9 new Los Angeles bars, from a ship in Santa Monica Canyon to a South Pasadena classroom

From Josh Skenes's pizza and cocktail bar in the Arts District to the bar Christopher Isherwood put into A Single Man, by way of a margarita bar with a centrifuge.

Written by Saunter Los Angeles · Updated October 2026

Christopher Isherwood put a Santa Monica Canyon bar into A Single Man and renamed it the Starboard Side. The building is shaped like a ship, and after a run as a pharmacy and, by most accounts, a speakeasy, a gay bar, The Hideout and Shorebar, it is a bar again under its old name, Friendship. It makes a fair emblem for this list. Los Angeles has always drunk in places with a past, and its new bars have started to read them. One takes over a classroom in a South Pasadena school, beneath ceiling panels by the muralist Lucile Lloyd. One builds a Silver Lake room somewhere between a mid-century Milanese bar and a steamship cabin.

The people move as much as the rooms. Brandyn Tepper came from Saison to Lynx. Kayla Garcia came from Kumiko in Chicago, helped open Night on Earth and now runs the list at Bar 109. Vay Su and Shawn Lickliter, from the République bar, opened Vandell in Los Feliz. Follow the bartenders and the city rearranges itself.

The order below runs from the bars changing what a drink in this city can be to the ones that are simply good company. A town once content to make a bar the place before the place has begun making destinations of them, and some of the best sit in a strip mall.

Drink · Arts District · Opened March 2026

Lynx

South Hewitt Street, in the Arts District. Lynx shares a wall with Tatsu Ramen next door. Josh Skenes took Saison in San Francisco to three Michelin stars, and Brandyn Tepper was his bar director there. Their pizza and cocktail bar won a Michelin Bib Gourmand. Skenes designed the pizza backwards from the bite, aiming for a shattering crust and big puffed edges. Tepper builds each drink around one ingredient: a Sudachi daiquiri, a Shanghai Pistachio, glasses frosted with liquid nitrogen. The centrifuge and the rotary evaporator are in the room rather than behind closed doors, so the guests can watch the process.

Best for The Napoletana and a Sudachi daiquiri, early, before the bar fills.

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Drink · Sherman Oaks · Opened May 2025

Daisy Margarita Bar

Ventura Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, in the old Sherman. Matt Egan and the Mírate team came over the hill from Los Feliz, and the beverage director, Max Reis, runs the bar at both. The reference points are two Baja cantinas, Dandy del Sur in Tijuana and Hussong's in Ensenada. The name is a history lesson: margarita is Spanish for daisy, and the daisy was an early twentieth-century family of spirit, liqueur and citrus. The list comes in three parts. Cantina for customisable classics. Mercado for fruit. Salsa Bar for the centrifuge and clarification, where the Guacamole Frozen Margarita uses blanco tequila, damiana, lime and clarified clamato. The drinks arrive pre-salted, so do not ask for a rim. Only additive-free tequila is poured, and private batches made with El Tesoro and Tequila Ocho sit on tap in a grid of glass jugs behind the bar. Once a batch is gone it does not come back. Adean Studios kept the panelling, added fringe to the lamps and a jukebox in leather and wood. It was nominated for best new cocktail bar in the country.

Best for A round of the technical margaritas and tacos on wagyu-tallow tortillas.

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Drink · Melrose Hill · Opened July 2025

Bar 109

641 North Western Avenue, in Melrose Hill, a former furniture shop on a street of car washes and Korean barbecue. Brian Baik grew up around Kobawoo House, his parents' Koreatown bossam institution, and learned to cook at Bouley, Eleven Madison Park, Brooklyn Fare and Sushi Noz. His tasting counter, Corridor 109, is behind a door at the back. Bar 109 is the front room, walk-in only. Montalba Architects put a forest gold marble bar top on raw blackened steel, with elliptical banquettes and lighting low enough that the marble does most of the glowing. Kayla Garcia, previously head bartender at Kumiko in Chicago, runs the list. The gin martini is salted with white kelp and garnished with pickled kombu. The Ichigo Punch puts vodka, mezcal, sake, strawberry and basil through clarified milk. Michael Engelmann, a master sommelier, chose the wines. The food leans to the sea: smoked fish dip, shrimp cocktail, a fried rockfish sandwich in homage to the Filet-O-Fish.

Best for A kelp martini before dinner at the counter behind the door, or instead of it.

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Drink · Cahuenga Pass · Opened December 2024

Night on Earth

At 3256 Cahuenga Boulevard West, in the Cahuenga Pass between Hollywood and Studio City, Night on Earth is the Valley sibling of Thunderbolt in Echo Park, from the same team. It is a futuristic-looking cocktail bar with neon lighting and pre-batched cocktails served from jugs that look like two-litre soda bottles. The drinks share Thunderbolt's science-minded approach, with clarification and carbonation and unusual spirits such as Oaxacan pineapple brandy. The Bad Influencer and the Reanimator are on the list, and there is a vending machine. Kayla Garcia, now at Bar 109, helped open it.

Best for A late round after a show at the Hollywood Bowl or Universal.

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Drink · Los Feliz · Opened December 2025

Vandell

Hillhurst Avenue in Los Feliz, in the space that was Nossa Caipirinha Bar. Michael Francesconi and Matthew Glaser of Park Hospitality, the people behind Donna's in Echo Park, opened it in December 2025 with Vay Su and Shawn Lickliter, both from the République bar. The room came with high ceilings and an open plan. They lowered the ceilings and divided it, working with Brian Moran of Aero Collective, so the place now runs as a series of smaller rooms with mid-century California panelling and echoes of the bars of New York in the thirties and forties. At the back is a red room with its own bartender. That is where the industry sits. The list runs to signatures named after produce, the Smoked Tomato being the one everyone orders, classics made with vintage spirits, forgotten drinks like the Saratoga, and a proper zero-proof section. Food is short and meant to make you want another drink: anchovy toast, grilled spare ribs, a burger on an English muffin.

Best for Walking in on a weeknight and heading for the red room.

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Drink · Silver Lake · Opened March 2026

Bar di Bello

Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake, in a smart new strip mall called Sunset Row, with valet. Alex Wilmot, formerly of Gigi's in Hollywood, opened it with his childhood friend Michael Kassar of Wexler's, the wine consultant Kristin Olszewski of Nomadica and Mike Moonves. The name, by Wilmot's own account, does not quite mean anything in Italian. Behind red velvet curtains, Dean Levin of 22RE has built something between a mid-century Milanese bar and a steamship cabin: American walnut, a red travertine bar from Iran, Tobia Scarpa sconces, Vico Magistretti chairs, portholes on the kitchen door. Levin cites Musso & Frank, Dan Tana's and Philip Johnson's Grill Room in New York. Spencer Recor, also from Gigi's, wrote the cocktails, and the drink on every table is the Negroni di Basso, a double served in an outsized goblet after Bar Basso in Milan. There are Vespers and an Air Mail too, and a Champagne list Olszewski runs from collector bottles to a Tuesday. The playlist runs to Italo disco.

Best for A Negroni di Basso at the bar, then the yellowtail carpaccio.

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Drink · South Pasadena · Opened December 2025

Sid's Bar

El Centro Street in South Pasadena, a short walk from the A Line on Mission. Children were taught on this site from 1885; the present brick school with its arcaded walkways went up in the late 1920s and closed in 1979. Sid the Cat, the indie promoters Kyle Wilkerson, Brandon Gonzalez and Sean Newman, named after Wilkerson's late cat, turned the 1931 auditorium into a concert hall and one classroom into this bar. The school spirit stays: a trophy case of vintage pennants and old yearbooks, Tiffany-style lamps, a DJ booth. The renovation uncovered ceiling panels by the Depression-era muralist Lucile Lloyd, and the bar named a drink after her: whiskey, amaro and bitters. The Shape, of gin, bitter bianco and pamplemousse, honours a different local, Michael Myers; John Carpenter shot Halloween in these streets. The All Nighter is a martini of Nikka Coffey vodka, Averna, Montenegro and espresso liqueur. The sober one is the Dirty Sid.

Best for A drink before a show next door at Sid the Cat Auditorium.

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Drink · Santa Monica Canyon · Opened August 2026

Friendship Bar

112 West Channel Road, the last bend of Santa Monica Canyon before the Pacific Coast Highway and the beach. The building is shaped like a ship, bow over the pavement, portholes down the side. Doc Law ran a pharmacy and, by most accounts, a speakeasy here in the 1920s. It became the S.S. Friendship, by the fifties a gay bar, and Christopher Isherwood, who lived up the canyon, put a version of it in A Single Man as the Starboard Side. Later came The Hideout and Shorebar. Daniel Baker, who used to tend bar at The Golden Bull half a block up the road, has taken it on with Michael Mohamed and brought the old name back. He wants a locals' bar, somewhere to hang about rather than be seen. The room is navy and white with a shiplap bar, curved booths in arched alcoves under nautical lanterns, red velvet curtains and a new stage. The drinks are classics, martinis and manhattans, and the champagne of beers. Thursdays are soul nights.

Best for A martini after sunset on the beach across the highway.

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Drink · Arts District · Opened July 2026

ANIMAL

428 South Hewitt Street, Arts District, where Little Tokyo frays into warehouses, in the old Resident beer garden. The first ANIMAL opened in Williamsburg in 2024 after its founders spent close to twenty years being annoyed by gay bars that were not queer-owned and skimped on the drinks. Ashton Correa, Jim Morrison Hevert, Nick Eskelinen and Tony Kelley brought it west. The house rules are posted online: a queer bar, everyone welcome, no discrimination, and leave the birthday balloons at home. The patio is large, tree-shaded and smoke-friendly, with a DJ booth and drinks poured from a trailer, as in the Resident years. Inside is the warehouse, a second bar and a dance floor under a giant mirrored banana by Eric Schum, which does the job of a disco ball with more humour. The drinks are built for speed, with spritzes on tap. The frozen watermelon margarita is the calling card; there is a house maté. DJs play from Thursday to Sunday. There is no kitchen. Food trucks handle that at weekends.

Best for A weekend afternoon on the patio that turns into a night on the dance floor.

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