For more information and to book please visit www.mrandmrssmith.com or let us arrange your whole trip, by calling +44 (0)20 8987 4312 or from the USA dial 1 866 610 3867.
Avalon Hotel
- Style
- Postmodern Jetsons lounge
- Setting
- Beverly Hills boutique land
This Los Angeles boutique hotel – just 45 minutes from the airport – sports retro-fabulous '50s furniture (think Charles Eames and Isamu Noguchi), a sexy hourglass-shaped pool and a very cool poolside restaurant. If it was good enough for Marilyn Monroe…
Need to know
- Rooms
- 84 rooms, suites and penthouse studios.
- Rates
- US$259–US$559.
- Check-out
- Midday. Late check-out can be arranged but may incur an extra cost.
- Facilities
- In-room DVD/CD players, Internet, mini-bar; 24-hour fitness centre, spa treatments, valet parking, same-day dry-cleaning and laundry
- Poolside
- The original 1950s figure-of-eight pool is heated and surrounded by loungers and semi-private cabanas. Restaurant and bar service are available poolside.
- Children
- Some rooms have sofabeds. Rollaways are provided at no extra cost.
- Also
- Some smoking rooms are available, and you can smoke in the outdoor restaurant and lounge area.
In the know
- Our favourite rooms
- We are so digging the mid-century retro furnishings here. Many of the Classic rooms have a private balcony overlooking the pool or the street, as do the Premium King rooms, which are larger, with bigger beds and a separate seating area.
- Packing tips
- Massive sunglasses are de rigueur; an empty bag is useful for those Rodeo Drive impulse buys.
- Also
- Fancy horse riding in Malibu, or a tour of the big studios? The hotel concierge is an indispensible resource and can arrange all manner of fun for you.
Food & drink
- Hotel restaurant
- Oliverio at Avalon is an Italian trattoria-style affair, with acclaimed chef Mirko Paderno at its helm. The restaurant serves up enticing offerings such as octopus carpaccio from 7am till midnight.
- Top table
- Dine poolside at a table for two, or book one of the semi-private cabanas for a small party.
- Last orders
- Lunch is served until 2.30pm. Last dinner seating is 10pm; 9pm on Sundays.
- Room service
- 24 hours.
- Hotel bar
- Slurp on dangerously moreish cocktails at Oliverio's bar area.
Smith card offer Welcome cocktails on arrival
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Smith concierge
If you'd prefer to talk to someone, or don't want to book online, call our travel team on 1 866 610 3867. We guarantee you’ll get the best available rates, and we don’t charge a booking fee.
Local restaurants
Boa Steakhouse (+1 310 899 4466) at the Grafton Hotel on Santa Monica Boulevard is a contemporary steakhouse with a buzzy ambiance. The flagship restaurant of celebrity chef Walter Puck, LA's king of Asian fusion food,
Spago (+1 310 385 0880) on North Cañon Drive has an open kitchen and is renowned for its blend of US, European and Asian cuisine and excellent service. The eight-course tasting menus are definitely worth the extra dollars. Incidentally, Puck's first apprenticeship was at
L'Oustau de Baumanière.
Cut (+1 310 276 8500) at the Beverly Wilshire hotel on Wilshire Boulevard is another of Wolfgang Puck's many projects, and is a stylish modern take on the classic American steakhouse.
Local cafes
The Urth Caffé, 267 South Beverly Drive (+1 301 205 9311), serves organic and vegan goodies, as well as tea and coffee in huge Bodum presses.
Worth getting out of bed for
Remember when sabre-toothed tigers and giant ground sloths roamed LA? Thought not. Head to The Page Museum at the Rancho La Brea Tar Pits (www.tarpits.org) in Hancock Park; more than 3,000,000 ice-age fossils have been found here and the natural history museum is fascinating.
The nearby Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard (+1 323 857 6000; www.lacma.org) holds some 100,000 European, American, Islamic and Korean artworks, from costumes and 15th-century altar figures to German Expressionist masterpieces. Magritte, Rembrandt, Hokusai and Hockney are just some of the highlights.
