Over the last decade, the natural wine movement has gained major traction as consumers continue to shift toward a more organic way of living, eating and drinking. To put it simply, natural wine is basically untouched, fermented grape juice, and it is known for having a funkier profile with yeasty notes on both the nose and palate. In addition to being made with little-to-no additives or pesticides, natural wines also have a lower alcohol volume and fewer sulfites, and since it is virtually unregulated, trust in the winemaker is essential. Though traditionalists tend to prefer conventional wines, natural wines are vibrant, unique and less likely to leave you with an unforgiving hangover.
In Los Angeles, several bars and restaurants have embraced the shift toward low-intervention vino by working with organic purveyors from all across California, Italy, France and beyond. In addition to actual natural wine bars like Good Clean Fun and El Prado, restaurants such as Coucou, Crudo e Nudo and Dudley Market have also curated their wine offerings to showcase the beauty and diversity of naturally-produced varietals. Whether you’re looking to pair fresh seafood with a bottle of biodynamic rosé or want to enjoy a tangy orange inside Echo Park’s coolest Euro-esque watering hole, we’ve got you covered on where to sip natural wine in Los Angeles.
What better way to celebrate the first signs of summer than with craft cocktails overlooking the city? While New York City is known for its rooftop bar scene, Los Angeles still gives the Big Apple a run for its money. From Downtown L.A. to Beverly Hills, sky-high bars can be found throughout many of the city’s best neighborhoods. Places like Spire 73, Florentín and Broken Shaker give guests a premium view of L.A.’s iconic skyline, while Desert 5 Spot and E.P. & L.P. offer upbeat party vibes all week long.
Halo in Long Beach is one of the city’s newest rooftop bars, and though it’s certainly a trek from the heart of Los Angeles, it’s worth the drive. Other recently opened spots like Poza prove that elevated imbibing is still on the rise, and with summer weather right around the corner, rooftop season is just getting started. Whether you’re seeking a romantic date spot in DTLA or a cozy cocktail lounge in Culver City, these are the best rooftop bars in Los Angeles.
New York doesn’t have a rooftop problem—it has a rooftop memory problem. For every decent view, there are a dozen indistinguishable spaces hawking canned spritzes under Edison bulbs. A skyline is easy. Staying power? Less so. The rooftops that matter now aren’t chasing spectacle. They’re full-fledged bars and restaurants that just happen to float above the street—venues where the cocktails are calibrated, the sound system is dialed, and the furniture does more than fill space. Some crown hotels. Others hover over Korean grills, glass-wrapped showrooms, or billion-dollar gyms. They weren’t made for drone footage; they were made for grown-ups who simply want to take the edge off.
What’s shifted is intent. These places aren’t just packing people in, but striving to fully build out concepts: tasting menus with altitude, amaro flights with context, bar programs led by people who care about dilution rates and glass temperature. The clichés are still around (you’ll find rooftop DJs and sculptural ice where expected), but a growing cohort is pushing past the obvious—designing for the pause, not the photo. This insider-approved list doesn’t track trendlines. It filters for places that get the fundamentals right and the details better. For when the weather hits, the mood’s dialed in and you want a drink with altitude—and actual attitude.
The Negroni is a classic Italian cocktail known for its vibrant, spirit-forward nature. This timeless tipple was reportedly created in 1919 at Florence’s Caffè Casoni, and is typically served as an apéritif before a comforting Italian meal. Though the traditional recipe for a classic Negroni calls for only three ingredients (equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and Campari, garnished with an orange slice or orange peel), several Los Angeles bars and restaurants have put their own spin on the Negroni. Mezcal, in particular, is a popular substitute for gin, while the Negroni Sbagliato, which had its viral moment thanks to House of the Dragon star Emma D’Arcy, boasts a bubbly Prosecco profile.
Places like Capri Club in Eagle Rock serve a few different renditions of the Negroni, including a frozen version. Though a standard gin Negroni is the most popular, mezcal Negronis are a close second. Renowned DTLA bar Death and Co. and Koreatown’s The Normandie Club both use rum in theirs, proving that the Negroni is just as versatile as it is classic. Whether you want to get a balanced buzz at one of West Hollywood’s hottest new Italian eateries or sip on a rooftop in Beverly Hills, we’ve got you covered on where to get the best Negronis in Los Angeles.
Bar Bianchi is bringing a taste of Milan to the East Village. Courtesy Liz Clayman
From the pocket-sized, sultry Elvis in Nolita to the effortlessly chic Tabac-inspired wine bar Le Dive in Dimes Square, Golden Age Hospitality founder Jon Neidich has proven he’s fluid in French cool-factor. It flows through his repertoire of downtown restaurants and bars, including The Nines and Monsieur. And with the opening of Bar Bianchi, a Milanese-style aperitivo in the East Village, Neidich proves he can speak Italian It-boy, too.
Aperitivo is the quintessential Italian pastime of gathering at local bars and cafés over drinks and complimentary snacks (“spuntini”) in the evening. It comes from the word “aperire,” meaning to open one’s senses and appetite before dinner, and is part of the fabric of Italian culture. Having lived in Milano, I am fastidious about American restaurants serving aperitivi authentically, and arrived at Bar Bianchi as one of its first official patrons to see whether it would.
For an indoor-outdoor bar to really ooze Italian, the weather needs to cooperate. As the wet wind blew sideways down Avenue A on Bar Bianchi’s opening night, it was evident that the establishment would not have any balmy spring sun in its favor this evening. But between the good hospitality from my engaging server (a light-eyed blonde who was once a professional pool player), the Venetian plaster, and walls of green doors lined with hooks begging to be unlatched, it’s still got potential.
Is there anything more Italian than an al fresco spritz? Liz Clayman
In lieu of a piazza bathed in the blush light of dusk, Bar Bianchi has the zippy corner of Avenue A and East Houston. Its al fresco dining tables, barren the night it opened to the public on May 6, are stationed under a long awning and a boldface Bar Bianchi sign that casts red and green neon onto the sidewalk. Inside, the restaurant, which Neidich launched in partnership with Paradise Projects, checks the boxes of a Golden Hospitality hub. It falls somewhere between the picturesque daydream of a Wes Anderson shot (perhaps because it was inspired by Fondazione Prada’s Bar Luce in Milan, designed by the filmmaker) and the drippy velvet glow of Moulin Rouge (not just because Neidich’s last collaboration, Monsieur, was with Baz Luhrmann).
Reminiscent of 1920s and ‘30s Italian cafés with touches of modernism, Bar Bianchi was designed by Neidich, Golden’s creative director Andrea Johansson and longtime collaborator Sam Buffa, of The Nines and Frenchette. The diamond-checkerboard floor is made from handcrafted clay tiles imported from Italy. Custom millwork is evocative of charming, outdated Italian cafés untouched by time. The light fixtures shift between milky yellow space-age sconces salvaged in the Czech Republic and vintage Italian glass sculptural sconces. The sweeping space is anchored by the long zinc and Formica bar with an aged mirrored wall and an Art Deco canopy.
The interiors are also a nod to Bianchi, the Milan-based bicycle brand. Liz Clayman
It’s clear from the many vintage bicycle posters and the bar’s namesake that Neidich’s first foray into Italian hospitality is also a nod to Bianchi, the Milan-based bicycle brand with an international cult following. Founded by Edoardo Bianchi in 1885, the brand was not only pivotal in the role bicycles played in Italian history, fostering Fausto Coppi’s wins in the 1947 Giro d’Italia and 1949 Tour de France, but also in bicycle mechanics as we know them today. The only missed opportunity to drive home the Bianchi theme was the shade of green selected for the interior—more pistachio than the celeste green that became Bianchi’s quintessential bike color, inspired by his lover Celeste’s favorite sea-foam hue.
The food and beverage menu (from chef Nicole Gajadhar and Libertine’s Cody Pruitt) is simple, straightforward Italian with a sizable selection of antipasti (ranging $7 to $24) for a seamless aperitivo. Should you make Bar Bianchi a dinner engagement, they also offer a few central Italian pasta dishes, such as cacio e pepe and pappardelle Bolognese, larger piatti (a $26 branzino, $32 steak tagliata or $76 veal Milanese for two) and desserts like affogato, tiramisú, gelato and a chocolate budino.
I went for aperitivo before a dinner reservation in Chelsea and opted for some classic, smaller bites. The prosciutto melone was a highlight. The execution of this dish relies solely on the quality of the prosciutto and the ripeness of the cantaloupe. If sourced well, like Bar Bianchi did, the deep, salty fabric of the aged pig melts into the juicy, sweet slices of melon and the flavors work their magic.
Another testament to sourcing was the tuna tonnato, which was shaved so thin and tenderly it was almost too difficult to pluck from the plate. It was covered in crispy fried capers and a creamy dijon sauce that was a little too heavy-handed; it eclipsed the carpaccio that was otherwise presentable.
The Caprese salad featured mozzarella made in-house daily. It was bright and fresh, with multi-colored cherry tomatoes, olive oil and basil leaves. It was also topped with two stewed tomatoes stripped of their skin. Bursting with sweet flavor, followed by a saturated salinity, my guess is they’re San Marzano. I wished there were more of them.
Bar Bianchi does small bites well. Courtesy Liz Clayman
I also tried the piatti del giorno, a mushroom tortellini in brodo. I was excited to scoop up the pillows of pasta in a traditional capon broth as a cure to the chilly, rainy evening (and the assertive AC blasting inside). The tortellini pocketed the earthy mushroom filling beautifully, but the dish pivoted from tradition with a plated mushroom broth reduction instead of liquid broth in a shallow bowl.
Most of the food felt true to an Italian aperitivo format and, while not the meal of a lifetime, it is high quality, particularly for the pricing, and warrants a return. Being a bar focused on aperitivo, the drinks are half the equation here. Wines by the glass and bottle, as well as the cocktail list (consisting only of spritz, Negroni and three Bianchi classics), all stay within the confines of Italian borders. First and foremost, for me, is the Aperol Spritz. I ordered a large because it comes in a bubbly goblet that made me feel like I’d landed in the Navigli district of Milano. The drink had the ideal ratio of bitters to prosecco, served with an orange slice and Castelvetrano olive, just how I like it.
An authentic spritz. Liz Clayman
The defining benchmark for whether Bar Bianchi is truly an aperitivo came down to how the drink was served. Every restaurant in New York with “aperitivo” dusted in chalk across their café display sign has an immediate tell as to whether it’s authentic: olives. I don’t mean the type of marinated olives you order off the menu, but the kind served alongside your vino rosso or refreshingly biting Negroni—often with potato chips, and always on the house. To be honest, I secretly feel accosted by the American service industry when some Italian restaurant calls it aperitivo, and then doles out watery spritzes with no palate-whetting nibbles. In Italy, any aperitivo includes salt-flecked snacks to complement your drink of choice for just a few euros. It’s integral to this cultural tradition that is less about drinking and more about the social experience of opening the appetite before dinner.
At Bar Bianchi, the chips, served at no extra charge, were made in-house, waffle-knit with air pockets for extra crunch. The olives were plump Castelvetrano. There was nowhere to spit the pits, but the cultural accuracy was a win that positions Neidich for another victorious New York bar balancing authenticity and theatrical design. To solidify the success of Bar Bianchi, we’ll have to wait for the weather—once summer spills the crowd onto the street, sweating spuntini and sipping Aperol in the Golden Hospitality-induced glow of Italian etherealism.
