An Insider’s Guide to Los Angeles’s Highland Park (2024)

A walk down Highland Park’s Figueroa Street on a sunny Sunday afternoon reveals the Northeast Los Angeles neighborhood’s glorious mix: Mid-century modern furnishings spill out the front doors of antique shops; elote vendors sit at curbs across from record stores, hair salons, and pour-over coffee shops; groups of friends linger over brunch co*cktails.

“As an immigrant myself, I was drawn to Highland Park’s long and proud immigrant history, especially where arts and politics collide: the Arts and Crafts Movement in the early 1900s; the Chicano arts collectives that thrived in the ’70s; the politically charged punk bands of the ’90s,” says Vietnamese-American chef Diep Tran, who opened Good Girl Dinette, serving her version comfort food—think steaming bowls of pho and curry chicken pot pie—in a bright, mod dining room just off Figueroa.

To see something of the neighborhood’s past and present, start at Highland Park Bowl, a vintage social space and bowling alley originally opened in 1927. Back in those Prohibition days, it housed a doctor’s office and pharmacy so revelers could, in classic California style, obtain booze for “medical reasons.” Later a music venue, and once more renovated and reopened last year, the retro-cool spot (where Emma Stone went bowling with Jason Gay during her Vogue cover interview) now boasts a restored Spanish Revival facade and a 1930s Arts and Crafts mural behind the lanes, plus twin horseshoe-shaped bars and a restaurant.

Across the street, ETA, named for the Enfield Tennis Academy in David Foster Wallace’s novel Infinite Jest, offers handcrafted fruity and herbal co*cktails (the Penultimate Word is made with gin, mezcal, cucumber puree, dill, Chartreuse, lime, and a worm salt rim) in a sleek exposed-brick space, and rotating art installations—the current fiber art exhibition features giant macramé pieces. Down the street, Cafe Birdie is a lovely spot for brunch with Moroccan-spiced fried chicken, shakshuka, and seasonal Pimm’s cups.

Kitchen Mouse’s gluten-free, vegan options range from super healthy (kale salad) to somewhat indulgent (snickerdoodle pancakes), while more carnivorous eaters should step next door to sandwich “speakeasy” Tinfoil: Liquor & Grocery. Enter the liquor store/bodega at 5900 North Figueroa, and utter the passcode (“Do you sell birthday candles?”) to be buzzed into Tinfoil’s backroom deli counter for sandwiches with fresh-baked bread and house-cured cold cuts.

York Boulevard, Highland Park’s other main drag, is anchored by El Huarache Azteca, a classic since-1996 Mexican spot where locals line up for aguas frescas and the namesake dish: a thick, oval corn tortilla with toppings like salsa, crema, red onions, and meat. Up the street, The Hermosillo is a former nightclub that’s now the taproom of Highland Park Brewery. And nearby Sonny’s Hideaway serves seasonal New American dishes like blistered rainbow carrots with harissa and flat iron steak with sunchoke hash.

Vintage shops, furniture stores, and small boutiques line both main streets, including Matters of Space, with modernist home goods; Honeywood, with vintage and original desert-bohemian embroidered pieces; and The Juicy Leaf, selling succulent plants and planters created by local artists. Co-LAb Gallery stocks prints by local artists, zines, and a selection of bags, pins, and patches by Los Angeles–based, Japanese design–inspired Mokuyobi Threads. And since 2000, Avenue 50 Studio has supported up-and-coming artists from Northeast Los Angeles, focusing on Latina/o culture. The neighborhood is also home to an impressive number of record stores—such as Mount Analog, Gimme Gimme Records, and Permanent Records—as well as pool hall–turned–music venue Hi Hat. And perhaps most thrilling for those of us who are secretly mall girls at heart, Fashion 21, the original branch of Forever 21, sits at the corner of Figueroa and Avenue 57, opened by Korean immigrants all the way back in 1984.

After shopping, recharge at Mr. Holmes Bakehouse, home of the cruffin and an Instagram-bait “I got baked in Los Angeles” sign. Or stop by Kindness & Mischief, an indie coffee shop with unique offerings like the Kindness (sweetened condensed coconut milk, cinnamon, espresso, and steamed milk), which tastes “like a churro,” one friendly barista insisted.