Kate DurocherDrinking can be fun. Here are the best places in L.A. to do it, should you so desire.
10 Best Liquor Stores in Los Angeles
The cocktail revolution is well documented. In bars and restaurants across the country, the American cocktail has returned. But the serious booze professionals I know argue that if the cocktail is truly to take root again as part of our national identity, it must make the leap from the barstool to the couch.
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Cafe Birdie in Highland Park; Credit: Tessa Neustadt
Cafe Birdie Brings Cal-Med New American and Craft Cocktails to Highland Park
Someone could probably come up with a list of the 10 Best Trendy New American Restaurants in Highland Park, and if not they'll be able to soon. Today comes Cafe Birdie from the Friends & Family Hospitality Group, which also owns Horse Thief BBQ. It's the exact type of restaurant that until recently would have opened in Hollywood or downtown, perhaps. Even Silver Lake didn't have many places like this a few years back. But now Highland Park gets its very own “Cal-Med neighborhood bistro,” complete with “seasonally driven menu of small and large plates,” craft cocktails and “an immersive space that envelops the visitor in color and texture, transporting them to a whole different world.”
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Credit: Anne Fishbein
Los Angeles Is Leading the Craft Cocktail Charge
Los Angeles has a long and proud history of cocktail innovation, though admittedly the tradition was lost for about 60 or 70 years. The story of mixed drinks in L.A. essentially begins with Hollywood — the town and the concept. There were the drinks of the Prohibition era, which have that frisson of sex and danger, but the techniques used to make them are relatively simple. Then Donn Beach and his tiki invention took over the town in the late 1930s, arguably inventing mixology as we know it, with carefully layered liquors and freshly made mixers.
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View from the bar at Gelson's in Silver Lake; Credit: B. Rodell
Gelson's in Silver Lake Makes a Great Case for the Trend of Bars in Supermarkets
I've never seen such pure delight as the look on the faces of women entering the Silver Lake Gelson's and seeing friends drinking at the new bar just to the left of the store's entrance. It's 4 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, and my friend Madeleine and I have perched ourselves at the very corner of the bar, right next to the sliding doors, so that it's impossible for entering customers not to see us. The bar, called Noshing & Imbibing (spelled out in block letters overhead the same way “Meat & Seafood” might show up in another part of the store), is part of Gelson's recent and ongoing overhaul.
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Credit: Joshua Lurie
The 10 Best Micheladas in Los Angeles
Micheladas — the savory, often spicy beer cocktails that originated in Mexico — have become increasingly popular and over-the-top in L.A., where you can now find them garnished with shellfish or with sticks of candy. Considering that craft beer is booming in L.A., it's surprising that so few places actually use craft beer in their micheladas — most versions dress fancy but still rely on bland, mass-market Mexican lagers. Time to seek 10 of L.A.'s best craft beer micheladas, listed here alphabetically.
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