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Cityscape Update: Los Angeles & San Francisco

By Janet Fullwood and Kathy A. McDonald

What’s New in Los Angeles

The city of reinvention, Los Angeles is continually humming with exciting new venues. From a seaside club in Santa Monica to a downtown rooftop, L.A.’s event planners have an incredible selection of options across the region. And a yearlong calendar of high-profile events-including the Academy Awards, Emmys and Grammys, to name the big three-means there is no shortage of qualified technical and event staff to serve any kind of function.

“Los Angeles is coming off a record year in 2012, having hosted 23 conventions, the most in the last decade,” says Barbara Kirklighter, senior director, sales operations and marketing strategy for the Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board. She predicts another strong year and expects growth to come from emerging and international markets in the corporate and incentive segments.

Hotels on the Move

L.A.’s hotels change flags on occasion (the Renaissance Hollywood is now the Loews Hollywood, for one) but more typically, keen competition in the sector results in frequent updates and multimillion-dollar makeovers.

In Bel Air, tucked away in a quiet, leafy canyon of sycamore trees, the 58-room, 45-suite Hotel Bel-Air reopened in 2011 after a total overhaul. The pink stucco exterior is still there; however, the old furniture is gone, and the once unreliable cell phone service is now a thing of the past. Interior designer Alexandra Champalimaud, as well as David Rockwell of the Rockwell Group, modernized interiors with a stylized, contemporary look. The hotel has 10,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor function space; the Garden Ballroom, with a capacity of 40 to 300 people, opens to a picture perfect courtyard-one way to take in the Bel-Air’s perennially lush landscaping. Catering menus are now by Wolfgang Puck at Hotel Bel-Air, the hotel’s new restaurant with its own outdoor terrace, heated stone floor and private 14-seat dining room separated from the main dining room by a handsome stone fireplace.

Volkswagen selected the sustainably minded 164-room Shore Hotel in Santa Monica for the three-day media launch of its 2013 Beetle Convertible. Located within L.A.’s growing Silicon Beach corridor of high-tech companies- a Google office is a short hop away- the Shore Hotel’s Green Room opens to the pool deck and ocean breezes and, like the hotel’s guest rooms, is bathed in natural light. It can accommodate classroom meetings up to 30 and standing receptions of 120 when combined with the adjacent outdoor terrace. Within walk-ing distance are Santa Monica’s large convention hotels, the Fairmont Miramar Hotel & Bungalows and Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel.

Mid-city, the business-oriented 74-room Hotel Wilshire was recently acquired by Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants. Opened in 2011, the hotel’s 150-capacity rooftop deck is divided into a trio of spaces: restaurant, cabanas and fire pit, where guests can take in views from the Hollywood Hills to downtown. (AOL took over the rooftop for a Patch.com launch party.) Sharing the roof, the apartment-like Penthouse Hospitality Suite works as an event space for up to 44; guests can gather for clubby receptions on the outdoor patio overlooking Wilshire Boulevard below.

At the Montage Beverly Hills, the hotel’s wood-paneled £10 bar is one of those discreet, hidden spots that feels extra-exclusive. With a total capacity of 30, the bar opens to a grand balcony outfitted with comfortable couches and built-in overhead heaters. Elegant bites and high-end spirits (the Macallan is the specialty Scotch whisky) make the bar an alternative for select groups for after-event parties, says George Nickels, director of catering and conference services.

A flag change-from the Renaissance to Loews this past June-is the first step in the makeover of the 632-room Loews Hollywood Hotel. Accessible by the Metro Red Line and built with meetings in mind, this Loews has more than 120,000 square feet of meeting space within the 20-floor property and the adjacent Hollywood & Highland Center. Topping the list of available venues is the 25,090-square-foot Ray Dolby Ballroom, where the post-Academy Awards’ Governors Ball takes place; the hotel’s conference rooms are internationally recognizable, as Oscar winners meet the media here just after their wins. An ongoing $26 million renovation will update room décor and some facilities.

L.A. Restaurant Openings Cater to Groups of All Sizes

If there’s a restaurant synonymous with the movie business and starry private events in L.A., it’s Spago. A recent example is a post-premiere party for Les Misérables in December that brought out the high profile cast, studio execs and stars. The fine-dining eatery from Wolfgang Puck closed last summer for an extensive facelift and menu revamp; it reopened in late September. The revised menu is lighter and emphasizes traditional Californian dishes with local ingredients. A European-style approach to guest relations reigns throughout the three private dining rooms, now more versatile with floor-to-ceiling accordion folding doors. The windowed gallery, which accommodates 40 seated guests and 50 for a reception, can open out to Spago’s covered patio dotted with olive trees. Private dinners from 15 to restaurant buyouts (up to 550 people) are also on the menu.

Since 1979, the private upstairs rooms at Michael’s Santa Monica have welcomed parties from six to 125. New décor including tables and chairs, a small plates menu of seasonal specialties, a new pizza oven and handcrafted cocktails have added buzz to the always spot-on Santa Monica establishment famed for its patio.

It seems every new venture finds a creative way to incorporate L.A.’s fine year-round weather. At Seasons 52 in the Westfield Century City mall, it’s a wraparound terrace that boasts a living wall of plants. Inside, a chef’s room that seats up to 12 and two private dining rooms showcase the restaurant’s fresh, healthy cuisine. Nearby, Hinoki & the Bird is housed on the ground level of a luxury condominium tower. (Candy Spelling purchased a nearly 16,000-square-foot penthouse here for $35 million.) The latest offering from Michelin-starred chef David Myers, Hinoki & the Bird features a menu that’s an eclectic mix of Asian and Californian cuisine. More than half the space is devoted to a patio that seats 100 for a private dinner, or 200 for a cocktail reception. The entire restaurant can be bought out, upping the capacity to 155 seated, 325 reception-style.

In January, the IDG group opened RivaBella in West Hollywood. An ultra-mod trattoria, RivaBella has both a wine cave (capacity 50) and a sprawling, 2,800-square-foot open-air terrace under a custom-built trellis that’s available for functions from board meetings to post-award show fêtes. Celebrated chef Gino Angelini created the traditional Italian menu. Across town, Top Chef alumnus Chris Crary is in the kitchen at 41 Ocean, a private club in Santa Monica available for buyouts for non-members (up to 173 guests). A central patio and high-style Spanish hacienda décor bring new zip to the event scene in the beach city.

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