24 of the best bars and coffee shops in the San Fernando Valley
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The Valley might be the best region for drinking in Los Angeles. And we don’t just mean booze.
Sprawling across 260 square miles with dozens of neighborhoods and roughly 1.8 million residents, the San Fernando Valley is home to the state’s first matería, a Middle Eastern cafe brewing sand coffee and a dedicated margarita bar from an award-winning beverage team, with plenty of neighborhood dives in between.
Our favorite places to eat and drink in the 818. From high-end sushi to burger shacks, tiki bars, dives and more.
A hub for film studios and its stars, the Valley has long attracted L.A.’s most ambitiously themed haunts, including tiki destinations and a barrel-shaped bar turned historic-cultural monument that recalls the city’s post-war fascination with programmatic architecture.
You can pair mariscos with nonalcoholic micheladas in Sylmar, tuck into an eclectic Jewish- and Japanese-inspired bar in Studio City masquerading as a restaurant (or is it vice versa?), stock up on coffee beans from the Valley’s only woman-owned roastery in Tarzana or sip wine in a lush setting where you can shop for plants at the same time. Here are 24 of our favorite places to drink in the Valley:
Augustine Wine Bar
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Bodevi Wine & Espresso Bar
One of the best parts of Bodevi is the space itself, decorated with colorful wall decor, leather chairs and houseplants. Bodevi has a boho-chic aesthetic that matches both its daytime coffee shop crowd and its eccentric evenings, when customers often drift to the back room for board games, beer and wine in hand.
Whether you go for a DJ set or a journaling session (check Instagram for upcoming events), accompany your evening with charcuterie. Bodevi offers two options: one charcuterie board and a smaller personal plate. It also has $18 wine flights — for the most variety, opt for the Studio 54, which comes with a light South African Champagne, a Portuguese white, a bright rosé and a 2021 Pinot Noir.
Broken Compass Tiki
Most of the tiki classics can be found here, but Broken Compass really shines with its original concoctions, which comprise roughly half the menu. Rotating boozy slushies and a monthly cocktail special keep things even fresher, as do the rum flights and nonalcoholic tiki drinks. Given the potency of these pours, be sure to fortify with Abell’s offerings: pu pu platters, kalua pork tacos, tonkatsu club sandwiches, poke nachos, and fries and wings in a veritable smorgasbord of seasoning and sauce options. To dive even deeper purchase ceramic tiki mugs to take home, or opt for Broken Compass’ new “Three Hour Tour”: a kind of passport program that checks off your drink orders each visit and culminates in discounts, swag and the ability to have your own black-velvet portrait hanging in the bar.
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Buvette
Canto VI
Carlito's Way Cocktails
Chimneysweep Lounge
Cosette Wine Bar
Daisy Margarita Bar
Dia Natural Wine
Fox Fire Room
Idle Hour
Laidrey
MacLeod Ale Brewery
Mate Conmigo
MichexGod
Though MichexGod doesn’t serve alcohol, it does for select events and pop-ups; keep your eyes on Instagram for calendar updates. If you’re hoping to sip these miches with a crisp beer, be sure to take home bottles of the house-made mix, as well as the signature chamoy available in the restaurant’s full range of flavors.
Night on Earth
It’s always somewhat of a party at Night on Earth, but especially drop by for mini-martini Mondays, where the smaller-sized versions can be found for as little as $5, and for the daily happy hour with specials like $10 glasses of wine, $9 well-spirit cocktails, and a free slice of pizza from the adjacent pizzeria with the purchase of any full-size drink.
OyBar
The cocktails are just as globetrotting, with options such as a refreshing riff on mango sticky rice made with toasted rice, rum, coconut milk, mango, Thai-spice bitters and pandan, and the wild Lightworks, which combines tequila and mole bitters with Italian liqueur and pickle brine. Like Strauss’ offerings, Oy Bar is always evolving and eclectic. Head to the back on select nights to find Vey — Oy’s new back-patio counterpart — for cocktails and binchotan-grilled small-plate specials.
The Rendition Room
Shadow Grove Brewing
Tiki No
Tonga Hut
Tony's Darts Away
Yala Coffee
“Middle Eastern culture is so deep-rooted in hospitality ... they treat guests like their family,” Shammas said. “We just set out with the intention of making sure that everyone that came in would feel that.”
Current seasonal offerings include the antico affogato, or sand coffee topped with Antico Nuovo’s pistachio ice cream, the Bahrain cold brew with orange blossom infused sugar and the TikTok-famous fig & vanilla matcha latte — muddled figs and homemade vanilla bean syrup balance bitter matcha with floral sweetness.