Going native
Jodie Sinyor
There are no picturesque backstreets to wander around in Los Angeles, no churches to look at and, if the locals show any signs of friendliness, you should probably lock the car doors. So the best and safest way to have fun as a tourist in LA is to behave as if you’re not a tourist but were born and bred in the Hollywood hills.
To start the day like a Los Angelino, you must have breakfast at the pink stucco Beverly Hills Hotel. This is where the Hollywood business day begins and you’ll need to book. Walk out into the pretty courtyard where breakfast is served, but be warned — don’t look at anyone. Looking at people is so uncool. Star-spotting is an obsession in Hollywood, but it’s deeply embarrassing to be caught doing it. Locals tend to look sneakily for famous people from behind huge Gucci shades.
And unless you want to be spotted as an out-of-towner, you should order the usual Californian low-cal breakfast — fruit, granola and yogurt or a cholesterol-free, eggwhite omelette and spelt toast. The courtyard is full of fat, hairy Hollywood studio presidents with the skinniest starlets or weedy writers pitching unoriginal scripts and cadging a free breakfast. (In the evening a similar crowd meet in the Polo Lounge for ‘cocktails’. Los Angelinos don’t drink, so what ‘cocktails’ means in practice is ten bucks for a glass of water.) After breakfast, you need to shop. In LA there’s only one place to go. No, not Rodeo Drive, you has-been, but Fred Segal. Fred Segal has two mini-department stores one in west Los Angeles and the other in Santa Monica. At either store you will see more pairs of jeans than you’ve ever seen in your life. Some are relatively cheap say $250 a pair — and then there are the Chloe or Stella McCartney pairs for over a thousand. They all look the same to me. Actually they also look exactly the same as the jeans in Gap for $30, but make sure you don’t say this out loud in the store. Fred Segal also has expensive handbag and designer jewellery departments, overpriced household goods (for instance, an ashtray made out of chewing gum wrappers for $500); plus extortionately priced fresh flowers and the best kids’ clothing department in the world. When my daughter is old enough to demand her cashmere bikini or junior Ugg boots, this is where I’ll take her. If you are still hungry after your breakfast, there’s also a great bakery and separate Italian restaurant inside the store.
Now for some natural beauty. Head west past Santa Monica and up the Pacific Coast Highway. Ocean on the left, Barbra Streisand’s mansion on the right. If you are lucky you will get to see some dolphins off the coast and if you are really, really lucky you will glimpse the migrating whales (November and May). Just past Malibu there are a number of beautiful beaches. Head for the Point Dume State Park and carry on to Westward Beach, which is where LA locals go. The water’s cold but swimmable in. If you’re there in the evening, you can see some dramatic sunsets from ‘the bluffs’.
But wait — we haven’t shopped for hours! So it’s off to the Malibu Mart. This looks like a bunch of rundown wooden stables around a playground, but guess what? It isn’t. The stables house haute couture, lots of expensive ‘shabby chic’ furniture, a beautifully tasteful art gallery and a fantas tic Italian restaurant. If you stop at the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf for your skinny latte, you may find yourself sitting next to Brad Pitt, Nicolas Cage and a group of their hangers-on. If you have children, I recommend losing them in the playground for an authentic ‘real-life’ encounter with a star. It was here that my brother-in-law from Liverpool was chatted up by Claudia Schiffer — boy, was he excited to tell the poker boys when he got home!
The Getty Museum near Westwood is well worth a visit. Its art is depressing and rather uninspiring, but the building and views are beautiful. You take a tram to the museum, which is made of a sparkling white marble not dissimilar to Taj Mahal stone. Outside there are a number of portals, gardens and architectural designs through which, if you get the correct angles, you see breathtaking vistas of the sea, mountains and the city.
Twice a week is the farmers’ market in Beverly Hills where all the locals come to shop for their weekly groceries. It occupies two blocks just behind Rodeo Drive and it is a joy to the senses. Fruit and vegetables are near-perfect organic specimens and divine smells waft from each stall. Tasters are always on offer. My favourites are the fresh pomegranate juice and oak-smoked, chilli-dipped, lemon and saffron pistachios. They’re $20 a bag, but as they say, ‘If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it’ and if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t be in Beverly Hills.
In the evening all Los Angelinos go to the movies. This is an absolutely fixed rule. Unless you are out for a business dinner you go to see the latest film. As people in Los Angeles talk only about movies, this is more like homework than a night out.
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