The Sunday Times - UK (2022-02-06)

14 February 6, 2022The Sunday Times

Travel USA special

Venice

Santa Monica

Hollywood

Runyon

Canyon

PACIFIC

OCEAN

10

Los Angeles

International

Airport

Downtown

Los Angeles

5 miles

unfortunately named My Dung

sandwich shop, but preferred

to eat breakfast at Philippe’s.

Like the sawdust-floored

diner, which has been open

since 1908, Ingram never left,

seeing Downtown at its lowest

in the early 1990s. It’s getting

better, she acknowledged,

“but it’ll never be as fancy as

it was in the 1950s”.

I walked south to the

Fashion District, past the

Ace and the Hoxton hotels

to a dozen or more streets

of kaleidoscopic and

irresistible clothing outlets

(fashiondistrict.org). Twenty

thousand dresses on the

second floor, said one sign. No

one knew how many were on

the ground floor. Three-piece

suit with shirt, tie, links and

belt $49.99 (£37), said another.

I crossed the tracks to see

the concrete course of the LA

River; ate ramen for lunch in

Little Tokyo; bought a yellow

Hawaiian shirt at Space City

Vintage; and enjoyed the

multimedia weirdness of

Pipilotti Rist at the Geffen

Contemporary at Moca. The

£13 ticket allows a second visit

free of charge so you can

double-check that what you

saw was real (moca.org).

Broadway was closed as

I walked back to my hotel.

A Buick sat abandoned in the

middle of the street. A cop was

loafing by the incident tape,

a crowd gathering behind it.

Then I saw the drone, the

clapperboard and a retinue

of film people sipping lattes.

“Five years ago they’d have

put a crane up and closed the

street for three days,” said

the cop. “Now they’ve got

15-year-olds flying robots and

all they need is an hour.”

That night I played Venetian

Bingo. The rules are simple:

one drink or plate per venue,

moving on to wherever your

server recommends next. If

you want to get under the skin

of a city’s drinking and dining

scene, this is the fast track —

and DTLA is accelerating like

Barcelona in the Noughties.

The latest arrivals are the

rooftop Mexican La Cha Cha

Chá (chachacha.la); Yangban

Society, serving modern

Korean in the Arts District

(yangbanla.com); and Cabra,

a Peruvian specialist, at the

Hoxton (thehoxton.com). For

movie-quality city views,

book a window booth at La

Boucherie steakhouse on the

Intercontinental’s 71st floor

(dtla.intercontinental.com).

As for booze, DTLA has

always looked after its

drinkers. Start at the Varnish,

a speakeasy hidden at the back

of Coles and one of the oldest

bars in LA. The Association is

→Continued from page 13

Time for cocktails in the

revamped Bradbury

Building, above and left;

the Broad Contemporary

Art Museum, below

almost next door. Both are

cornerstones of the LA cocktail

scene. After that you’re on

your own.

The next morning I took

a seat in Broadway’s Grand

Central Market — rescued, like

Union Station and the

Bradbury Building, by Yellin

(grandcentralmarket.com).

I ordered carnitas and coffee

from Villa Moreliana and

watched the people.

There were few tourists,

but lots of creative types and

designer baby buggies. There

were also panhandlers,

janitors, hustlers and city

employees. They were old,

young, wealthy, poor, black,

white, Hispanic and Asian.

It felt like a neighbourhood

— which is exactly what Yellin

would have wanted.

Chris Haslam travelled as a

guest of Cox & Kings, which

has five nights, B&B, in a

city-view room at the Westin

Bonaventure Hotel & Suites in

DTLA from £1,950pp, including

flights (coxandkings.co.uk).

See discoverlosangeles.com

and visitcalifornia.com for

more information

NIKOLAS KOENIG; ROBERT GAUTHIER/GETTY IMAGES