Los Angeles’ best bars for craft cocktails and A-list design

The Los Angeles bar scene is as tough to neatly condense and define as the sprawling city itself. Diverse neighbourhoods jumble together side by side, each with its own sense of style and history, not to mention distinctive flavour palettes. A night out in the City of Angels can shift between contrasting backdrops quicker than a busy actor changes roles. One thing that does unite this disparate city is Southern California’s abundant wealth of world-class fresh ingredients, which means cocktail menus are often updated to keep pace with the rhythms of the local farmers’ markets. It’s also true that wherever you go in this town, agave is king. The popularity of tequila and mezcal-based drinks has far outpaced their vodka-based equivalents.

From gritty downtown to historic Hollywood and the rarefied environs of Bel-Air and Beverly Hills, here are the very best places in Los Angeles to enjoy expertly-made drinks in artfully curated surroundings.

10 of the best bars in Los Angeles

Accomplice

For the best cocktails on the Westside, head to Mar Vista. There you’ll find Chef David Kuo’s trailblazing Taiwanese soul food joint Little Fatty and its award-winning partner-in-crime, Accomplice. Pull up a stool beneath the mural by Grammy-nominated illustrator Josh Cochran and take your time to explore an inventive, experimental menu overseen by Adam George Fournier, the 2021 US Bartender of the Year. The new cocktail list nods to the Asian flavours of the kitchen while drawing inspiration from LA’s historic neighbourhoods – don’t miss the Little Tokyo, their light, floral take on a martini, which pairs excellently with the signature XO Fatty noodles.

Accomplice is located at 3811 Grand View Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90066, USA.

Dante Beverly Hills

In location terms, Dante is hard to beat. Perched on top of The Maybourne luxury hotel in the heart of Beverly Hills, its rooftop views extend from the snowy peaks of the San Gabriel mountains all the way to the Hollywood Hills. Inside, the decor is just as easy on the eye thanks to creative director Nathalie Hudson’s careful curation and a colourful fresco depicting Southern Californian plants and birdlife by LA-based artist Abel Macias. Luckily, the drinks are also top tier, from the signature Garibaldi (Campari and ‘fluffy’ orange juice) to the six different types of martini, each available daily at a special rate during ‘martini hour’ from 3 to 5 pm.

Dante Beverly Hills is located at The Maybourne, 225 N Canon Dr, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, USA.

Hotel Bel-Air Bar & Lounge

As the only drinking establishment in Bel-Air, the David Rockwell-designed bar and lounge at the Hotel Bel-Air is a very exclusive sort of neighbourhood watering hole. The elegant, 80-capacity space showcases larger-than-life prints by renowned photographer (and local resident) Norman Seeff. His gorgeous portraits of the likes of Mick Jagger, Joni Mitchell and Cher have been known to draw visits from the subjects themselves. Nightly live music comes from either a pianist or, at weekends, the jazz trio the Bel-Air Players, who help give the room its customary buzz. The excellent cocktail list does its part too, with highlights including the refreshing Cucumber’s Vengeance and the fruity Monroe’s Passion.

Hotel Bel-Air is located at 701 Stone Canyon Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90077, USA.

Mirate

This Mexican restaurant in Los Feliz is breathtakingly designed, with a 40-foot tree rising up from its central courtyard and Oaxacan-influenced decor by Adean Studios, but that isn’t why it’s been named one of North America’s 50 Best Bars for two years running. That well-earned acclaim is all to do with beverage director Max Reis and his dedication to hand-selecting an ultrarare collection of mezcals and tequilas and blending them with oft-overlooked ingredients such as tepache, a traditional Mexican drink made from fermented pineapple, and pulque, made with agave. Stand-out cocktails include El Guero, their aqua chile-inspired take on a margarita.

Mirate is located at 1712 N Vermont Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90027, USA.

Musso & Frank Grill

To take a seat at Musso & Frank’s dark mahogany bar is to participate in a magic trick that reawakens the golden age of the movie business. Hollywood’s oldest restaurant opened in 1919, and glancing around at the leather banquettes and red-jacketed waiters will tell you that precious little has changed since. The storied bar has a lengthy list of screen credits that would make any A-lister envious, notably playing itself in Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time in Hollywood. It’s here that Brad Pitt orders a Bloody Mary while Leonardo Di Caprio knocks back a whisky sour, but there’s nothing on the menu finer than their perfect martini, served with an overflow carafe in its own miniature ice bucket.

Musso & Frank Grill is located at 6667 Hollywood Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90028, USA.

Or Bar

West Hollywood has no shortage of great places to party, but prior to 2023, it lacked a truly exceptional cocktail lounge. The remedy, courtesy of Rob Novinger and Stephanie Schestag-Muriano, is the chic, French disco-inspired Or Bar. The space is exquisitely designed, from the exterior hand-painted black-and-gold mural by Londubh Studio to the stunning, custom-made 3,700-piece crystal chandelier and the walls filled with elegant art, including a Ken Price original silkscreen print. Little wonder they took home last year’s John Chase Design Award from the City of West Hollywood. By day Or Bar serves first-rate La Colombe coffee, which they also put to good use at night in their signature Espress-Or Martini.

Or Bar is located at 8228 Santa Monica Blvd, West Hollywood, CA 90046, USA.

The Raymond 1886 Bar

Step back into California’s Gilded Age in this beautifully preserved example of American Craftsman architecture that dates to 1901. Once the caretaker’s cottage for Pasadena’s esteemed Raymond hotel, itself built in 1886, the bar’s more recent claim to fame is as a pioneer of craft cocktails in Southern California. So while the decor may be historic, with low ceilings and Victorian wallpaper, the drinks are cutting edge. A highlight of the new menu is the Charred Sunset, made with a delicate mezcal strawberry foam, while the attention to detail even extends to the meticulous, drink-specific ice cut using a table saw in the property’s dedicated ice room.

The Raymond 1886 is located at 1250 S Fair Oaks Ave, Pasadena, CA 91105, USA.

The Roger Room

The Roger Room may be dark and intimate, but it’s no dive bar. Located next door to celebrated comedy institution Largo at the Coronet, this half-hidden spot in Beverly Grove was reinvented by nightlife impresarios Jared Meisler and Sean MacPherson in 2009 with circus murals and old-school decor to mimic the legendary Bemelmans Bar in New York. The speakeasy ambience is accentuated by the elevated cocktail list, which includes popular highlights like the Tijuana Brass, a twist on a Tommy’s Margarita topped with cucumber meringue, and the Old Sport, which combines gin with a black tea-infused lychee liqueur.

The Roger Room is located at 370 La Cienega Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048, USA.

Thunderbolt

From the laidback vibe of this local favourite spot in Echo Park, you might not guess that Thunderbolt is regularly rated as one of the 50 Best Bars in North America. Atlanta-born owner Mike Capoferri has infused the place with a sense of Southern hospitality, something that’s reinforced by design studio Wunder Werkz’s welcoming decor and the fried chicken biscuits on the menu. Take one look at the short pamphlet that serves as a drinks list, however, and it quickly becomes clear just how unique this place is. Playful, progressive cocktail recipes are split into five distinct sections, with some grouped around flavour concentration and texture while others integrate unusual culinary-adjacent ingredients like Chinese bittermelon and shiitake mushrooms. The results simply have to be tasted to be believed.

Thunderbolt is located at 1263 W Temple St, Los Angeles, CA 90026, USA.

The Wolves

Downtown’s ornate Wolves bar looks as if it might have stood untouched for a century, but in truth, like so much of this city, it’s a product of a remarkable reinvention. Created by filmmaker Isaac Mejia and former Mad Men set designer Al Almeida in 2018, the space was just a simple internet cafe the pair reimagined using salvaged antiques and architectural pieces sourced from around the globe. The doors once opened onto an Argentinian mansion, the marble was saved from a demolished building nearby and the stained-glass ceiling came from an old train station in Paris, Illinois. The cocktails, such as the popular Tigers Milk made with mezcal and pineapple and served in a decanter for two, are equally transformative.

The Wolves is located at 519 S Spring St, Los Angeles, CA 90013, USA.