Four Seasons Hotel at Los Angeles, Beverly Hills 300 S. Doheny Dr. Los Angeles CA 90048 310-273-2222 www.fourseasons.com/losangeles

Located across the street from the Beverly Hills city limits, this hotel is one of the area's best. Renovations are in the offing for the 285 spacious rooms and suites, each with its own balcony and featuring high-speed Internet access, a wireless-connect telephone system, videocassette and CD players, and TVs in the bedroom and bathroom. The Business Center offers state-of-the-art computer facilities, and there are several grand public rooms for business and social functions, along with a separate kosher kitchen. Guests can take advantage of the fourth-floor terrace with its outdoor pool, Jacuzzi spa, sundeck and tented exercise center. In addition to 24-hour concierge service, an especially nice bonus is the complimentary limo service to Rodeo Drive. Gardens restaurant, with its series of intimate dining rooms and a seasonally changing menu, is a serene power-breakfast, lunch and dinner spot.

Le Merigot a JW Marriott Beach Hotel & Spa, Santa Monica 1740 Ocean Ave. (Pico Blvd.) Santa Monica, CA 90401 310-395-9700 www.lemerigothotel.com

For lodging in style with ocean views, this luxury waterfront property is one of the best hotels, where amenities include a spa designed to lure those who enjoy pampering. Accommodations indulge guests with “Cloud 9” beds dressed in Frette linens, as well as plush, oversized furniture. Every room includes high-speed Internet access, a work desk with an ergonomic chair and office supplies. With cellular phones for rent, a fully-stocked business center and meeting rooms to accommodate 450 guests, this is much more than a beach resort. Insist on a room with an ocean view and large patio anyway. The on-site restaurant, Cezanne, provides an excellent Cal-French cuisine inspired by fresh seasonal ingredients.

Omni Los Angeles at California Plaza 251 S. Olive St. (W. Third St.) Los Angeles, CA 90012 213-617-3300 www.omnihotels.com

A quintessential big city hotel, this Bunker Hill institution offers 439 rooms and fourteen suites—all with complimentary high-speed Internet access. Amenities include a health club, a heated outdoor lap pool, a sauna, a steam room, jogging paths, a spa and the added bonus of fresh flowers galore. The guest quarters are spacious and contemporary, with stocked mini-bars, city views and sophisticated electronics. Nineteen business rooms also include oversized desks, printers, fax machines, photocopiers and even office supplies. With a business center and banquet rooms, this is a popular spot for meetings, and the Grand Café offers views of the adjoining waterfalls and reflecting pool. For a more refined meal reserve a table at Noé, a sophisticated urban retreat that shatters the stodgy image of the traditional hotel dining room.

Sofitel Los Angeles 8555 Beverly Blvd. (La Cienega Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA 90048 310-278-5444 www.sofitel.com

Strategically located across the street from the imposing Beverly Center shopping/entertainment complex, Hotel Sofitel offers comfortably appointed rooms done in a French-country-meets-Hollywood-glamor theme. In addition to flatscreen TVs, rooms include WiFi Internet access and VCRs. The main restaurant, SIMON L.A.—from celebrated Las Vegas “rock ’n’ roll chef” Kerry Simon—serves contemporary American cuisine with nostalgic twists in a decidedly hip setting. Among the hotel’s amenities are massage facilities, a heated outdoor pool, a sauna and a fitness center. Eight meeting rooms are also available and can accommodate groups up to 300. Situated at the convergence of West L.A., Beverly Hills and West Hollywood, the hotel offers close proximity to many of the city’s top restaurants and clubs.

The Westin Los Angeles Airport 5400 W. Century Blvd. (Aviation Blvd.) Los Angeles, CA 90045 310-216-5858 www.westin.com

This corporate hotel sets standards for service and efficiency in the airport hotel genre. Enormous in size—740 rooms—and offering a generous selection of standard amenities just blocks from LAX, it’s most popular with convention-goers, pilots and airline attendants crashing out until their next red-eye flight. The property features many amenities (e.g., a heated pool, a spa and a health club) usually reserved for luxury hotels far from the exhaust of taxiing 747s. Each guest room provides the signature Westin Heavenly Bed (every little bit of comfort helps this close to the runways) and high-speed Internet access. Another bonus for travelers: 24-hour room service, a business center, secretarial service and meeting facilities for up to 1,500 people.

Grauman’s Chinese Theatre
6925 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90028
323-464-8111

Whether the name Chinese Theatre calls to mind the old newsreel clip of Marilyn Monroe putting her hands into wet cement amid popping flashbulbs, or the comic "I Love Lucy" sequence when Lucy gets her foot stuck in a hardening bucket of cement, chances are that you already have a picture of this famous movie theater courtyard in your head. Take in a current feature in the 1,500-seat auditorium, a Hollywood relic as ornate and nostalgic as its legendary Pagoda-like façade. This stretch of Hollywood Boulevard, with its star-studded Walk of Fame and cheesy tourist attractions, is experiencing a major renaissance that’s bringing chic new clubs, hotels, restaurants and boutiques to the long-neglected neighborhood.

Kinara Spa
656 North Robertson Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90069
310-657-9188

Kinara (“on the edge” in Hindi) is beloved by numerous celebrity clients including Halle Berry, Sharon Stone and Rebecca Romijn. It’s the co-creation of restaurateur Christine Splichal (Patina Group) and dermal doyenne Olga Lorencin, who have pooled their impeccable taste, experience and vision to create this private oasis in the Design District. The spa menu at the beautiful Eastern Indian-, Balinese- and French-inspired space is extensive and includes: facials, hydrotherapy baths, body scrubs, massages or body wraps—all customized and delicately balanced with the finest natural ingredients and Lorencin’s cutting-edge skin technology. The Kinara Café, with its contemporary macrobiotic cuisine, is reason enough to linger at the spa.

Rodeo Drive
Rodeo Dr. & Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90212

One of the most famous streets in the world, Rodeo Drive captures the spirit of Beverly Hills past and present and is a quintessential part of the L.A. experience. Paved with cobblestones and surrounded by Italian arches and wrought iron streetlamps, Via Rodeo (the chicest section of Rodeo Drive) looks more like a film set than an authentic European village, but its world-famous boutiques—the rarefied names upon which the street’s reputation was built—include Cartier, Tiffany and Valentino. While doing some shopping, or window-shopping, be sure to check out Frank Lloyd Wright’s eccentric Anderton Court, a small cluster of shops designed by the renowned architect in the 1950s.

Rooftop Bar at The Standard Downtown
550 S. Flower St.
Los Angeles, CA 90071
213-892-8080

The rooms in L.A.’s hippest hotel may be a good place to kick back, but twelve stories up is where the real action is: the Rooftop Bar and pool, where bar-goers are met by fake topiary, a live DJ, sleek Formica furniture and wait staff in red cheerleading uniforms. The hotel is located in the center of downtown, and its open-air bar offers incredible views of the city. Guests can mingle poolside or chill out on vibrating waterbeds inside futuristic red cabanas. The Standard has triggered a wave of hot nightspots in Downtown L.A., whose turbocharged revitalization continues unabated.

Santa Monica Pier
Ocean Ave. & Colorado Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90401
310-458-8900

Walk down from Ocean Avenue to enjoy the pier’s old-fashioned carnival atmosphere complete with games of chance, a landmark vintage merry-go-round and signature Ferris wheel visible from up and down the coast. Enjoy the spectacular ocean views from the grandstand-style seating, or cap a day at the beach with dinner at one of the pier’s restaurants. Afterwards, do some shopping along the nearby Third Street Promenade, a pedestrian-oriented outdoor arcade featuring almost as many street performers as boutiques.