz Festival in June. Rockers Rejoice: This Ain’t No Picnic in Pasadena brings together dozens of rock bands in August, including The Strokes and LCD Soundsystem.

Sports fans, keep in mind: With the incorporation of Angel City Football Club into the National Women’s Soccer League, Los Angeles now has 11 professional sports teams, most of them in every city in the country. NFL fans have flocked to Inglewood’s newly opened SoFi Stadium, where aspiring quarterbacks can take a guided tour and test their skills on the field where the Los Angeles Rams won the Super Bowl in February.

In the same complex as SoFi Stadium, the new YouTube Theater features a wide selection of Latin artists this summer and fall, including Rosalia, Gloria Trevi and Sebastian Yatra.

For decades, the Pride Festival & Parade in Los Angeles has been one of the largest LGBTQ Pride events in the world, and will return in full force on the weekend of June 11th. Old attractions have been updated: Warner Bros. reopened with a state-of-the-art Welcome Center and Universal Studios Hollywood has added a “Pet Secret Life” tour.

High design hotels

Los Angeles added 2,100 new hotel rooms in 2021 and there is a home away from home for every type of traveler. In the heart of the city, the Proper Hotel, designed by Kelly Wearstler (1100 South Broadway, rooms starting at $ 349), has become a destination for both locals and out-of-towners with its aesthetics. of art deco that is with the esthetic one of the present world-wide trotamundos. Pendry West Hollywood (8430 Sunset Boulevard, rooms from $ 525) brings a dose of maximalism to the Sunset Strip, with sumptuous rooms designed by Martin Brudnizki, a rooftop restaurant run by Wolfgang Puck and a lively pool scene.

The Maybourne Beverly Hills (225 North Canon Drive, rooms from $ 1,095) takes a bit of Britain far to the west of the lake; its high tea room, run by its sister hotel, Claridges, will debut at the end of the year. For YOLO fans with money to burn, the Beverly Hills Hotel (9641 Sunset Boulevard, rooms from $ 735), which turns 110 this year, offers its McCarthy Salad signature for $ 1,912; in addition to lettuce, it comes with gold flakes, lobster, caviar, a bottle of Dom Pérignon, and a sense of inflated superiority that comes with ordering a salad that costs more than the house’s average monthly mortgage.

Losses and incarnations

Although the iconic Hollywood Cinerama Theater closed in 2021, it needs to be reopened this year with new management. Some beloved restaurants have had a similar fate: Ray Garcia, the chef of Broken Spanish, which closed in 2020, can now be found at Asterid, a new restaurant at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Bon Temps, a critically acclaimed French restaurant in the downtown arts district, closed in 2020, but has an incarnation in chef Lincoln Carson’s new Hollywood restaurant, Mes Amis, which opens this spring.

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