Places to Eat  

Nearest to the Westin for lunch or dinner

California Pizza Kitchen (next door)

Alexander’s Steakhouse (next door)

Great Maple (sit-down New American cuisine, at the Paseo Mall, 10-minute walk)

Europane Bakery (sandwiches and pastries, 10-minute walk)

Tender Greens (salads, 10-minute walk)

Coffee shops

Urth Caffe

Intelligentsia Coffee

Europane Bakery

Dinner options $$ to $$$

Agnes (high-end comfort food, with an exceptional cheese counter)

Bar Chelou (innovative take on tapas)

Chong Qing Yao Mei (hotpot)

Fishwives (fish and chips, oysters, cioppino)

Din Tai Fung (Their xiao long bao [soup dumplings] are worth the trip to Glendale or Arcadia. DTF is the first restaurant recommended to visitors by locals.)

Osawa (an enduring local favorite for sushi)

Perle (upscale French dining with extensive vegetarian and vegan options)

Ramen Tatsunoya (extremely popular ramen spot in Old Pasadena)

Sage Bistro (vegan food)

Saladang (excellent Thai food, a short Lyft or Uber ride from the Westin)

Sato Ramen House

Tibet Nepal House (a venerable local favorite)

True Food Kitchen (a wide array of bowls, salads, and healthy fusion dishes)

Union (pasta, a regular on the top LA restaurants lists)

Dinner options $ to $$

Dog Haus (inexpensive, many vegetarian and vegan options)

Chim Thai Street Food 

Father Nature

Lucky Baldwin’s Pub

Luggage Room Pizzeria/Stone Brewing

Main Chick Hot Chicken

Me + Crepe (jianbing - Chinese street food featuring thin pancakes with savory fillings)

Naughty Vegan (vegan sushi and pan-Asian food)

Local Attractions

Books

Vroman’s (one of the major independent bookstores in the Los Angeles area, also has coffee and wine bar)

Book Alley (a great local used book store, struggling for survival!)

Whitmore’s Rare Books (local purveyor of first editions and other rare materials)

Museums and Attractions (Pasadena-area locations are asterisked) 

*Armory Center for the Arts (contemporary art gallery, in Old Pasadena)

 Broad Museum (LA’s newest contemporary art museum, free admission)

*Gamble House (an extraordinary tour of an exemplary Craftsman home by local architects Green & Green)

Griffith Park Observatory (Star-gazing in the city of the stars!)

Hollyhock House (A Frank Llloyd Wright house designed for Aline Barnsdall’s planned 1920s art complex)

LA Museum of Contemporary Art (across the street from the Broad)

Los Angeles County Museum of Art (the ever-growing, ever-changing heart of the LA museum ecosystem, right next door to the La Brea Tar Pits)

*Norton Simon Museum (a gem of a museum, just on the far side of Old Pasadena)

*USC Pacific Asia Museum (a hub for Asian and Pacific Islands art and culture, and across the street from the Westin)

Recreation and Gardens (Pasadena-area locations are asterisked) 

Descanso Gardens (15 minutes north of Pasadena by car, a botanical garden to rival the Huntington)

*Eaton Canyon Natural Area and Nature Center (a popular local hiking destination, including a 3-mile round-trip hike to a waterfall, 15 minutes from the Westin by car)

Hollywood sign hike (You can’t hike to the Hollywood Sign, but you can hike above it. This popular trails connects to a larger network of hiking in the Hollywood Hills.)

Los Angeles Arboretum (another extraordinary local botanical garden, this one 25 minutes east of Pasadena in Arcadia)

*Millard Canyon Falls hike (very accessible, low-impact hike just north of the Westin)

*Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden (a hidden local gem, this is the only remaining garden designed by Japanese landscape architect Kizuchi Fujii [1875–1957])

What’s On

Coming soon…