There are two kinds of tired evenings: the kind that want a blanket, and the kind that want altitude. This map is for the second kind. LA was built for rooftops — the weather is an accomplice, the sunsets are showing off, and somewhere between the sixth floor and the seventy-third, the city stops feeling enormous and starts feeling like something you are holding in your hand.
A note before we go up: rooftops change quickly in this city, so check the door before you make the drive. The Standard, Mama Shelter, Pearl’s, and Moonshadows have all left us — there is a small goodbye for them at the end.
The Tall Ones
Spire 73 — Downtown, the seventy-third floor
Seventy-three floors above downtown, Spire 73 feels almost unreasonable — the kind of height I would distrust if I had not stood in it. The elevator ride up takes a while and your ears make a small polite complaint about it. Then the city spreads out like a circuit board someone spilled glitter on — mountains on one side, ocean haze on the other, everything in between quietly glowing. They take walk-ins but reservations are the smart move, and there is a minimum spend, so treat it as the ticket price for the view, because that is honestly what it is. Go at sunset. The mountains go pink and everyone goes quiet for about ninety seconds. Nobody plans this. It just happens, seventy-three floors up.
Perch — Pershing Square, the floating French town
Perch is what happens when someone decides a rooftop should feel like a small French town that happens to hover above Pershing Square. Fireplaces, twinkle lights looped through potted trees, a second elevator with a little bird painted by the fifteenth-floor button — I did not believe that detail until I saw it. There is live music most nights and the crowd is half first dates, half after-work debriefs. I still remember a spicy cucumber-jalapeño cocktail that was honestly too good for how pretty the glass was. Brunch here on a slow Sunday is the closest thing to a vacation without leaving the city, and the happy hour is the locals’ version — Monday to Thursday from four to six, Friday from three. The sixteenth-floor roof itself is twenty-one and over, first come first served, so arrive early and let the line be part of the evening.
Somewhere Special — above the old Ace
The Ace is gone, but the rooftop isn’t. The hotel closed in early 2024, and I mourned it properly, because it was my favorite kind of grand old dame. But buildings in this town don’t stay sad for long: the 1927 Gothic tower on Broadway is now home to the STILE, and the roof above it has been reborn as Somewhere Special — same sky, same marquee lights spilling down the street below, new name on the door. It has been running rooftop nights all through this summer, and honestly, that feels correct. A good roof outlives its landlord. Go up, order something cold, and toast the building — it has survived more plot twists than most of us.
Broken Shaker — the Freehand, the unserious one
Tiki-ish, pool-centric, and cheerfully unserious in the best possible way. Animal floaties, neon, mezcal cocktails that taste like vacation, and fish tacos that people genuinely come back for — I have watched this happen with my own eyes, twice. Happy hour runs every single day from four to seven — daily, including the weekend, which might be the most generous sentence in this guide. Non-hotel guests pay a minimum to sit right at the pool, but there is plenty of rooftop around it that asks less of you. Come at golden hour, stay through blue hour. The skyline does its slow light show and the floaties bob along like they are watching too.
The Sunset Strip Ones
Skybar at Mondrian — the movie one
The Hollywood-movie rooftop. Technically more pool deck than rooftop — I am allowing it, and so should you. White drapes moving in nothing you can feel, a legendary pool, and a crowd that looks cast rather than assembled. It has been the glamorous option for three decades and has somehow not aged — I suspect the drapes are preservative. Early hours belong to hotel guests; after that it opens to anyone dressed smartly enough to match the furniture. Get the passion fruit margarita, find a cabana, and pretend you are not going to notice the skyline. You will fail. That is the point.
Petit Ermitage — the one you cannot just walk into
The rooftop here is guests and members only, and I have made my peace with that, because privacy is the entire design. It is a bohemian bird sanctuary ninety feet above the Sunset Strip — hummingbirds in the garden, a saltwater pool, fur blankets over the cabanas, candlelight everywhere, and on Sundays, old movies projected against the sky. If you can get in — book a room, or befriend someone who is a member — it is the quietest luxury in West Hollywood. Sometimes the best rooftop bar is the one that is not trying to be one.
The Long Beach Detour
Bo-Beau kitchen + roof tap — the loud, happy one
A forty-minute drive south, and worth it when your evening wants beer more than glamour: an honest rooftop beer garden with picnic tables, marquee lights, and fifty taps. The Brussels sprouts have a fan club, and after one order you will understand the paperwork. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays — Long Beach keeps its own calendar and I respect it. This is the one to bring a big, loud group to. Nobody will shush you. The lights on Pine Street do not mind.
A soft goodbye
The Standard’s red waterbeds went quiet in 2022. Moonshadows, hanging over the waves in Malibu, burned in the Palisades fire in January 2025. Mama Shelter’s little rainbow roof closed that same February, and Pearl’s poured its last dollar-oyster night before that. And the bar called Upstairs at the Ace left with its hotel in early 2024 — though the roof itself refused to go quietly, and came back that same year wearing a new name. Rooftop bars are the most temporary rooms in the city. The roofs, somehow, are not. That is part of why we keep climbing.
Aurora’s rule for rooftops: one new roof at a time, and always look up once before your first sip — the sky is the only thing up here that is not for sale.
— June